Do you know how traffic always seems to slow down between 7-10am and 3-6pm? It’s called rush hour. Now we all know that if America would just lay down some bigger roads, we’d be able to get where we are going faster. But that costs a lot of money.
However, one inventor has devised a clever solution. Since one side of the highway is always fuller than the other half during rush hour (either the majority are leaving or entering a city), if we had just one more lane in the direction of traffic, commute times would be cut down drastically.
We’ve seen things like this near Boston, Massachusetts. A lane in the middle of the highway becomes active in one direction depending on the time of day. While that’s a great idea it is limited.
Below, you’ll discover the new invention that will revolutionize the way America and the world deal with rush hour traffic. Check it out below. Don’t you think this is the answer?
Already active on the Golden Gate Bridge, the road zipper helps create a new barrier depending on the time of day. The truck, which drives along the center of the road, transfers the road barrier to the other side when appropriate.
This process involves two things: The Moveable Median Barrier or MMB and the Barrier Transfer Machine or BTM. Without either of these, the process would not work.
While this process would work wonders for rush hour traffic, it also…
serves other purposes. When roads are closed for construction, this road rail zipper could allow construction crews to easily divert traffic and reduce annoying slowdowns.
According to the video description: “The new Moveable Median Barrier (MMB) system is about 13,340 feet of 12-inch wide and 32-inch high steel clad units filled with high-density concrete pinned together to form a semi-rigid median barrier. There are two barrier transfer machines, aka “zipper” trucks. This replaces, and is a vast improvement over, the old yellow plastic pylon divider system, which you can see still in partial use here to block off some lanes at the toll plaza.”
The barrier movement process is not “quick.” The truck travels at about 5 to 10 miles per hour. But when it is going it can make quick work of a section of interstate or a bridge. And since this truck will only work when traffic is light, there is no rush to get it done.
Millions have watched the video below to see what the possibility looks like. Here are a few of the most popular comments:
“In case that piece of equipment breaks down. Does the boss tell the highway worker, “Your zipper is down”?”
“So, what’s this thing actually doing? Moving the barriers 2 feet from where they were?”
“Meanwhile in Britain we just turn one red light off and another red light on.”
Do you think more cities should use this technology to divert traffic? Or are there easier solutions?
Watch the video on the road zipper in action, comment below the video if you’ve seen it before and share this with your friends so they learn something new!
