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Hot lanes and traffic congestion solution?
Posted by: Brian ()
Date: May 08, 2013 11:11PM

Lost in the debate about HOT lanes is the failure of businesses to embrace telecommuting. My company allows me to work from home 1 day a week. But I could do everything in my job from home. While I realize there are many jobs that require a person to physically be attheir job, many jobs can be done entirely from the home. If more businesses worked to develop work at home programs, we could reduce traffic congestion during commuting hours far more than just adding additional road infrastructure or HOT lanes. If a job can be done from home, monitoring of activity and productiveness is not a difficult thing. Focusing on how we can either accommodate more cars on the road or make that drive easier misses the point - for many job occupations driving to the office is simply unnecessary. But until companies have the courage to trust their workforce and create effective programs to encourage this, we will forever be caught in the endlessly costs costs and congestion related to commuting. Why can't our leaders of both government and business see that our efforts to reduce congestion can be solved by reducing the need to commute in the first place?

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Re: Hot lanes and traffic congestion solution?
Posted by: Brian ()
Date: May 08, 2013 11:26PM

Do folks agree? Disagree? It seems such an obvious solution. It IS happening, and companies are definitely moving in this direction, but why isn't this being embraced more? Couldn't business leaders and elected officials be working harder to accelerate the acceptance of this? Aren't we just missing the point by continuing to focus on building more costly road infrastructure rather than how to reducing the need to drive to work?

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Re: Hot lanes and traffic congestion solution?
Posted by: Smiling Faces ()
Date: May 08, 2013 11:31PM

I tend to agree and where I worked last most people did work from home or at client sites.

But to answer your question re why it's not done more:

1. Many jobs simply need physical presence.

2. Employers and clients tend to like to see the smiling faces of people they are paying to work and assume that they'll be fucking off more if they aren't there.

3. People fuck off more when they aren't there.

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Re: Hot lanes and traffic congestion solution?
Posted by: Brian ()
Date: May 08, 2013 11:39PM

While I agree 1 and 2 are valid points, I disagree about 3. I get FAR more done at home and good management of a telecommuting workforce can overcome abuses and workers screwing off. I think that we just have to evolve our business practices to overcome poor work at home habits that could reduce productivity. Even if we could only reduce the number of people on the road by 10 percent it would dramatically everyone's quality of life. It is the way of the future, and we need to accelerate the adoption of this if we are to have any chance of addressing the spiraling costs of infrastructure. I spend less time at work simply because 2-3 hours in my car driving. That costs me money, reduces my productivity, increases pollution, and puts greater burden on state budgets for building and maintaining roads.

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Re: Hot lanes and traffic congestion solution?
Posted by: Brian ()
Date: May 08, 2013 11:50PM

And I guess I'm motivated to post this be the HOT lanes have done nothing to improve my already horrible commute. And Ty for your input smiling faces. Your thinking on the issue however is exactly why there is so much inertia and reluctance to do what would otherwise be the most effective solution to our commuter traffic woes. We have got to get over our fears and adopt new ways to approach doing business. My clients don't care about seeing my smiling face - they care about me getting the job done and seeing me be more responsive and productive for them.

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Re: Hot lanes and traffic congestion solution?
Posted by: Yep, you're right ()
Date: May 09, 2013 09:37AM

Smiling Faces Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I tend to agree and where I worked last most
> people did work from home or at client sites.
>
> But to answer your question re why it's not done
> more:
>
> 1. Many jobs simply need physical presence.
>
> 2. Employers and clients tend to like to see the
> smiling faces of people they are paying to work
> and assume that they'll be fucking off more if
> they aren't there.
>
> 3. People fuck off more when they aren't there.

Yep, you nailed it.

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