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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)

#91

Post by jandrese »

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…

The problem with this is the last mile problem. Cars are their own solution to the last mile problem and highway placement reflects that. Trying to fit a light rail system on the same footprint immediately runs into the question of how you're going to solve the last mile problem. If you don't, you'll have underutilized train stations sitting in the middle of a road nowhere near where people want to be.

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

#92

Post by magduf »

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…

If I could teleport around like that instantly, I'd be acting like that too.

However, real-world transport has a real cost: time (in addition to money for fuel/maintenance/insurance/etc.). If teleporting was cheap but took 3 hours for every trip, I'm not going to be having any kind of lunch in Tokyo unless I'm living there.

The weird thing is how much time Americans are willing to waste on a commute. So many of them think nothing of spending 1-2 hours in traffic, each way, every workday, just so they can have some big McMansion in the exurbs with a giant lawn they have to spend hours maintaining every weekend.

>Maybe more roads don't solve congestion but they do produce more "goods," more Kms travelled. Presumably this has value.

When people don't do anything with all those kms traveled than move farther out of the metro area and extend their commute, no, I don't really see the value to society there. Rather, I see that it has a real cost to society for people to waste their time and money on these things, rather than things that provide positive economic value to the society at large. Don't forget that more miles driven means more accidents, more traffic deaths and maimings, etc., all of which cost society. Plus all the pollution produced.

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

#93

Post by [deleted] »

fabioborellini wrote: post #6
paulsutter wrote: post #2

It's called "elastic demand" and it just means that roads are useful. The Boring Company has a twofold solution (a) charge for usage, and (b) build to 30 levels or more to meet demand

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.

[deleted]

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

#94

Post by CalRobert »

User23 wrote: post #56
Isinlor wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 infrastruct…

That works great in countries one can bike across in a day. It’s not really a solution for American commuters. People mainly choose long commutes for housing affordability. When workers can’t afford to live within biking distance of work, then it’s not a viable solution.

And why, exactly, can't they afford to live within biking distance from work?

Because 1) You're not allowed to build mixed-use areas thanks to NIMBYs

2) You're not allowed to build high or mid-density areas thanks to NIMBYs

3) You're not allowed to build real bike routes (the kind you'd let your 8 year old cycle to school alone on) because of NIMBYs

4) You could cycle the long distances needed on the road, but the US has made it legal to kill people with your car so long as you're sober, so this is dangerous.

Nobody's driving from NYC to LA for their morning commute. The size of the country is not relevant.

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

#95

Post by zone411 »

It is actually possible for an additional road to increase the travel time for each driver, without any new cars added, and with everybody acting rationally! Braess's paradox (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess%27s_paradox). It has been observed in practice.

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

#96

Post by sokoloff »

kypro wrote: post #83
erik_seaberg wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In my city they're removing roads left, right, and centre, and using the argument that this will reduce congestion, which admittedly is really bad here. However what's actually happened is people in the suburbans like myself who don't have to good public transportation into the city have effectively become isolated from the city hub. There is really no good way for me to get into the city at rush hour anymore unless…

I live in Cambridge about a mile walk from Harvard Square, so fairly close to a decent sized city area, yet we almost never go there. Real estate in the Harvard Square area is so expensive and there are so many tourists that almost all the establishments there are priced out of reasonability for regular/daily patronage. We take out of town guests there and that's about it.

I don't see city center commerce and leisure hubs as being particularly able to dominate neighborhood and suburban equivalents. I need a car to get out to work anyway (8 miles away from the city center), so once all the fixed costs of the car are covered, it's incredibly cheaper and more convenient for us to shop and eat in the suburbs.

I don't see government incentives changing that in a meaningful way.

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

#97

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#98

Post by sbov »

magduf wrote: post #92
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…

If I could teleport around like that instantly, I'd be acting like that too. However, real-world transport has a real cost: time (in addition to money for fuel/maintenance/insurance/etc.). If teleporting was cheap but took 3 hours for every trip, I'm not going to be having any kind of lunch in Tokyo unless I'm living there. The weird thing is how much time Americans are willing to waste on a commute. So many of them…

I don't know a single American commuter who thinks nothing of spending 1-2 hours in traffic each way. Every commuter I know balks at a single way commute of more than 30 minutes. Any commuter I know that has ever spent more than 1 hour in traffic each way moved within a couple years to be closer.

You're assigning beliefs to Americans that, in my experience, they don't have in any significant numbers.

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

#100

Post by waiseristy »

yason wrote: post #69

For any practical purposes road traffic can be considered a gaseous element that quickly fills as much space as is allocated for road space, with heavy emphasis on segments that lead to several destinations. Conversely, when roads are put on a diet and lanes are removed it generally turns out that the traffic does not pack into queues twices as long, as is often expected or feared, but generally disappears. To contro…

In that case then, we should rid ourselves of all roads and live in small self sufficient communes.
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