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How we can reduce traffic congestion

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Re: How we can reduce traffic congestion

#341

Post by queenkjuul »

rwyinuse wrote: post #222
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…

Increasing ownership and fuel costs is wrong, as it makes life more difficult also for people living in areas where public transport is not feasible.

Then surely you have no issue with increasing municipal taxes on drivers where there is public transit?

Re: How we can reduce traffic congestion

#342

Post by ryan_lane »

throw0101a wrote: post #236
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…

> Take the revenue generated from congestion pricing, and put it into public transportation. Public transportation is often not viable for the car-centric design of many American communities. The above is necessarily to do, but development probably also needs to also change to pre-WW2 designs: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcar_suburb * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWsGBRdK2N0 See also Dutch suburbs: * http…

We're talking about cities that would benefit from congestion pricing. If there's enough traffic to need congestion pricing, then it could immediately benefit from public transit.

I don't understand why folks always take this as an all or nothing thing. We don't need to redesign the suburbs. They're the ones causing the congestion, and they're also the ones benefiting from free roads. Taxing them to cover the their own externalities makes sense. If public transit is available and better than driving cars, the suburbs will either support them via redesign, or they'll pay the tax for the luxury of driving a car into a city they don't live in.

Re: How we can reduce traffic congestion

#343

Post by denkmoon »

SilverElfin wrote: post #94
slyall wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well just live somewhere that is so lacking in density there is no congestion. Or a small town that is surrounded by farms. Just avoid suburban housing as far as the eye can see with a limited number of roads everyone gets funneled on to.

I’ve done that and those areas change over time. A town becomes more like a small city. A small city becomes more dense. Etc. Then all the urbanists move the goal posts and ask why you didn’t live somewhere else.

God forbid society grows around you. How dare all those productive aspiring people build things near you. Did they not know you had exclusive right of refusal on nearby development?

Re: How we can reduce traffic congestion

#344

Post by thaumasiotes »

inigyou wrote: post #286
thaumasiotes wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. Also Shanghai. But that isn't an ideal scenario for public transit regardless of whether somebody tries to describe it that way. Very frequent stops ("station within 5 minutes walk") mean that your journey through the subway system will take a very, very long time. Driving can easily cut that time in half.

And now we return to the idea of big tall buildings so that things are close together.

You're right; if only someone in Shanghai had thought of building skyscrapers.

Wait.

Re: How we can reduce traffic congestion

#345

Post by simondotau »

ryandrake wrote: post #321
alistairSH wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO, it's not so much "make driving worse" (ie actively make roads worse, etc). Instead, it's actively make transit better be reallocating road funds... Add buses or light rail or dedicated/separated bike lanes instead of brainlessly adding traffic lanes. Every bike added to that bike lane is one less car (very roughly). Additionally, tax car infrastructure appropriately. Free road-side parking is not an entitlement.…

You said it's not to make driving worse, but then listed multiple examples of making driving worse: - reallocating road funds (away from driving and toward busses/rail/bikes) - tax car infrastructure appropriately, presumably higher - reduce parking minimums Not that I'm against these, but they will surely make driving worse.

That is wrong on multiple dimensions.

What makes driving worse is the presence of more cars. This can be partially mitigated by piling money into road infrastructure, but infrastructure is a band-aid on a problem created by more people choosing to drive.

What makes driving better is the presence of fewer cars. There's really only one way to reduce the number of cars on the road: build good alternatives to driving. If you love driving, you should be the strongest champion of public transport investment.

Re: How we can reduce traffic congestion

#346

Post by adrianN »

ErroneousBosh wrote: post #333
adrianN wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting! Nevertheless I believe it is true that bike and pedestrian paths are much cheaper to construct and maintain than roads for cars and trucks.

Probably. How do you plan on getting food?

Most roads are not used for delivering goods, so if we'd just reduce private car use that would already be a great improvement. If you want to go even further, rail has a lot of potential left.

Re: How we can reduce traffic congestion

#347

Post by queenkjuul »

HEmanZ wrote: post #298
rwyinuse wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if I want my own garden and not monoculture lawn? What if I want my children to be able to walk in nature near their home? Neither is possible in a densely built city where there are only apartments. Then there are all the social problems, bad neighbours that become more common in densely built areas. I don't want to deal with that. Suburbs are popular because they provide a superior quality of life for many peo…

[flagged]

They could have everything they want here in my neighborhood of Chicago: easy access to nature, room for a garden. Suburban Americans love to pretend that "cul de sac" and "Manhattan" are the only two types of place

Re: How we can reduce traffic congestion

#348

Post by queenkjuul »

inigyou wrote: post #252
ChadNauseam wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Can almost guarantee that project involved much more that just bus lanes. I don't believe even California can spend that much on paint.

(And it did, the entire roadway, sewer, and water mains were replaced, traffic signals were replaced, etc: https://www.sfcta.org/projects/van-ness-improvement-project)

Re: How we can reduce traffic congestion

#349

Post by ErroneousBosh »

adrianN wrote: post #346
ErroneousBosh wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably. How do you plan on getting food?

Most roads are not used for delivering goods, so if we'd just reduce private car use that would already be a great improvement. If you want to go even further, rail has a lot of potential left.

Interesting, can you give an example of why you think that?

How does food get to the shop at the end of your street?

Re: How we can reduce traffic congestion

#350

Post by alistairSH »

queenkjuul wrote: post #340
ryandrake wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You said it's not to make driving worse, but then listed multiple examples of making driving worse: - reallocating road funds (away from driving and toward busses/rail/bikes) - tax car infrastructure appropriately, presumably higher - reduce parking minimums Not that I'm against these, but they will surely make driving worse.

They keep driving how it is, and make other things better relatively. Reducing parking minimums doesn't remove existing parking, it prevents building more. Building bike lanes doesn't usually mean reducing car capacity. Adding more lanes to already huge highways doesn't actually improve driving, so redirecting that money to rail does not make driving worse, in fact it stands to make it better by getting more people o…

Removing parking minimums doesn't even prevent more parking - it only lets the market balance supply/demand for parking. The current system in most of the US requires worst-case/max-demand parking lots, so the only time a shopping center's lot is full is a few peak hours on the weekend and Christmas season. The rest of the year, it's mostly empty.

Here's a good summary of one case of a small town dealing with absurd parking regulations... https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017-11-22-how-parking-m...

And just to add my own recent anecdote... we visited southern Italy (Puglia) last month. Most of the towns have zero traffic* zones (ZTL zones) in the historic centers. In all of them, there were either ample metered street spots just outside the ZTL or small pay lots a short walk away. As far as I could tell, as a tourist, it worked well - the downtowns were vibrant with lots of foot traffic.

* ZTLs allow local traffic and handicapped transport within certain guidelines.

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