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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)

#211

Post by johnwalkr »

BurningFrog wrote: post #203

Here is the BIG elephant on the road. Why road consumption is different than all other consumptions: We don't pay for road usage!!! Anything useful that is handed out to consumers at the cost of $0.00 will be overused and develop a shortage. This is so ingrained that it can be hard to think about. Anyway, if we had to pay to access roads, depending on the traffic load, traffic could always flow at full speed, road in…

Not quite as comprehensive as your example but in Japan all highways are tolled and the toll is approximately the same as high speed train fare. In cities all parking is paid too, normally even at your apartment. Driving is often more expensive and slower than transit. The end result is much higher pressure for maintaining good transit, good infrastructure for walking the last mile (it’s rare to see a long stretch of uncrossable road or missing sidewalk). There’s a lot of pressure to keep shops and restaurants within walking distance of most neighborhoods, too.

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

#212

Post by megablast »

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…

> In my city they're removing roads left, right, and centre

This is fantastic to hear, what forward thinking city do you live in?

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

#213

Post by megablast »

scythe wrote: post #116
Johnny555 wrote: post #85

Earlier 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.

Sure, but cars take up 50x more space, create way more pollution, and are responsible for 40,000 deaths in the US a year. So you should not have that option.

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

#214

Post by bb88 »

realityczeque wrote: post #168
bb88 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 decre…

Your windshield perspective is showing. The reason people in cars don't notice bike traffic is because a bike is small and unobtrusive and silent. Fifty cars in the same place is an epic disaster but fifty bikes in the same place is not a problem. Take for example this data in London, which was produced in response to a question from a member of the public having essentially the same bias as your statement "nobody us…

> In London some bike lanes have slightly increased travel times by car but cycling has increased more than 50%.

50% of anything near zero is still darn close to zero. But at the same token, a 5 minute increase for 1000 people is a loss of 5000 minutes.

> The reason people in cars don't notice bike traffic is because a bike is small and unobtrusive and silent.

False. A single bike sticks out like a sore thumb in traffic -- even if there's a bike lane. In this case, I was so pissed off at the increase of my commute I started to count bikes in the bike lane, and I saw exactly zero.

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

#215

Post by iso1337 »

sbov wrote: post #141
ed312 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might also be worth starting to let go of the notion that you need 2000+ sq ft and a 1/4 acre yard as a minimum. Roads are effectively a subsidy to that life style (everyone shouldn't be forced to pay for the life style of a few).

I could do without the yard, but I couldn't imagine having much less than what we have now (1962 sq feet). 3 kids (1 a surprise - yay twins for the second pregnancy) plus a home office because I work from home.

Yes, once you are used to that kind of space, it’s hard to go back. Hedonistic treadmill and all (or some kind of treadmill). People in the 60s had larger families with smaller houses. However, to fulfill our expectations of progress, House sizes in America keep growing decade after decade.

I’m fully guilty of this myself too. But like all things it cannot keep growing indefinitely.

http://www.aei.org/publication/new-us-homes-today-are-1000-s...

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

#216

Post by megablast »

ip26 wrote: post #167
whoisnnamdi wrote: post #41

This is an important point that is commonly overlooked. Traffic is a sign of something. It’s a sign that the benefits of transportation outweighs the costs of transportation. Given this, high traffic often implies that there is pent up demand out there - more cars that would be on the road right now if only the roads could support it. When more roads are built, this unlocks some of the pent up demand, as the cost of…

It’s a sign that the benefits of transportation outweighs the costs of transportation Which, given the way roads are funded, is something of a broken equation. The costs of transportation are not fully borne by the user proportionally to consumption. You pay fuel taxes & buy tires, yes, but they by no means cover the full per-mile cost of your trip.

Not sure why you are downvoted, drivers are subsidised to a huge amount, and that doesn't even include pollution, deaths, destruction of wildlife, etc...

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

#217

Post by BurningFrog »

johnwalkr wrote: post #211
BurningFrog wrote: post #203

Here is the BIG elephant on the road. Why road consumption is different than all other consumptions: We don't pay for road usage!!! Anything useful that is handed out to consumers at the cost of $0.00 will be overused and develop a shortage. This is so ingrained that it can be hard to think about. Anyway, if we had to pay to access roads, depending on the traffic load, traffic could always flow at full speed, road in…

Not quite as comprehensive as your example but in Japan all highways are tolled and the toll is approximately the same as high speed train fare. In cities all parking is paid too, normally even at your apartment. Driving is often more expensive and slower than transit. The end result is much higher pressure for maintaining good transit, good infrastructure for walking the last mile (it’s rare to see a long stretch of…

Thanks!

I didn't know about this.

I'm very impressed by Japanese infrastructure, and this is one more piece explaining how they do it.

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

#218

Post by ummonk »

Yeah, let's not build enough housing for everyone who works here to live here, and let's also not build more freeway, to make sure they can't commute in either.

Not only should we not make room for newcomers to the Bay Area (cause screw immigrants), but no need to make room for people who grew up here either; just have them live with their parents!

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

#219

Post by ummonk »

CalRobert wrote: post #94
User23 wrote: post #56

Earlier 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.

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…

>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.

No, the US accepts that traffic accidents happen, and absent irresponsible behavior like drunk driving, drivers should not be held responsible for accidents. When these accidents involve collisions between cars, they're usually simple fender-benders. When similar collisions happen between cars and bicycles, they often lead to serious injury or even death.

It's an extremely dangerous idea to have bicycles and cars travelling side by side in such close proximity with such narrow bicycle lanes. What we need is proper bike lanes with lane separators protecting them from traffic.

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

#220

Post by ummonk »

k_sh wrote: post #188
Chloro wrote: post #150

If roads were 20x wider I guarantee traffic would be reduced or damn near eliminated. They just want an excuse to charge people and/or enable the rich to get special transport privileges. Also where do they get off claiming these people are getting this for free? They bought it with their taxes, so to double charge them and exclude the poor is pretty messed up.

If roads were 20x wider, 68% of LA County would be streets. Sure, turning two-thirds of a city into roads will cut down on traffic - but within realistic restraints on road construction, induced demand is real. (There are 140mi^2 of roads now[0], and 4,058mi^2 of land mass[1].) [0]: https://la.curbed.com/2015/11/30/9895842/how-much-parking-lo... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_County,_California

Well there is a hypothetical world in which you could stack roads. It's prohibitively expensive, but not physically impossible.
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