In this weekend’s Sunday New York Times Magazine, UW prof Bill Beaty gets prominent mention in a story on traffic bottlenecks and the difficulty of merging. In terminology we know all too well from trying to merge from Montlake onto 520, or from Mercer onto I-5, he divides us motorists into two categories: “Cheaters” and “Vigilantes.”As the NYT mentions, Beaty keeps a stat- and equation-filled Web page to help us understand traffic flow and its impediments. Some of which might require a PhD to understand, though there’s a useful Seattle sub-section including the ominous link “NW USA worst traffic: Seattle, I-90 merge into I-5.” Those who drive that infernal snarl–thank God I don’t–can probably attest it’s true.In the end, as we’re all jockeying to put too many cars in too few lanes, mathematicians like Beaty propose something called the “zipper merge,” which ants apparently do on their own, because good traffic flow principles are embedded in their DNA. Now if only insects could tell us what to do about the Alaskan Way Viaduct or this fall’s vote on the $17.9 billion SoundTransit light rail expansion.