Fundamental rule of traffic: building new roads makes people drive more (2015) • Hacker News Board

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

#151

Post by sulam » Fri, Dec 28, 2018, 11:45 PM UTC

throwawayjava wrote: post #120

mklingen wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

We have regional commute rail in the SF Bay Area and in the NYC Metropolitan Region. It doesn't seem to have done much except drive up housing prices near rail stations and create silliness like 5-yr waiting lists for parking at them.

It seems clear that commuter rail is not a silver bullet. Housing density is probably what we really need.

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

#152

Post by closeparen » Fri, Dec 28, 2018, 11:56 PM UTC

honkycat wrote: post #149

closeparen wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Roads are bad for more reasons than maintenance though. People don't like to live near them. They are an UNPLEASANT part of the journey, not a destination. That means whoever gets stuck with the road going through their community sees their local businesses suffer and their housing prices drop. Saying "We need roads because public transit does not work" is just false. There are MANY examples of cities where they all…

The design and operation of a transit system is a huge and complicated topic. It doesn't work out well just because you want it to. I agree that Europe tends to do it successfully; we should be figuring out why, and how to emulate it, because so far our own attempts tend to be mediocre.

When I lived in Chicago it took 60-70 minutes to get to the Loop by bus and Red Line, or 15-20 by car. I don't claim this is an inherent feature of transit. I claim that the way we do transit systematically underperforms the way we do roads, and so all else being equal, roads are going to deliver a better UX. We should be fixing that. Unfortunately, politicians who preside over transit meltdowns (i.e. Cuomo) keep getting reelected.

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

#153

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Dec 29, 2018, 12:01 AM UTC

bradknowles wrote: post #139

sbov wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

When I lived and worked in the DC area from 1989 to 1998, it was automatically assumed by everyone I knew that if you were going to commute anywhere by car and you had to intersect with major infrastructure like the beltway, then you'd be spending at least an hour on the road, just to go one way. So, that's a one-hour commute right there for many people in the Northern Virginia/DC/Suburban Maryland area. And at that…

[deleted]

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

#154

Post by ryandrake » Sat, Dec 29, 2018, 12:06 AM UTC

closeparen wrote: post #148

dingaling wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easy to blame NIMBYism but unless those proposals are actually being brought to planning sessions then it's not really true.

You only bring a proposal to a planning session if it's close enough to existing zoning that the variance might be considered reasonable. Dramatic upzoning is only brought to the table when the NIMBYs are seen as weak enough that it might stand a chance.

Plus, you can’t just go into an area with infrastructure capable of supporting 10k people and Just Add Housing™. What about the electric grid? Water and sewer? Schools, parking, trash pickup, etc. You have to have a plan to update all of these. The simple solution of just building urban apartment blocks everywhere won’t work.

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

#155

Post by ip26 » Sat, Dec 29, 2018, 12:12 AM UTC

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…

One thing this article leaves out is what the value of all this transport is.

Trips do have value. When you sell something on Craigslist, the economic activity you are generating depends on the road network, and that transport event can be said to have value.

The epiphany that hit me though is that all the most valuable transport is already happening. Less valuable transport that isn't worth sitting in traffic for, is passed over.

This is key- it means that having roads is good, as it provides transport for those most valuable trips. However expanding the road adds only the less valuable trips. It's wicked diminishing returns- the road is more and more expensive to expand, and the trips/economic activity it adds are less and less valuable. The first two lanes were the cheapest to build and the most valuable to society, and every pair after that is worth less & less.

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

#156

Post by sokoloff » Sat, Dec 29, 2018, 12:13 AM UTC

AlexB138 wrote: post #113

callalex wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Where their employees choose to live is not an externality caused by the business IMO.

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

#157

Post by kypro » Sat, Dec 29, 2018, 12:14 AM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #96

kypro wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Government incentives probably won't change the life-styles of people such as yourself who can afford to live near the city core. The problem is for those of us who can't afford to do so, but need to work in the city centre (like most people these days do) our options are basically buy a car and waste hours in traffic everyday, or rent an "apartment" - although these days that tends to mean a small bedroom - in the city centre which you can hardly afford and gives you no satisfaction, nor room to do things like raise a family or have a functional relationship.

What I'd advocate for is governments to tax the hell out of companies who want to buy offices in city cores without a good reason. All a lot of these companies do is contribute to congestion and unaffordable property prices through increased urbanisation which forces people into the city or to deal with the congestion. A few years ago my girlfriend use to have to travel an hour every day to get to the city centre to work in a call centre. What's the point in that?

If instead governments allocated certain areas of cities which have low congestion and offered companies tax breaks for opening offices there you probably would see many moving out of the cities to the suburbs, reducing congestion and making properties more affordable.

I honestly think one of the main factors contributing to depress and mental-illness today, and why people don't have kids like they used to is because of the way we're living. Who the hell is going to raise a kid on £35,000 in 10m x 10m one-bed "flat" in a city like London? However, if on that money living in the suburbs of a city like Birmingham you'd be able to afford a reasonable two-bed home with a driveway and garden. The problem is uncontrolled urbanisation is driving businesses to city centres, and often to the major cities, then forcing anyone who wants to decent job to follow along whether they can afford to or not.

I bet most well paid developers living in the UK here live in London. And that's by no accident. It's not that they all just love London so much that they're happy to live in tiny apartments with no hope of raising a family or affording a mortgage. They do it because that's where all the decent tech jobs are. And why? Who is benefiting from this? A few very rich people and large businesses who can afford offices in city centres?

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

#158

Post by ip26 » Sat, Dec 29, 2018, 12:18 AM UTC

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…

The weird thing is how much time Americans are willing to waste on a commute.

Some studies have basically found that people chronically overvalue how happy a nice house will make them, and undervalue how unhappy a long commute will make them. I don't know if Americans are uniquely guilty of this, but humans are prone to lots of little errors like this.

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

#159

Post by bb88 » Sat, Dec 29, 2018, 12:20 AM UTC

Isinlor wrote: post #34

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 infrastruct…

Bike infrastructure can in fact increase congestion.

Fivethirtyeight did a study in Minneapolis on bike lanes constructed earlier this decade and showed that bike lanes did increase congestion for 10 roads they looked at.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/bike-lanes-dont-cause-t...

Anecdotally, the mid sized city I lived in added a bike lane experimentally on my commute to work. The lanes going into the city decreased from 4 to 3 and immediately increased the amount of congestion. It also slowed my commute anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes based upon what time I left.

And the sad thing was, nobody used the new bike lane. I never saw a single rider use those lanes during my morning commute.

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

#160

Post by kbenson » Sat, Dec 29, 2018, 12:23 AM UTC

trophycase wrote: post #147

kbenson wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is it really so shocking to live that close to a gardener? What is outlandish about that? I think it's not that people refuse to live next to a gardener, it's that the job of gardener does not allow for an income that someone could afford to live close by given the housing market. It might not be 50 miles, but there are areas of affluence where it would take awhile for a low-income person to reach. There are also a…

Well of course not. That's exactly why the person you are responding to talked about zoning. Without NIMBYs, you could upzone and solve most housing cost issues.

Southern California is dense and sprawling. Not very vertically dense, mind you, but I'm not sure there's a lot of existing room for new development without displacing people, and I'm also not sure any new development would lower housing costs enough to support the workforce in question. It would take a massive amount of high-density housing to get costs low in certain areas, and low-cost housing doesn't exactly draw in the developers.

It may have started as NIMBY, but I think natural market forces eventually reinforce it to the degree that NIMBY isn't necessarily the largest factor at play at this point.