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How we can reduce traffic congestion

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Re: How we can reduce traffic congestion

#251

Post by inigyou »

Ntrails wrote: post #225
gampleman wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if a very small tax for RTO (perhaps with exemptions for manual jobs) would do the trick? I think it would help with making companies handle that externality.

> I think it would help with making companies handle that externality. This is backwards, companies do not choose where employees live. Employees do. That they choose to live with long and unpleasant commutes (typically in exchange for more space, cheaper housing etc) is in general terms on them not the company. I'll allow that the rowback of wfh from a previously fully remote job is on the company - but certainly ou…

Companies as a collective also choose the geographical distributions of offices and housing and the price of each.

Re: How we can reduce traffic congestion

#252

Post by inigyou »

ChadNauseam wrote: post #161
trymas wrote: post #156

How we can reduce traffic congestion? 1. Extensive support of public transport: metro, tram, dedicated bus routes (separate from car traffic), dedicated paths for bicycles. 2. ... maybe whatever is this ... UPDATE: here's a good graph - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_transport#/media/File:P... , i.e. car traffic is often congested because of inherent low passenger bandwith. If google wants to manage traffic as…

We definitely need more metro, trams, bus routes, and bike paths. I especially want the latter because I bike to and from work every day. However, I have to wonder about the cost of these projects. In SF, we recently spent $346 million on the Van Ness Improvement Project, which added 2 miles of bus lanes. I just can't see how that's a good use of funds. If someone gave me $346 million and told me to improve society,…

This feels like an instance of America being unable to build things due to corruption.

Two miles of any lane shouldn't cost over a hundred million dollars per mile. Repainting a lane should be vastly less and even if they're building a new flyover just for buses it shouldn't cost that much. Something is happening there. It is not getting built in an effective way.

Re: How we can reduce traffic congestion

#253

Post by inigyou »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #186
rob74 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes - when I read "both navigation users and non-users share the advantages of decongesting targeted segments", I wondered how long these advantages would last. It's widely accepted that less congestion will encourage people to travel by car more, which will soon eat up the gains ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand#Definitions )

> It's widely accepted that less congestion will encourage people to travel by car more, which will soon eat up the gains This is not only not widely accepted but extremely misleading. The nature of "induced demand" is really that congestion suppresses demand. Which behaves in an entirely different way than the name implies. If demand was being induced then all attempts to relieve congestion would be permanently impo…

There's a related paradox - I don't remember the name - that the speed of traffic is determined by the speed of public transit. Cities with less car congestion probably have faster public transit.

Re: How we can reduce traffic congestion

#254

Post by rchard2scout »

alfiedotwtf wrote: post #39
theoreticalmal wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a lot of difficulty thinking those changes alone would solve congestion. I’m especially thinking is ski traffic along I70 from Denver to the mountains. The issue is just volume of passenger vehicles, and there are no other realistic routes

Just drive anywhere with more than usual density in traffic and you’ll find trucks in the fast lane when they stop and start create gaps in the fast lane where no traffic can go. If you took out trucks altogether during peak hours you wouldn’t have these slow bubbles of traffic at the worst times.. Edit: let’s think of this from a pure scientific point of view - if you had 3 lanes and split traffic across them based…

Contrary to this, if you only have two lanes available, and trucks aren't allowed to overtake, you'll eventually end up with a long train of trucks without any gaps, and it'll become impossible to merge onto the highway from an on-ramp.

Re: How we can reduce traffic congestion

#255

Post by inigyou »

throw0101a wrote: post #227
SilverElfin wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have kids? I feel like apartment living as a family is worse than a spacious single family home and yard and all that. I suspect that preference holds true for most people.

> I feel like apartment living as a family is worse than a spacious single family home and yard and all that. I suspect that preference holds true for most people. And families do it in NYC, and Hong Kong, and Germany, and Spain (AFAICT, 65%), and…

They manage, but it's not a good experience. The apartments are usually too small for families and the ones that are big enough are too expensive. This is solvable, but has not been solved.

Think about having to share a bedroom with your child, and when they're old enough to need their own one, putting up a partition wall and having each be less than half the size of a normal bedroom, very cramped. And you don't get a living room. (If you did have a living room, now it's your bedroom while the child gets the actual bedroom)

Re: How we can reduce traffic congestion

#256

Post by inigyou »

asdff wrote: post #132
7jjjjjjj wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most regressive tax imaginable is a flat fee for every person with no consideration of income. That is exactly the effect of requiring everyone to own a car.

It isn’t a flat fee per se, if only because wealthier people are too prideful. Rich man buys a 100k mercedes. Poor man buys that mercedes 15 or 20 years later for 3k. It still does what it did when it cost 100k.

It's a 3k tax, the other 97k wasn't part of the tax.

Used car prices are more like 10k now anyway. Used Mercedes, probably 40k.

Re: How we can reduce traffic congestion

#257

Post by wolrah »

quantumwannabe wrote: post #240
trymas wrote: post #156

How we can reduce traffic congestion? 1. Extensive support of public transport: metro, tram, dedicated bus routes (separate from car traffic), dedicated paths for bicycles. 2. ... maybe whatever is this ... UPDATE: here's a good graph - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_transport#/media/File:P... , i.e. car traffic is often congested because of inherent low passenger bandwith. If google wants to manage traffic as…

If you believe that adding lanes doesn't reduce congestion, then you must also believe that adding transit doesn't reduce congestion.

> If you believe that adding lanes doesn't reduce congestion, then you must also believe that adding transit doesn't reduce congestion.

The problem with road congestion is the number of personal vehicles inefficiently carrying 1-2 people while taking up a lot of space on the road.

In any situation where the roads would be clogged with personal vehicles an effective transit network will be carrying dozens or even hundreds of people per vehicle in vehicles that may not even be sharing the same lanes and thus can't contribute to road congestion.

Re: How we can reduce traffic congestion

#258

Post by chlorion »

zip1234 wrote: post #24

Congestion can be solved by charging more for driving. Even a modest amount would start affecting how much people drive. The money could be used for better roads and improving other transit options that aren't so space-inefficient. That said, this would likely be unpopular to implement until the effects were visible. See congestion pricing in NYC as an example.

Yeah I definitely need driving to be more expensive. That's a great idea!

Re: How we can reduce traffic congestion

#259

Post by inigyou »

PeterStuer wrote: post #242

Next step? Maps Pro subscription 'blue' plan will guide you through the fastest routes, Maps Free users will be routed on the fast 'green' plan, but might ocasionally be diverted to other routes to 'balance' (free up blue routes') traffic under extreme congestion conditions. Yep, the virtual universal fast toll road option.

That's actually such a good idea I might have to apply to Y Combinator.

Re: How we can reduce traffic congestion

#260

Post by nxm »

zarzavat wrote: post #231
simondotau wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People will generally choose whichever mode of transport is most convenient and cost-effective, based on how they rationally (or irrationally) weigh various factors. If every road were free of traffic, every destination had unlimited parking at the door, everyone already owned a car, and driving carried no direct or indirect costs, almost everyone would drive everywhere. The only way to shift people onto public trans…

> If every road were free of traffic, every destination had unlimited parking at the door, everyone already owned a car, and driving carried no direct or indirect costs, almost everyone would drive everywhere. What kind of nonsense is this? People take public transport it's better than driving. You don't need to expend mental cycles focusing on the road, you can do something else while you're on the go: chat to frien…

It's better in some use cases, but not all (e.g. traveling to the country)
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