Damn. 
It’s such a dreadful spot during rush hour. I hate this city.
It’s not nearly that simple. Throughput is maximized at a certain level of traffic. In the limit of no cars, there’s no throughput, but also in the limit of too many cars it’s bumper to bumper gridlock and there’s no throughput. The peak must come somewhere in between. If you’re above the level of traffic of peak traffic, adding more cars reduces throughput.
Based on what EmAnJ says:
the two left lanes are already overloaded prior to where she merges, and EmAnJ’s adding her car early will decrease throughput. The traffic volume is lower where she does merge, and speeding up, so I believe she is actually helping the throughput of traffic by not further overloading those two lanes where they are the most crowded.
Moving over early so that she’s in the crowded lane may more “equitable” in that she is inconvenienced equally to those already in those lanes, but she’s not helping anybody, and is actually making things worse for the people using those lanes, counterintuitive though that may be.
EmAnJ, I think you can use the right lane as you have been without a guilty conscience. Based on the sign and the lane markings, that it how the freeway is intended to be used.
I believe the current thinking of traffic engineers is, use all the lanes until the last moment, then merge.
This is because I see, as highways are being redone (and, theoretically, improved) there are more and more of what I call control-freak merges, rather than one long lane that gives you plenty of time. Follow the dotted line, you will merge HERE.
I was always an early merger myself, mainly because I tend to be my way to the fast lane as expeditiously as possible, but I can see the wisdom in doing it this way, too.
But in a couple of instances I have seen this led to the unfortunate problem of people stopping in the access lane when there is no light. The usual fix is to install a light.
Cite:
You seem to be brushing off the psychology of rush hour driving as unimportant, but it isn’t. When I sit and wait through three cycles of a light to make my left turn, I don’t see why someone else should drive up to the front of the line and go through the light instantly by butting in - the back of the line’s back there, buddy.
The problem I see here is this is not a lane that’s ending, it’s a dedicated exit lane. Once you can see that second “exit only” sign, you are pretty much obligated to exit. If you intend to cut in line and there’s any chance you’re going to have to stop in that exit-only lane, you’re putting yourself into a pretty bad position.
I did see that the OP is doing this before the big overpass, and therefore, not past the “exit only” signs, but still bypassing a lot of people waiting in line to cut in front of them. This type of behavior is a big part of the reason why the traffic in the two left lanes is backed up (in addition to the fact that this intersection is poorly designed, or was designed in a past era when there was a much lower volume of traffic).
To give you an idea of the congestion in this area, if you scroll the map south, following Crowchild Trail, the end of the line is usually between the 50th Ave overpass and 33rd Ave overpass. This past Thursday, it was south of the 50th Ave overpass.
Also, in times like that, there are a few that use the shoulder/bus lane which is to the right of the right lane I’m in. THAT is assholish behavior!
Anyhow, I guess I’m still on the fence about this. I don’t do this all the time (it sounds weird, but sometimes I use the middle lane just to test my patience - I’m working on becoming a more patient person and this is a perfect test), but I do use the right lane once or twice a week currently. Maybe three times if traffic is really bad.
You’re free to use whichever of the three freeway lanes you choose, but you shouldn’t make up your own personal “rules” based on analogy with a completely different situation and expect others to follow them.
The lanes are marked as three lanes until the sign. It’s a three-lane freeway until then. After the sign, it’s an exit-only lane. The right and middle lanes are separated by a dashed white line, so it is legal to change lanes there. The OP is following the traffic signage and freeway markings, and is not slowing down the people who get in the middle lane a half-mile or mile earlier, since she is finding space to merge where traffic is speeding up.
As long as you aren’t blocking the people who are trying to exit, I don’t see what the big deal is. There are a lot of spots on Virginia roads where the onramp becomes a temporary 3rd lane that is also a very short exit-only lane. I’m sure there’s a good reason for building these (maybe they’re cheap?) but I hate them.* If traffic in the main two lanes is backed up, then waiting until the last minute to get out of the temporary 3rd lane prevents people from exiting.
*I wanted to start a thread complaining about these a while back, but I didn’t know what they were called and, as we can see in the OP, it’s hard to describe these sorts of things. I guess it’s a classic cloverleaf interchange (or at least a partial one) that results in weaving, which I hate hate hate :mad:.
I take this route home from work every day as well and I agree that it is an awful interchange. The only real solution to the mess, as I see it, would be a fly-over that starts at the top of the hill, at the Richmond Road merge, and completely overpasses that whole bit of spaghetti, rejoining the current road somewhere up around McMahon Stadium. But since that is never gonna happen, we’re stuck with the situation the OP describes, where a 3-lane highway narrows to the two left lanes, then another left lane is added and the right lane disappears again and then another right lane appears. The net result is that most of the traffic from 5 different lanes is all basically aiming to work it’s way into or out of that one lane that doesn’t ever vanish. At that point it’s not so much a zipper merge as it is a macrame merge, with strands beginning and ending, traffic trying to push in every which direction, all fighting for the same bit of real estate. It sucks.
Now if I understand correctly, you are already traveling in the right hand lane to begin with and are moving to the centre lane with a view to leaving Crowchild on one of the Memorial Drive exits. Assuming, as you have said, you merge when you say you do and don’t stop at the very end of the right lane, interfering with people trying to use the Bow Trail exit lane (which the right lane becomes) – and I should emphatically add that I see several jerks stopping in that lane to do just that every single day – then I don’t really see a problem with what you’re doing, except to say that you are choosing to undertake traffic which is dangerous at the best of times and illegal in some jurisdictions (although not in Alberta, to my knowledge). If you’re then forcing your way into the left lane, interfering with traffic in the right lane and the left lane – and the next left lane that shows up a few more metres ahead, preventing them from getting to the “left/centre” lane, then you’re being a serious jerk, like the many, many cars I make a special effort to cut off in that area.
The problem with trying to “zipper merge” in that zone is that there are a ton of assbutts on the road who are only too happy to try to race to the very end of one of the right hand lanes and force their way in, or completely stop until someone takes pity on them, while they back up traffic behind them even worse than it already is. Because of the spectacularly poor design of that interchange, undertaking traffic is more risky than usual and has a direct, adverse affect on the rest of the traffic flow, such as it is. In my case, I’m coming up Crowchild from 50th Ave. S.W. – I’ll take the centre lane most of the way up to the big S curve leading to the zone you’re asking about, then ease my way into the left lane and stay there the rest of the way. For me, it’s the safest, most efficient way to get up that road, and has the least negative impact on the traffic around me. I don’t have a problem with people heading all the way north to Bow Trail in the right lane, but let’s face it, from the Richmond Road turnoff at the top of the hill, to the Bow Trail turnoff at the bottom, that right lane is effectively just a big-ass on/off ramp and, IMHO, people who are still choosing to remain in that lane until the last second before diving in with the rest of the traffic are line jumping. And line jumping is not cool.
ZenBeam, while she did note that the traffic is speeding up at the point where she merges in, she also notes that it is speeding up to all of 15 km/h, which it remains at for the next kilometre or so. It isn’t coming anywhere near an acceptable peak level. So the throughput is being affected negatively with every single late merging vehicle.
If you are getting from Point A to Point B without forcing other drivers to react to you and change their speed, then you are fine. Otherwise, jerk move.
Thank you for your post, Dread Pirate Jumbo, it’s good to get that perspective. I think I might try to travel in the left lane, with a merge on lane right just after the bridge over the river, so I can make my exit on to Memorial (I could take Crowchild, but Memorial seems like a faster way to get to Shag).
That, or take Deerfoot / McKnight, which is usually worse.
Based on her description of the worst slowdown being upstream from where she’s merging, I don’t think this is a given. But regardless, if she gets in the other lanes prior to the the worst slowdown, she will slow down traffic more than by doing what she wants to do. To my mind that’s what matters: in total, is she making it worse for other drivers by driving in the right lane. Not just at the merge point, but through the whole situation.