traffic

I would love to do research on traffic flows. every day i think about the time of day and volume of cars on the road attempting to make sense out of the phenomena i see as i go to work and on my way home. I'd love to put numbers to the impacts large factories in certain places, and the locations of bridges and start times have on traffic. and retarded rain. damn that's annoying. even when it's been awhile and the rage of the 15mph drizzle commute has subsided.. i've seen a couple of people sitting atop the exit ramps where buses go to park-and-rides that seem to be watching traffic, i imagine that they're counting cars .. trying to predict future needs if they add a bazillion houses to the neighborhood at 128th or 164th or 220th. how many lanes will they have to add to the freeway for that? 7? when will someone realize extra lanes don't reduce congestion unless you actually balance the flow of oncoming volume to exiting volume... that's a rhetorical question because i think they know that already and occasionally they recognize it. there are three places on my 23 mile drive on the freeway to work where cars get on but none get off. without releasing that pressure somehow, i don't see how we're going to do anything but slow down to let them in. they need some kind of car slingshot that flings cars from stationary entrances over the tops of traffic to someplace up the road in a middle lane. it would probably kill thousands of people, but i think it's be rad to see cars sailing overhead and landing with a thump in the midst of flowing freeway traffic.