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Urban highways destroy wealth

urbankchoze.blogspot.com

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Re: Urban highways destroy wealth

#21

Post by titzer »

DrScump wrote: post #16
lnanek2 wrote: post #5

Having some trouble swallowing this paragraph: " The richest metropolitan areas in the US are San José, San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, Washington, Houston, New York, Portland, Hartford and Salt Lake City. Areas with relatively few urban highways are overrepresented in that list, with Houston being the one big exception. " When I need to get anywhere in New York, most of the time I am better off grabbing the west sid…

With respect to San Jose, it's a crock. The only remotely "urban" area is downtown, and that is fully served with highways (880, 280/680, 87). Light rail is a joke, with routes having been chosen for political reasons rather than true demand, and it is useless for transporting goods. This article, like many on the topic, also take a one-dimensional view of highways -- as people movers. The flow of goods and services…

Trucks are big but are dwarfed by the number of single-occupant passenger cars. Other models that work well are freight trains and local trucks, without huge highways. Surface streets work fine for emergency services if they aren't clogged and hospitals are well distributed.

Re: Urban highways destroy wealth

#22

Post by shrewduser »

so what, i'm not supposed to have any good way to cut across the city and get to the airport?

also in the world of automated cars we're about to enter i would think the amount of people you can transport via freeway would far outstrip rail, not to mention that there are obvious consumer preferences.

I love rail, but i feel like we're about to see rail become far less pervasive with automated cars / busses etc coming online. it will just be that much more convenient to get to where you're going.

Re: Urban highways destroy wealth

#23

Post by tremon »

jesstaa wrote: post #11
chad_oliver wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What problem were they meant to solve? (That's a serious question. I'm interesting in hearing how other people view the purpose of an urban highway.)

Urban highways solve a political problem. When you have voters that spend a hour or so a day stuck in traffic it's really easy to sell them the idea that a highway will reduce traffic congestion without them having to change anything about their daily routine (ie. take public transport, bicycle, walk) Since the highway will only reduce traffic congestion for a short time it's something you can sell to the voters agai…

When you have voters that spend a hour or so a day stuck in traffic it's really easy to sell them the idea that a highway will reduce traffic congestion without them having to change anything about their daily routine

That's disingenuous. I commute by car exactly because public transport takes longer to most of my clients, even when including structural and incidental traffic jams.

It's happened exactly three times in the last five years that my car commute took longer than public transport would have taken. And on one of those occasions (excessive snowfall), most trains were canceled too.

Re: Urban highways destroy wealth

#24

Post by lagadu »

tremon wrote: post #23
jesstaa wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Urban highways solve a political problem. When you have voters that spend a hour or so a day stuck in traffic it's really easy to sell them the idea that a highway will reduce traffic congestion without them having to change anything about their daily routine (ie. take public transport, bicycle, walk) Since the highway will only reduce traffic congestion for a short time it's something you can sell to the voters agai…

When you have voters that spend a hour or so a day stuck in traffic it's really easy to sell them the idea that a highway will reduce traffic congestion without them having to change anything about their daily routine That's disingenuous. I commute by car exactly because public transport takes longer to most of my clients, even when including structural and incidental traffic jams. It's happened exactly three times i…

That only speaks to the inadequacy of the public transportation network where you live though, which is exacerbated by the construction of urban highways instead of a better mass transit network.

Re: Urban highways destroy wealth

#25

Post by lagadu »

shrewduser wrote: post #22

so what, i'm not supposed to have any good way to cut across the city and get to the airport? also in the world of automated cars we're about to enter i would think the amount of people you can transport via freeway would far outstrip rail, not to mention that there are obvious consumer preferences. I love rail, but i feel like we're about to see rail become far less pervasive with automated cars / busses etc coming…

Metro. It's also the fastest, cheapest and most convenient way to get to the airport in the cities I've lived in. Not affected by traffic either.

Re: Urban highways destroy wealth

#26

Post by tremon »

lagadu wrote: post #24
tremon wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you have voters that spend a hour or so a day stuck in traffic it's really easy to sell them the idea that a highway will reduce traffic congestion without them having to change anything about their daily routine That's disingenuous. I commute by car exactly because public transport takes longer to most of my clients, even when including structural and incidental traffic jams. It's happened exactly three times i…

That only speaks to the inadequacy of the public transportation network where you live though, which is exacerbated by the construction of urban highways instead of a better mass transit network.

It's probably more that my situation doesn't match the topic under discussion. I live in an urban area, whereas many clients are in the rural areas surrounding it. Servicing those areas with mass transit would be prohibitively expensive: there is no mass traffic to service.

Re: Urban highways destroy wealth

#27

Post by awjr »

pmiller2 wrote: post #9
chad_oliver wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What problem were they meant to solve? (That's a serious question. I'm interesting in hearing how other people view the purpose of an urban highway.)

I would think it's primarily moving people from point A to point B (or, possibly from point C to point D via some stretch in between A and B). [Begin Rant] This brings up the biggest problem I have with Bay Area public trasnportation. I live 11 miles from work, but it's impossible to get there via any reasonable public transportation-based route in less than 1 hour. On flat land, I can bike at least 50% faster than t…

BART + fold-up bicycle?

Re: Urban highways destroy wealth

#28

Post by masklinn »

shrewduser wrote: post #22

so what, i'm not supposed to have any good way to cut across the city and get to the airport? also in the world of automated cars we're about to enter i would think the amount of people you can transport via freeway would far outstrip rail, not to mention that there are obvious consumer preferences. I love rail, but i feel like we're about to see rail become far less pervasive with automated cars / busses etc coming…

> so what, i'm not supposed to have any good way to cut across the city and get to the airport?

If you come from inside the city, the city could (and should) have the transportation necessary.

If you come from outside the city, the article is only about intra-urban highways, not about circular roads to go around the city if you just need to go through to the other side.

> also in the world of automated cars we're about to enter i would think the amount of people you can transport via freeway would far outstrip rail

That makes very little sense.

> I love rail, but i feel like we're about to see rail become far less pervasive with automated cars / busses etc coming online. it will just be that much more convenient to get to where you're going.

I'd expect the opposite. With full car automation you remove the necessity for car ownership and parking, this means you can easily get automated transport to a hub, then use public transport from there. That's especially the case for intra-urban transport, even in cities with good intra-urban public transport there is very limited capacity and convenience to leave your car on the outskirt and jump on light rail or metro if you come from the suburbs or from a neighbouring city. Automated cars fix this, you just leave the car and it goes do something else, the other way around you can notify the system that you'll need a car when your traincar reaches whichever station, and it can wait you there.

Re: Urban highways destroy wealth

#29

Post by stuaxo »

jff wrote: post #6
chad_oliver wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What problem were they meant to solve? (That's a serious question. I'm interesting in hearing how other people view the purpose of an urban highway.)

The problem of getting from one side of town to the other very quickly, without clogging up the "walkable neighborhoods" in the middle, with their narrow streets and wide sidewalks. The people going through get on the highway, out of the way of the people actually living in the town.

In the UK we have built bypasses for most towns and most of the traffic goes around them instead of through.

Re: Urban highways destroy wealth

#30

Post by csomar »

Is it me or the author is simply making assumptions based on his "intelligent point of view".

Here is my version: Urban highways create unparalleled amounts of wealth. By enabling people, businessman, police, firefighters to get from point A to point B faster; they boost the economy. They also reduce pollution, since you are not stuck in traffic.

But hey, I have no data to back this up.

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