Let's try that again

Here is a re-post of the post which got lost in this weekend's Blogger outages. Maybe if I use a different title, it'll stick around? Blogger/Google seem to have narrowed it down to old network hardware. It's interesting (and probably good public relations) how they blog about their system down crit-sits.

Information Super-Highway

Now there's a term that has quickly fallen into dis-use...

I've spent more time than I'd like on Highway 401 this week. It certainly wasn't as bad as it could have been, and the weather was quite good for winter. Still, if I was ever in a position where I'd have to commute on it every day, I'd rather move. When out house-hunting one time, I happened to be in a neighbourhood just adjacent to the highway. At ground level, thereis a constant, dull roar, which can be heard in spite of the noise barriers. A friend who lives in one of the towers overlooking the road can't hear a thing with the windows shut, but just looking out the window at the constant stream of traffic is enough to raise your blood pressure...

It's often claimed that the stretch of the 401 running through Toronto is the busiest highway in the world, surpassing even the Santa Monica Freeway in L.A. Based on a small sample size of three visits to Los Angeles, I'd say this is true. But what are the real numbers to back this claim?

Since visiting the library is passé, we go to Google - the sum total of Web-crawlable content, filtered by your ability to sponsor your links, or your government's ability to block them. Initial search results suggest variously that Highway 401 is the busiest roadway in Canada (duh!), and the busiest/second busiest in North America/the world. So, it's definitely way up on the list. More links from seemingly diverse/unrelated and "authoritative/official" sites say it's the busiest. I'll consider that a de facto consensus, taken with the standard grain of salt for anything Internet-related.

Increasingly, Wikipedia is making its Internet presence felt. I guess it's the sum total of knowledge contributed by people who care enough about a particular topic (or have too much time on their hands), filtered by some semblance of public debate, by people who care enough about their side of the story (or have too much time on their hands), to reach another de facto consensus.

The article on the 401 is quite educational, especially regarding the history of the 400-series highways. I could spend way too much time clicking through various links, learning about parclos and jughandles (been there, driven that, no longer get a blank look when asked to use one).