Ignorance may be bliss in love, but not when you're stuck in traffic. Starting tomorrow, information on how to get around San Diego's bottlenecks will be a phone call or a mouse click away. Full Focus reporter Amita Sharma has more.
We've all been there. It's called “commuter hell” where freeways look like parking lots and even though an exit might be less than a mile away, it could take an hour to get there. Well the region's planners say that helpless feeling that drivers get may be a thing of the past when the new 511 program begins tomorrow morning. Drivers caught in a jam will be able to dial three digits – 511 – or click on to www.511sd.com – for guidance. SANDAG spokeswoman Anne Howard Steinberger says the new system will revolutionize commuting.
Anne Steinberger: It will allow you to call 511 from your phone and find out traffic conditions. It will tell you where the incidents are. It will tell you alternate routes to take. And it will give you a host of transit information; connect you to the transit call centers. And San Diego is the only 511 system to offer on the phone connections to roadside assistance. The mobile callback system will also be available from your cell phone.
Skeptics may lament the fact that while the new program will tell you how bad traffic is and why, it won't be able to make bottlenecks disappear which is what commuters really want. But Steinberger says the service will offer options and that's a start.
Steinberger: You'll have more options when you dial 511. Sometimes the frustration is not knowing what's going on up ahead. You hit traffic, you say, “What's going on there?” You can call 511, tell them where you are on the freeway, and 511 will tell you what the incidents are. So that will make it easier, you might be able to make a choice saying, "Well if I hop off the freeway here, I can go around and get back on. I can take an exit earlier and get home." So it will make it a lot easier.sometimes just knowing what's going on will make a huge difference.
The San Diego County Association of Governments, which is helping to launch the service, received a $2.5 million grant from the state to fund the program. The San Diego region is the 33rd in the nation to get a 511 service.
Steinberger: This is the wave of the future. Technology and transportation are getting closer and closer together so that we'll really be able to use the information to make better decisions about how we get home. The ultimate goal is to make the 511 service available nationwide by the year 2010.
