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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

#131

Post by someguydave »

troyvit wrote: post #103
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.

> To build transit that works you cannot value everyone's opinion equally and have to just make it happen. Yep.[1] The governor is _trying_ to build comprehensive transit in Colorado[2], but between an incompetent transportation district and the difficulties of building public transit infrastructure to serve our metastatic urban sprawl makes public transit difficult to fund over cars.[3] Our state metro areas just re…

The tax haul from a house is almost certainly higher than food grown on a semi-arid steppe like Colorado

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

#132

Post by adolph »

mc32 wrote: post #110
adolph wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's weird on Boeing part. The Amtrak Cascades 518 goes from Everett (Tukwila) to Renton daily. Surely Boeing should do their part, show a good example for the community and take public transportation.

It wasn't for people but parts & subassemblies deliveries. They'd get tied up in the traffic.

Trains are capable of carrying “parts & subassemblies.” The question why Boeing hates public transportation so much still stands.

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

#133

Post by the_snooze »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #130
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, 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. Impossible. Mass transit, walking, and non motorized bicycling do not mesh with individual motorized traffic. It’s just physics. The classic individualist vs collectivist…

Yeah, cars are a tragedy of the commons. They're great if you're the only person on the road: you can get to anywhere you want on your own schedule. But then everyone rationally chooses to drive, which makes it a pretty crummy way to get around. Not to mention all the externalities and inefficiencies involved.

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

#134

Post by xp84 »

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…

Main issue is that traffic ‘misery’ (my term) is the constant. There is a maximum amount of gridlockedness before people naturally stop bothering to think they should begin using a given road (say, by moving farther out into the suburbs, or moving into some far suburb from outside the metro to take a job in the city). You can add 3 more lanes, and right away, more people believe they can make that lifestyle change, and we end up in a couple months right back where we started, with the same gridlock, but an increase in both miles driven and human time wasted, which most people would agree are metrics we don’t want to increase. People should live near where they work, or work near where they live. Let the market fix things — if roads are gridlocked and people can’t afford to live near, the jobs will need to move or to pay more.

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

#135

Post by tromp »

yencabulator wrote: post #112
tromp wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The U.S. is a democracy, albeit a deficient one rather than a working one [1]. At least is the least deficient one amongst those. [1] https://www.democracymatrix.com/ranking

No, that would be Uruguay. And for context, the ranking says USA is the 36th most democratic country, which is pretty darn low if you ask me.

Darn; overlooked that one hiding in the middle of all these Working Democracies.

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

#136

Post by troyvit »

someguydave wrote: post #131
troyvit wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To build transit that works you cannot value everyone's opinion equally and have to just make it happen. Yep.[1] The governor is _trying_ to build comprehensive transit in Colorado[2], but between an incompetent transportation district and the difficulties of building public transit infrastructure to serve our metastatic urban sprawl makes public transit difficult to fund over cars.[3] Our state metro areas just re…

The tax haul from a house is almost certainly higher than food grown on a semi-arid steppe like Colorado

Totally, which is why Colorado is producing less and less food. I mean towns sprouted up where people settled and people settled to grow food, so this has been happening in Colorado since farming began here. As a result the land left for farming is getting worse and worse. The good spots have all been paved.

But say we have to keep that, my next question is, what's the tax haul for a house compared to an apartment complex? Cities out here will choose the former as much as they can, increasing sprawl, because "quality of life."

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

#137

Post by s1artibartfast »

troyvit wrote: post #136
someguydave wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tax haul from a house is almost certainly higher than food grown on a semi-arid steppe like Colorado

Totally, which is why Colorado is producing less and less food. I mean towns sprouted up where people settled and people settled to grow food, so this has been happening in Colorado since farming began here. As a result the land left for farming is getting worse and worse. The good spots have all been paved. But say we have to keep that, my next question is, what's the tax haul for a house compared to an apartment co…

Tax haul for 10 houses are better than a 10 unit complex. The people also want houses opposed to apartments (hence the higher price).

This seems to be an ideological conflict where some people are trying to force everyone else into options they dont want- why?

The solution seems simple. relax zoning where it exists and let people who want to live in tiny urban apartments do so, and let people who want to live in suburban houses do so too.

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

#138

Post by balfirevic »

appplication wrote: post #96
someguydave wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Agree, a motorcycle is a complete nonstarter for this reason. It’s just not responsible for anyone with a family.

Would you say the same thing for bicycles, in places without dedicated bicycle lanes?

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

#139

Post by lofatdairy »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #63
lofatdairy wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

Induced demand isn't necessarily complicated. The simple answer is transaction costs. If people are willing to spend an hour in traffic to go to the beach, you are basically stuck with that travel time. You can only increase the number of people that end up going.

I meant complicated as in not necessarily good/bad. I agree it's not complicated in the general sense that it's an intrinsic part of supply and demand.

That said it's definitely more complicated in how to article is discussing it. The article is clearly talking about a Braess's Paradox-like situation where an individual's optimal decision incentivized by changes in the system is worse for more participants than the previous system, due to anticipatory and dynamic effects. This is inherently more complicated to measure and predict.

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

#140

Post by sotix »

someguydave wrote: post #32
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.

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

Motorcycles are not safe, and certainly not safer than cars. However, you can reduce the extreme fatality rate significantly if you cut out drunk riding and even more so if you have more than six months of experience and wear all the gear all the time. It’s a risky activity that attracts people that don’t make smart decisions. When I got my license, the five others in my class all owned a motorcycle and rode them for a year without a license or training.

It’s a weird activity that’s simultaneously very unsafe due to car drivers but also due to the average rider themselves.

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