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In Colorado, an ambitious new highway policy is not building them

nytimes.com

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Re: In Colorado, an ambitious new highway policy is not building them

#31

Post by turnsout »

throwaway22032 wrote: post #5

"Induced demand" as a reason not to do something is illogical. The Green Revolution increasing crop yields induced demand for humans. Metro systems existing and building new lines induce demand, in some cases resulting in overcrowding. Building housing and offices induce demand in a location. There is nothing wrong with improving a thing so that more people are able to do that thing. I can understand concern about em…

Allowing people to realize their desires is not necessarily a good thing or the role of government. The majority of people would like to pay 0 taxes and never pay for healthcare.

Re: In Colorado, an ambitious new highway policy is not building them

#32

Post by someguydave »

ambyra wrote: post #24
infecto wrote: post #15

Sounds like the Bay Area. We don't like cars but we refuse to build comprehensive transit. To build transit that works you cannot value everyone's opinion equally and have to just make it happen. Some of the worst localized pollution I have experienced in my life was while living in the Bay Area with the massive traffic jams.

Try a motorcycle! The laws for lane splitting are the best in the country. You could probably fit 6 motorcycles in the space of one car.

Motorcyles have a roughly 30 times higher fatality rate per mile driven compared to cars

Re: In Colorado, an ambitious new highway policy is not building them

#33

Post by Drakim »

mdorazio wrote: post #25
duxup wrote: post #17

I'd rather see efforts to make mass transit more attractive and encourage its use in a POSITIVE way, rather than using a stick of clogging the roads and punishing people into using mass transit. Win the market, don't just quash what you don't like. I can imagine this easily being responded to negatively in the end and the political response is to give in and the pendulum swings wildly in the other direction. In the e…

How do you propose doing that, though? Mass transit almost everywhere runs at a significant loss already and if we're talking buses then there's a significant driver shortage. In the US the distances and routes required outside of dense urban centers also pretty much necessitate a huge increase in transit time compared to driving, making the whole thing a bad value for people who can afford a car.

Personally I feel it's fine for them to operate at a loss, it's a public service, akin to the fire department or library. The amount of good it does society to get cars off the road is staggering.

The lack of bus drivers simply comes down to an unwillingness to pay more. It's the exact same problem with teachers, where the wage is extremely low but they would rather just have a shortage rather than paying more.

Re: In Colorado, an ambitious new highway policy is not building them

#34

Post by mc32 »

someguydave wrote: post #6

I am skeptical that all the tradeoffs are being considered here, it sounds like a recipe for permanent bad traffic justified with dubious moralizing. By the way, she is the daughter of Jack Lew who was President Obama’a Chief of Staff.

Bad traffic is bad for industry/business. Boeing threatened to move some manufacturing out of the Seattle because they'd have parts delivery delays due to traffic from Everett to Renton. Eventually I think they moved some to SC, but not a lot because the WSDOT gave in and widened some road infra.

Re: In Colorado, an ambitious new highway policy is not building them

#35

Post by MobiusHorizons »

theodorejb wrote: post #11
aqme28 wrote: post #3

> If every car on the road were battery-powered and those batteries were charged entirely by renewable energy, transportation emissions would be close to zero. This is entirely false. I'm surprised to see it in the NYTimes. They're only 0 when you factor out the cost of building the car and maintaining the highway, and those are still pretty high

Not to mention greater wear on the road and increased particle emissions from brakes and tires due to heavy batteries in EVs. https://nypost.com/2024/03/05/business/evs-release-more-toxi...

EVs don’t actually use their brakes that much due to regenerative braking being the dominant mode. They are certainly heavier, though, which affects road and tire wear.

Re: In Colorado, an ambitious new highway policy is not building them

#36

Post by ambyra »

infecto wrote: post #15

Sounds like the Bay Area. We don't like cars but we refuse to build comprehensive transit. To build transit that works you cannot value everyone's opinion equally and have to just make it happen. Some of the worst localized pollution I have experienced in my life was while living in the Bay Area with the massive traffic jams.

Here's a nice study: https://newatlas.com/motorcycles-reduce-congestion/21420/

They say 10% of traffic being replaced by motorcycles reduces congestion by 40%. California has pretty good weather so it's probably feasible to commute by motorbike almost every day.

Re: In Colorado, an ambitious new highway policy is not building them

#37

Post by someguydave »

strken wrote: post #29
duxup wrote: post #17

I'd rather see efforts to make mass transit more attractive and encourage its use in a POSITIVE way, rather than using a stick of clogging the roads and punishing people into using mass transit. Win the market, don't just quash what you don't like. I can imagine this easily being responded to negatively in the end and the political response is to give in and the pendulum swings wildly in the other direction. In the e…

Hang on, this isn't taking anything away from drivers at all - the roads aren't suddenly going away or falling into ruin, they're just not getting enlarged. It's not much of a stick and nor is it a punishment, any more than building a road without bike lanes is a punishment for cyclists.

It is punishment if you are intentionally engineering the roads to cost people more time using them.

Re: In Colorado, an ambitious new highway policy is not building them

#38

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

thrillgore wrote: post #10
aqme28 wrote: post #3

> If every car on the road were battery-powered and those batteries were charged entirely by renewable energy, transportation emissions would be close to zero. This is entirely false. I'm surprised to see it in the NYTimes. They're only 0 when you factor out the cost of building the car and maintaining the highway, and those are still pretty high

There are still emissions from cars: rubber from the tires, steel, aluminum, and other metals from part wear...

Also, roads and tires are made out of the goopy parts of oil, so their manufacture impacts the price of the fuel parts of oil. Your EV's roads and tires make it cheaper for others to not buy an EV.

We should be making both out of steel instead.

Re: In Colorado, an ambitious new highway policy is not building them

#39

Post by lofatdairy »

throwaway22032 wrote: post #5

"Induced demand" as a reason not to do something is illogical. The Green Revolution increasing crop yields induced demand for humans. Metro systems existing and building new lines induce demand, in some cases resulting in overcrowding. Building housing and offices induce demand in a location. There is nothing wrong with improving a thing so that more people are able to do that thing. I can understand concern about em…

I didn't see anyone saying induced demand in and of itself is the thing being avoided, just that induced demand for driving caused by highway construction is being avoided, as this implies that traffic won't be alleviated by increased capacity.

Induced demand can be positive, yeah, but I think induced demand is more complicated. It concerns a positive feedback loop phenomena that leads to the saturation of a system beyond its intended capacity. Like more people taking the metro is good, but more people taking it than it can handle can degrade their impression if it.

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