Culture
It's Time to Reverse Our Thinking on Reversible Lanes
They fell out of favor decades ago due to safety concerns, but that may finally be changing.
Every weekday morning in San Francisco, four lanes of traffic whiz across the Golden Gate Bridge and into the city, while just two lanes move in the opposite direction. After the commute calms down, however, one of those lanes undergoes a transformation. With help from a new and clunky yellow machine, the concrete median slides over, leaving three lanes into the city and three lanes out. Normally, traffic adapts to road conditions, but in this case, road conditions adapt to the daily rhythm of traffic.