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Fundamental rule of traffic: building new roads makes people drive more (2015)

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Re: Fundamental rule of traffic: building new roads makes people drive more (2015)

#31

Post by fridek »

fgheorghe wrote: post #9
fabioborellini wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the Old World we have public mass transit. One vehicle can transport a thousand commuters, and it does not need to be stored in the most desired area of the city for the duration of a working day. Sometimes it looks like the Silicon Valley is trying to solve transit problems either against the laws of physics and economics or, alternatively, ignoring solutions that were there already in the 1800s.

In the “old world” cities like London, Paris, Berlin and others are facing the eact same problems, with or without those overcrowded, overpriced buses you mentioned.

I live in London and commute 10 miles each way daily. It takes me ~45 minutes in rush hour. Driving the same distance is, in the middle of the night, 30-40 min (in rush hour you can be stuck simply until it's over). Total cost is also lower at 2000 pounds a year for round trips on my route (which would cover only insurance and gas at best). Also, I haven't taken a bus to work, ever. Tube serves 5 million passengers a day and whilst sometimes crowded, seems to be scaling pretty well.

Re: Fundamental rule of traffic: building new roads makes people drive more (2015)

#32

Post by tafda »

TuringNYC wrote: post #8

The more intelligent approach to building roads is one i've seen in Washington DC. While the metro system isnt perfect, they allocated a portion of the highway to rail (middle track between both directions on the highway.) This way, the community expanded outwards via longer and longer highways and there was an obvious way to eventually simultaneously also expand the metro system outwards. They did this with the Oran…

Transit works better if it is where people are going rather than where it is convenient to build - for example, downtown Falls Church VA instead of the freeway median. Building densely around the stations can drive ridership. See: Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore. Of course, building in more congested areas is more expensive.

Freeway median transit is no panacea (though better than nothing).

Re: Fundamental rule of traffic: building new roads makes people drive more (2015)

#33

Post by erik_seaberg »

msbarnett wrote: post #11
JimboOmega wrote: post #4

Is this even a problem? People are given an opportunity to do something and then they do it. That's way better than new roads going unused, isn't it? I like congestion charging alright, which the article advocates at the very end, but it has a habit of being regressive - it's easy for me, as a software engineer, to show up at work at 11AM, but that might not be the case for those who can less afford to pay those char…

> Is this even a problem? It’s a problem if your assumption was that demand was closer to fixed and building more roads would “spread drivers out”, reducing congestion. This was for decades, and still to some extent is, a very wide-spread assumption in local politics, leading to incredibly questionable urban planning decisions.

If we paved every square inch, traffic wouldn't go to infinity. It's pretty rare to go driving for no reason. Country roads don't have rush hour.

It seems reasonable to assume that latent demand per capita is fixed, but at a level too high for a city to accommodate without destroying its density advantages.

Re: Fundamental rule of traffic: building new roads makes people drive more (2015)

#34

Post by Isinlor »

netcan wrote: post #12

In practical terms, we can consume as much transport as we get. If it was cheap and fast I could have ramen lunch in Tokyo. Pick up the kids from crèche in Portugal on my way home to New Zealand. So, unless we get teleport watches... congestion is the "price," the thing that limits consumption. Economists would prefer the price to be price, being economists. One thing this article leaves out is what the value of all…

There is also question of externalities. Building roads is not without hidden costs. Splitting communities in cities, making distances to travel longer because adding places for streets and parking places spreads infrastructure, air pollution killing people, lack of movement killing people, noise pollution, ugliness etc.

I really like Dutch approach. Take away some space from cars in order to build biking infrastructure. I live second year in Netherlands and I love it.

Re: Fundamental rule of traffic: building new roads makes people drive more (2015)

#35

Post by stefan_ »

netcan wrote: post #12

In practical terms, we can consume as much transport as we get. If it was cheap and fast I could have ramen lunch in Tokyo. Pick up the kids from crèche in Portugal on my way home to New Zealand. So, unless we get teleport watches... congestion is the "price," the thing that limits consumption. Economists would prefer the price to be price, being economists. One thing this article leaves out is what the value of all…

It's opportunity cost that kills it. Building more roads is a lousy investment for the money spent.

Re: Fundamental rule of traffic: building new roads makes people drive more (2015)

#36

Post by 40acres »

Why are roads an elastic demand but it seems that other transportation methods, like light rail, aren't? I've seen cases of quite a few expensive lines and rail-stops that have lower than expected utilization, but it seems like new highway roads and lanes get immediate use. Is it down to the fact that there is simply more "freedom" with regards to roads over rail?

Re: Fundamental rule of traffic: building new roads makes people drive more (2015)

#37

Post by icelancer »

lmm wrote: post #17
fgheorghe wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the “old world” cities like London, Paris, Berlin and others are facing the eact same problems, with or without those overcrowded, overpriced buses you mentioned.

I live in London. Many people don't own cars. Many who moved here with a car give up their cars. Working public transport systems leave everyone better off.

Your cities are built for mass transit. Ours are not, owing to the enormous landmass we utilize in the ways that we do. This is not a simple problem to solve by just adding more trains and bus units.

Re: Fundamental rule of traffic: building new roads makes people drive more (2015)

#38

Post by bobthepanda »

reaperducer wrote: post #20
netcan wrote: post #12

In practical terms, we can consume as much transport as we get. If it was cheap and fast I could have ramen lunch in Tokyo. Pick up the kids from crèche in Portugal on my way home to New Zealand. So, unless we get teleport watches... congestion is the "price," the thing that limits consumption. Economists would prefer the price to be price, being economists. One thing this article leaves out is what the value of all…

Maybe more roads don't solve congestion but they do produce more "goods," more Kms travelled. Presumably this has value. It does, which is one reason why (in the United States, anyway), highways are paid for by the governments — to spur commerce. In contrast, railroads (at least in the United States) still mostly have to pay for their infrastructure, which is one reason why passenger rail is in the shape it's in.

It kind of does. But only to a certain point; in some cases you're just shuffling growth around the region rather than stimulating new regional growth.

A lot of road capacity is needed, but a lot of it is also purely wasteful and entirely caused by social choice.

E.g., the parking lot for the store needs to hold the Black Friday parking demand ->

the store is now too far from the street to walk home with bags ->

everyone drives to the store and there is congestion ->

the street must be widened to accommodate the congestion -->

the street is now too wide to cross or walk along safely -->

everybody drives, etc.

The suburbs are now vastly overbuilt as a result. Nassau County is one of the wealthiest counties in the country yet has been fiscally monitored by New York State since 2000 because it cannot afford the lifecycle cost of infrastructure or services for such a low-density, sprawly environment. And this is despite very high property taxes, to the point where the population is starting to decline.

Re: Fundamental rule of traffic: building new roads makes people drive more (2015)

#39

Post by pkulak »

40acres wrote: post #36

Why are roads an elastic demand but it seems that other transportation methods, like light rail, aren't? I've seen cases of quite a few expensive lines and rail-stops that have lower than expected utilization, but it seems like new highway roads and lanes get immediate use. Is it down to the fact that there is simply more "freedom" with regards to roads over rail?

People prefer to drive, so they do that first. Public transportation functions the exact same way, so long as there is no more road capacity. There are countless examples of new light rail stations spurring new development in the area.

Re: Fundamental rule of traffic: building new roads makes people drive more (2015)

#40

Post by Spooky23 »

bobthepanda wrote: post #38
reaperducer wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe more roads don't solve congestion but they do produce more "goods," more Kms travelled. Presumably this has value. It does, which is one reason why (in the United States, anyway), highways are paid for by the governments — to spur commerce. In contrast, railroads (at least in the United States) still mostly have to pay for their infrastructure, which is one reason why passenger rail is in the shape it's in.

It kind of does. But only to a certain point; in some cases you're just shuffling growth around the region rather than stimulating new regional growth. A lot of road capacity is needed, but a lot of it is also purely wasteful and entirely caused by social choice. E.g., the parking lot for the store needs to hold the Black Friday parking demand -> the store is now too far from the street to walk home with bags -> ever…

Nassau county isn’t a city, so the state pays almost all of its major road costs on its behalf.
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