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How we can reduce traffic congestion

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Re: How we can reduce traffic congestion

#111

Post by koyote »

rootusrootus wrote: post #104
ryan_lane wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take the revenue generated from congestion pricing, and put it into public transportation. Make public transportation free to use. That would be far more impactful to the folks least able to bear an increase in driving fees. In most of the US, people are forced to own cars because they don't have public transit available, or the available public transit is too infrequent, or there aren't dense enough routes. The reas…

> Why is it fair for public transit riders to have to pay per ride In my city public transit fares only cover something like 10% of the cost. Isn’t that fairly typical? > car owners get to use the infrastructure for free Every place I’ve lived charges a fuel tax to pay for roads.

> In my city public transit fares only cover something like 10% of the cost. Isn’t that fairly typical?

Quite a few areas have their public transit fully funded by users and some even make a substantial profit. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farebox_recovery_ratio)

The US obviously loses out to places like Japan because you have the chicken and egg problem: to make money back you need enough people but for enough people to use public transport you need to invest in it.

> Every place I’ve lived charges a fuel tax to pay for roads.

Which, ironically, often only covers something like 10% of the cost :)

Re: How we can reduce traffic congestion

#114

Post by segfaltnh »

collabs wrote: post #61
antiframe wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best way is to change our communities, even if that takes time and money.

It is difficult for me to admit I'm an idiot but when I was younger and living in an apartment, I loved the idea of a single family home. And now that I'm living in a single family home, I feel like I was wrong all along. Not that I want to go back to the apartment I was in before. Dear lord no but the idea of a mixed use building not too tall only like first floor with high ceilings for business or shops with two or…

I wasted a decade trying to live in single family homes. Now at 40 my wife and I are living in a small city in a condo and couldn't be happier. Neither of us enjoyed the workload of managing a SFH. Dont force yourself to stay if you aren't happy, you'll wish you moved sooner (I do).

Re: How we can reduce traffic congestion

#116

Post by sanex »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #108
thelastgallon wrote: post #97

100% remote unless absolutely required. Professions like doctors, cooks, massage therapists. This will clear 95% of traffic. Start with mandatory remote for all software jobs.

It's estimated that only 37% of jobs can be done remotely, while 72%-86% of US workers rely on cars for commuting. The best solution involves creating a multitude of non-car transportation options, to allow workers to choose the most convenient mode of transport, maximizing potential non-car commuting. Bike/ebike, e-scooter, motorcycle/scooter, golf cart, bus, tram, subway, train, ferry.

I would occasionally go to the office toward the tail end of covid and traffic was essentially non existent. We were well past the big lockdowns and shuttered restaurants at that point but RTO hadn't kicked in. It wouldn't take much to drastically change the traffic landscape.

Re: How we can reduce traffic congestion

#117

Post by jimbob45 »

nradov wrote: post #30
wxw wrote: post #20

> For this study, the Google Maps algorithm was modified to prefer alternative routes with similar travel times and segment types, effectively guiding trips away from the pre-selected congested segments > Over a six month period, we adopted a city-wide switchback (also known as crossover) experimental design, alternating between this treatment and the control (unaltered) routing algorithm over consecutive days to app…

The south SF Bay Area cities of Los Gatos and Monte Sereno have persistent problems with traffic gridlock during summer weekends and holidays due to navigation apps routing drivers off of southbound SR-17 and onto surface streets. It gets so bad that residents literally can't get out of their own driveways and emergency response vehicles can't move. There actually did used to be train service from San Jose to Santa C…

Do you not have shoulder lanes? I ask because I’ve lived places that don’t and I’ve always wondered if you just die if EMS doesn’t have a lane to get to you.

Re: How we can reduce traffic congestion

#118

Post by waterTanuki »

cortesoft wrote: post #33
pedrosuave wrote: post #21

Why cant we have smart stop lights. Nothing more annoying than sitting on a street with nobody coming and a red light for some arbitrary time period that's totally incorrect for the time period I'm currently in

Relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/277/ Most cities have some intelligence on their traffic lights, and they do have traffic sensors to know where cars are waiting. You might not see any cars and are annoyed waiting at the light, but you don’t know what downstream things they are trying to control for. Maybe if they send you through the light, you are going to join some other traffic event that will cause an issue. It c…

I like XKCD but I don't really agree with the underlying premise of this one.

When I was in the Netherlands, one of the global gold standards in terms of urban planning and design, I noticed it wasn't only more pleasant as a pedestrian or cyclist, it was more pleasant as a driver as well. Lights were smart and did not sit on red forever if you were the only one waiting at an intersection.

This comic suggests there's some "invisible, massively complicated" mesh of signal interactions we can never possibly fathom, and therefore wasting precious hours over the course of our lives sitting at an intersection is the most optimal one.

The Dutch have figured this out, why can't North America?

Re: How we can reduce traffic congestion

#119

Post by siren2026 »

It's actually shocking they didn't do this before? Load balancing across multiple similar paths seems to be one of the first thing you would add once you hit some scale?

I love how they congratulate themselves on that article (Google being Google, they still think they are the smartest people in the room). But I'm waiting to see the second or third unknown order effects.

Re: How we can reduce traffic congestion

#120

Post by _vertigo »

bravoetch wrote: post #25
wxw wrote: post #20

> For this study, the Google Maps algorithm was modified to prefer alternative routes with similar travel times and segment types, effectively guiding trips away from the pre-selected congested segments > Over a six month period, we adopted a city-wide switchback (also known as crossover) experimental design, alternating between this treatment and the control (unaltered) routing algorithm over consecutive days to app…

I read the article and didn't see anywhere if they collaborated with city planners, or just ran this on their own. I get the techno-optimism of making traffic 'better' and also it may be concerning if trucks are being routed through neighborhoods where planners didn't build for it.

Do you think Google should get government sign-off on every change to its routing algorithm?
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