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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

#71

Post by ambyra »

jcranmer wrote: post #53
ambyra wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As a passenger in a car, watching motorcyclists zip down at high speed on the lane markers between cars in dense, stop-and-go traffic was incredibly unnerving. I can't see how that's safe.

Everyone sitting in line day in day out, breathing each other's fumes is not healthy either: https://dceg.cancer.gov/news-events/news/2023/ultrafine-poll... The motorcycles also aren't contributing to traffic congestion. The auto industry wants to sell big cars with high profit margins, they don't care about your lung cancer when you're 60 years old.

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

#72

Post by Carrok »

jcranmer wrote: post #53
ambyra wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As a passenger in a car, watching motorcyclists zip down at high speed on the lane markers between cars in dense, stop-and-go traffic was incredibly unnerving. I can't see how that's safe.

It’s not, because they aren’t following the law.

If you follow the lane splitting laws as written, it is actually pretty safe.

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

#73

Post by s1artibartfast »

kentonv wrote: post #45
toomuchtodo wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bad traffic will expand to fill the road you give it (induced demand). You destroy demand instead. https://www.wired.com/2014/06/wuwt-traffic-induced-demand/ https://www.nber.org/papers/w15376

This is quoted a lot but misunderstood. The conclusion people seem to draw from this is that widening the highway didn't help. This is wrong. 4 lanes of bad traffic travelling at 30mph is still creating twice the value of 2 lanes of bad traffic travelling at 30mph. With the 2-lane highway you were just forcing half the people to divert to other roads or to give up on their plans entirely. With 4 lanes you're serving…

Nobody complains about induced demand when a hospital can operates on twice as many patients at a time.

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

#74

Post by nullindividual »

someguydave wrote: post #62
nullindividual wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are driven by the cattle prod. If the government wants to reduce something, it needs to be more painful to acquire or use, i.e. sin taxes. It's worked on cigarettes, alcohol, soda, etc. to varying degrees. The government would likely have a very big uphill battle to out-market the automobile industry given a large segment of the population distrusts or dislikes the government. I ultimately agree with the appro…

Hurting people to teach them your morality certainly has some interesting historical analogies

This is not an argument worth having as it can be extended to any law written, up to and including laws against murder.

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

#75

Post by itishappy »

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…

> I'd rather see efforts to make mass transit more attractive and encourage its use in a POSITIVE way

Where do you think the money is going?

> Within a year of the rule’s adoption in 2021, Colorado’s Department of Transportation, or CDOT, had canceled two major highway expansions, including Interstate 25, and shifted $100 million to transit projects. In 2022, a regional planning body in Denver reallocated $900 million from highway expansions to so-called multimodal projects, including faster buses and better bike lanes.

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

#76

Post by nullindividual »

adolph wrote: post #67
nullindividual wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are driven by the cattle prod. If the government wants to reduce something, it needs to be more painful to acquire or use, i.e. sin taxes. It's worked on cigarettes, alcohol, soda, etc. to varying degrees. The government would likely have a very big uphill battle to out-market the automobile industry given a large segment of the population distrusts or dislikes the government. I ultimately agree with the appro…

> If the government wants to reduce something, it needs to be more painful to acquire or use. . . > given a large segment of the population distrusts or dislikes the government. I have a notion the former is related to the latter and might even be a downhill spiral.

People may use sin taxes or similar as an outward excuse, but I doubt rational individuals want to overthrow the government because they are paying an extra 25 cents for soda or haven't had their wetlands paved over for additional parking spaces.

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

#77

Post by someguydave »

turnsout wrote: post #31
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.

Punishing people into having correct desires is the role of government?

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

#78

Post by duxup »

nullindividual wrote: post #48
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…

People are driven by the cattle prod. If the government wants to reduce something, it needs to be more painful to acquire or use, i.e. sin taxes. It's worked on cigarettes, alcohol, soda, etc. to varying degrees. The government would likely have a very big uphill battle to out-market the automobile industry given a large segment of the population distrusts or dislikes the government. I ultimately agree with the appro…

And people can make the government change policy.

I don't think the prod that is in the people's hands is a good idea here.

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

#79

Post by adolph »

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.

> the roads aren't suddenly going away or falling into ruin, they're just not getting enlarged.

This is also great for owners of current housing since the road network will not be enlarged to accomodate large new housing developments. Win-win.

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

#80

Post by light_hue_1 »

kentonv wrote: post #45
toomuchtodo wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bad traffic will expand to fill the road you give it (induced demand). You destroy demand instead. https://www.wired.com/2014/06/wuwt-traffic-induced-demand/ https://www.nber.org/papers/w15376

This is quoted a lot but misunderstood. The conclusion people seem to draw from this is that widening the highway didn't help. This is wrong. 4 lanes of bad traffic travelling at 30mph is still creating twice the value of 2 lanes of bad traffic travelling at 30mph. With the 2-lane highway you were just forcing half the people to divert to other roads or to give up on their plans entirely. With 4 lanes you're serving…

If you ask people: would you vote for bonds for a highway expansion that will not make your commute better, but will add a lot more cars to the road, they will overwhelmingly say no.

There is only one reason why the public agrees to highway construction: the idea that their commute will get better. But it won't after a few years.

The highway will always be full! That's induced demand. If you have a highway to a desirable destination people will build out along it until it's full. You can expand that highway as much as you want, it will always be full after a few years.

This isn't a solution. It's just a way to design horrible cities that punish drivers with stressful, unproductive, and long commutes.

You cannot win by adding highways. You can only win by not playing that game.

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