Around the fifth time this was posted I tracked down the study, and the big asterisk here is that yes, more roads do mean more traffic, but part of that traffic is mediated by more jobs and more residents. The way some people tell it, it’s an unmitigated negative. Not quite.
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)
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
> it's easy for me, as a software engineer, to show up at work at 11AM That's the point -- we should incentivize people who can time shift to do so thereby alleviating traffic for those who can't.
People feel that incentive very differently. If the 101 is a $5 toll road during rush hour it barely changes my habits. In fact, it might actually encourage me to go in earlier because I expect traffic to be better. The cost of time spent in traffic already outweighs any congestion charge - for me . There are, however, a lot of people for whom that $50 more in weekly commute costs, would be financially deadly and alm…
Well, maybe there is a lesson in that. We have to think about what the benefits of each person commuting is. Does it make sense to fill up highways with people going to work in e.g. fast food restaurants?
If the McDonalds employee has to pay $50 in fees to get to their job, it changes their financial calculations around whether that is a viable job. If enough of them decide to quit because of this, the restaurant will need to pay its employees more, subsidize their commutes or shut down.
If the restaurant shuts down, then it didn't make sense for them to be in an expensive urban hub, and the negative externality of the traffic their employees generated is gone. I suspect a lot of only-barely-viable jobs would go this way, and that's where traffic reduction would come from.
If they pay more, or subsidize commutes, they are paying to paying for the negative externality of filling up the highways to bring their employees in. The people who want cheap cheeseburgers in an expensive urban hub will decide if they want to pay more for cheap cheeseburgers to cover the cost. If they don't, it doesn't make sense for it to be there and the traffic isn't worth it.
Re: Fundamental rule of traffic: building new roads makes people drive more (2015)
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
By that same logic, purchasing hamburgers is regressive.
No, you don’t have to purchase a hamburger to earn a living, but you probably have to travel.
Groceries are generally taxed differently because people need to eat. It is not a human necessity to travel long distances to work. It seems to me, if you subsidize travel for low earner you're subsidizing companies that pay their employees poorly, not benefiting the employees themselves. Maybe a subsidy for low earning jobs that are a public good make sense (teachers, for instance), but why should we give subsidies to private for-profit companies to allow them to avoid covering the externalities of their business?
Re: Fundamental rule of traffic: building new roads makes people drive more (2015)
#114I don't understand why this is happening. The article attempts to come up with explanations, but I find them hard to believe. Although (most) roads are free to use, we pay for travel in gas, car upkeep, and—perhaps most importantly—time. All of which can be quite costly! I live in upper Manhattan and have an unlimited-ride metrocard. But I would much rather go shopping at the store that's a five minute walk away than…
Well... a whopping 45% of Americans have no access to public transit[0], in any form. So I would hazard a guess that those with access to light rail/subways is significantly less than 45%. Light and commuter rail ridership makes up only 300M/quarter riders out of a total ridership of 2.5B/quarter for all forms of mass transit, if I'm reading this right.[1] [0] https://www.apta.com/mediacenter/ptbenefits/Pages/FactShe…
Yeah, I have cheaper and faster access to transit than most drivers can ever achieve—and I still don't use it all that much!
Why are people driving such long distances—and putting up with traffic—in their expensive cars? Is a larger house really that valuable?
I suppose the answer is "yes, it is that valuable", since we are where we are. But, like, what's wrong with people?
Re: Fundamental rule of traffic: building new roads makes people drive more (2015)
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't understand how is it possible that you can't maintain roads. Use car taxes to maintain roads. Increase them if necessary. Introduce paid roads where applicable. If taxes were too high, some people would prefer cheaper public transportation, so market will find a balance automatically.
Simple -- tax money earmarked for roads is spent elsewhere, leaving insufficient money for road maintenance.
The problem is not with roads, then, but with tax distribution.
Re: Fundamental rule of traffic: building new roads makes people drive more (2015)
#116Is 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? 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've never sat in stop-and-go traffic, looked around and thought "Gee, this is great utilization of this road!" Oddly, I have looked around a crowded standing-room-only train and thought "Gee, these load factors must be good for farebox recovery"
Personally I’d rather be in traffic. I’ll grant trains are way better for the atmosphere and take up less space, but people are noisy and smelly.
Re: Fundamental rule of traffic: building new roads makes people drive more (2015)
#117If you are sitting there thinking: "So what", I highly recommend you educate yourself on how building roads actually affects US infrastructure. We have a CRUMBLING infrastructure in the US, and people are constantly complaining about potholes in major metropolitan areas. And the solution is build more roads? We cannot even maintain the ones we have! Recommended reading: - https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-…
Counterpoint: I grew up in an area which allegedly has some of the worst roads in the country. They're fine . Sure they're not silky-smooth surfaces ready for MotoGP but contemporary mass-market vehicles have no problem traversing them. At worst you're going to feel uncomfortable for half a second. Really bad construction might slow you down 10-20 minutes. Meanwhile America's best, most expensive, most politically su…
I don't know which transit system you think is our best and most expensive, but the one where I live (Portland, OR) is great. In 20 years it's failed me twice: once a bus broke down in a snowstorm, and once a train was blocked by protesters. That's it. The other ~10,000 trips were pretty uneventful. My biggest gripe is that the arrival time api is sometimes 1-2 minutes off.
Re: Fundamental rule of traffic: building new roads makes people drive more (2015)
#118In 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…
"more Kms travelled. " might have some value if it means a trip that wasn't taken before is taken now. It has _negative_ value, massively so, if it means people who used to have 10km commutes all move farther out and have 20km commutes instead but cheaper housing. This seems to be what happens. More people will die horrible deaths in their cars, more people will die walking and cycling, more people will die because t…
> It has _negative_ value, massively so, if it means people who used to have 10km commutes all move farther out and have 20km commutes instead but cheaper housing.
Is that because affordable houses are worthless?
So, instead of solving the housing crisis, city planners do nothing on the matter, but go and ration transportation too, so people... well, gain nothing because they will be the same time in traffic.
Re: Fundamental rule of traffic: building new roads makes people drive more (2015)
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
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've never sat in stop-and-go traffic, looked around and thought "Gee, this is great utilization of this road!" Oddly, I have looked around a crowded standing-room-only train and thought "Gee, these load factors must be good for farebox recovery"
Personally I’d rather be in traffic. I’ll grant trains are way better for the atmosphere and take up less space, but people are noisy and smelly.
People keep saying they don't want to ride on a train or bus because people are smelly, but with rare exceptions, I just haven't run into that problem.
My solution to noisy transit is to wear headphones.
I think the problem is more cultural conditioning, I've been riding transit for 25+ years, and I like taking transit to work. Others who haven't ridden transit don't understand why I'd ride a bus to work even though we get "free" parking.
On the way to work the bus is usually faster than driving (the bus takes the carpool lane), on the way home, traffic is bad enough that the bus is probably about the same speed as driving (maybe a bit longer since for one stop it needs to leave the freeway express lane so needs to cut through 4 lanes of traffic to get to the stop and then again to get back into the express lane), but I don't care since I'm usually reading.
Re: Fundamental rule of traffic: building new roads makes people drive more (2015)
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
> When workers can’t afford to live within biking distance of work, then it’s not a viable solution. This is a catch 22 because the way our cities are designed in America makes them unaffordable. American zoning in most cities prohibits the kind of dense mixed use development that makes low cost housing near work possible. We need to reform the zoning code in most cities and improve bike safety, walkability and publi…
Lack of mid-distance transit is also a huge problem.
Mid-sized USA cities tend to have half decent transit around their urban core (often woefully under-served especially in cities that don't have either trains/subways or else dedicated right-of-way for buses, but none-the-less serviceable).
However, the thing that mid-sized cities almost uniformly lack in the US is any form of regional commuter rail.