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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

#381

Post by ohmyiv »

Maarten88 wrote: post #336
ericmay wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s hard to talk about the topic at very high level but for many American cities like Columbus where I live the answer lies at least partially converting surface parking lots in downtown areas into economically productive assets like housing or businesses which are also not extractive to the local economy. This density makes it easier to walk and bike as well. Many cities, including Columbus, are expanding bus rapid…

> the bus is a strictly worse version of the car in these kinds of cities You can change that by giving them their own lane so they don't get stuck in traffic with the cars, let them go where cars may not go, give priority at traffic lights etc. That is what they do where I live.

A city next to me (L.A. area) has some dedicated bus lanes and bike lanes. Unfortunately, they dont have one of the other benefits that you mention, like banning cars in some areas. There are also connections to the train to go farther, but the buses are still mostly empty except for students and laborers who live outside the city. The buses themselves are typically faster and decent, as I ride them a lot. Meanwhile, the other traffic lanes are jam packed during rush hours. It is the L.A. area, so there's just a ton of people/drivers anyway.

The last time I went through there driving, it took almost 20 mins to go 2-3 miles due to traffic (and stop lights), obviously during rush hour. The buses were still nearly empty (I wished I didnt have to drive that day). At a non-rush hour time, it takes me maybe 20 mins for my whole trip home which is about 9 miles.

My point, I guess, is it's not always just having a free bus lane. There are a lot of people that need convincing to take buses and alternative transportation. A few of my coworkers wish they could take the bus/train, but having kids in school and other things make it a bit harder for them.

Maybe one day...

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

#382

Post by brailsafe »

joe_the_user wrote: post #261
languagehacker wrote: post #51

I just read Paved Paradise as well as The High Cost of Free Parking. This seems like the current gradual trend towards reversing the hidden subsidy for drivers, first by giving them less affordances at remarkably low prices or for free. A few folks in the comments have mentioned a couple of times that it doesn't make sense to make a policy like this without supporting transit. I believe the argument would be that not…

I believe the argument would be that not creating induced demand will provide market effects to encourage the use of transit, which would then create greater demand for improved transit. How does demand for public transit produce it? I mean public calls for more transit have been loud for many years and US politicians have taken that as opportunity to tax more and produce garbage transit construction project that enr…

> How does demand for public transit produce it?

Existing transit lines get pushed to their capacity, or reinvestment gradually helps snowball demand

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

#383

Post by tomtheelder »

balfirevic wrote: post #138
appplication wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Absolutely, but that’s not a problem intrinsic to bicycles like it is to motorcycles, so I don’t think this comparison is meaningful.

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

#384

Post by angmarsbane »

ohmyiv wrote: post #381
Maarten88 wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the bus is a strictly worse version of the car in these kinds of cities You can change that by giving them their own lane so they don't get stuck in traffic with the cars, let them go where cars may not go, give priority at traffic lights etc. That is what they do where I live.

A city next to me (L.A. area) has some dedicated bus lanes and bike lanes. Unfortunately, they dont have one of the other benefits that you mention, like banning cars in some areas. There are also connections to the train to go farther, but the buses are still mostly empty except for students and laborers who live outside the city. The buses themselves are typically faster and decent, as I ride them a lot. Meanwhile,…

Culver City?

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

#385

Post by mtalantikite »

mrangle wrote: post #378

Hardly anyone commenting, let alone policymakers with lifelong privilege and who are career incentivized to stay within a certain perspective, has significant if any experience taking the bus. I took the urban bus to and from school for years: at least 1.5 hours each way. Often two, with at least one transfer. Outside of the city center, reliance on buses is a massive poverty tax in terms of reduced quality of life.…

As someone who has never had a license and admittedly doesn’t know much about car costs, aren’t they expensive? Like how much is a car payment plus insurance every month? And then gas and maintenance? It seems like requiring car ownership to survive is also not great.

But yeah I’m sorry your commute was so bad. No one should need to spend two hours on a bus commuting to school, that sounds like a failure of local public transit.

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

#386

Post by AnthonyMouse »

pooper wrote: post #352
ericmay wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will change the habits of some but it’s not enough. We should continue to build out bus infrastructure and enhance bus rapid transit especially in the ways you mention, but those efforts won’t result in the large change we need to shift away from vehicle-based infrastructure.

> their own lane so they don't get stuck in traffic with the cars, let them go where cars may not go, give priority at traffic lights etc I feel like we are in agreement. It might not be enough but it is necessary. Problem is we don't even have enough political capital to enforce this. Bill deBalsio the ex mayor of New York came on a radio show and said (paraphrasing) he can't order cops to ticket cars and trucks tha…

> Problem is we don't even have enough political capital to enforce this.

The problem is that you're proposing a new problem rather than a solution.

Suppose there are two car lanes and they're somewhat congested. You suggest converting one to a bus lane to encourage people to take the bus. The result is to make the remaining car lane disproportionately more congested, because the bus lane gets 10% of people to take the bus and the other car lane is now 105% over capacity instead of 15% over capacity.

Your theory is that this will cause enough people to take the bus to make this problem go away, but that theory only works if it doesn't. If people taking the bus relieves the congestion then the car lane is uncongested and there is no more reason to take the bus.

So let the car lane be interminably congested, you say. Force people to take the bus. Only the bus doesn't service all destinations, or doesn't run there often enough (because if it did it would be empty), so the bus is no option for those people no matter how bad the car traffic gets. At which point they're prepared to boil you alive for making the traffic worse without giving them any viable alternative to it.

You need to make their lives better, not worse, or you can't win.

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

#387

Post by lazyasciiart »

rufus_foreman wrote: post #203
currymj wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i think the point of "induced demand" is that you sometimes can't really fix -- specifically -- traffic or parking congestion problems by building more. if you widen the roads, in many cases it won't make your commute any quicker. if you add more parking spots downtown, more people will drive downtown. it's not that there's no benefit to the wider road or parking spots, just that the benefit people really care about…

>> if you add more parking spots downtown, more people will drive downtown But that's good if you wan't more people to drive downtown, isn't it? What am I missing here?

That the roads were added based on a request to make it quicker for existing commuters, not to get more commuters there in the same amount of time. And that if you’d used that time, space and money for a dedicated bus lane, a train, a tram or whatever, you might have done better on both adding to the number of people downtown and making it quicker to get there.

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

#388

Post by ColonelPhantom »

201984 wrote: post #357
bobthepanda wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buses and trains are more space efficient than cars because 1. People can stand in them, increasing vehicle density and 2. A smaller proportion of the vehicle is dedicated to the engine, fuel tank, etc. There’s also bicycles, e-bikes and such which have higher density as well. Most American trips are not actually that far.

However, busses and trains usually only run every 10-20 minutes compared to a road which is going constantly. I can easily see cars on roads having higher throughput.

It is very easy to scale them as demand increases. There is a train to the next city over where I live in the Netherlands (both around 150k) around 10x per hour on weekdays. And that's on a single, dual track with a mix of 3 direct (intercity) trains and 2 slow trains that have 3 stops inbetween.

The intercity trains, when in a maximum length 6+6 car configuration of 2-floor trains, can carry over 1200 (sitting!) passengers. That's as much as a single lane of road can carry in half an hour with average car occupancy (low). So running such a train every 15 minutes should give a similar capacity to a free-flowing road with 2 lanes, while needing less room for infrastructure. Plus people mostly go to the station by foot, bike or bus rather than car, which is also nice capacity-wise and pollution-wise.

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

#389

Post by FredPret »

mtalantikite wrote: post #385
mrangle wrote: post #378

Hardly anyone commenting, let alone policymakers with lifelong privilege and who are career incentivized to stay within a certain perspective, has significant if any experience taking the bus. I took the urban bus to and from school for years: at least 1.5 hours each way. Often two, with at least one transfer. Outside of the city center, reliance on buses is a massive poverty tax in terms of reduced quality of life.…

As someone who has never had a license and admittedly doesn’t know much about car costs, aren’t they expensive? Like how much is a car payment plus insurance every month? And then gas and maintenance? It seems like requiring car ownership to survive is also not great. But yeah I’m sorry your commute was so bad. No one should need to spend two hours on a bus commuting to school, that sounds like a failure of local pub…

I also took transit for 1.5 hours each way when I moved to Toronto, Canada. My monthly transit cost + Ubers was around $400-1000 (I had to take two systems and frequently took Ubers when the bus was cancelled or delayed).

My first car cost about $750 all-in, not counting equity in the car. My commute dropped from 3 hours to less than 1 hour, even in the notorious Toronto traffic. Suddenly I could go to Costco, and my grocery bill dropped by half, from around $800 to around $400.

I got a good deal both buying and selling, and on the subsequent car, so my true cost was less than the monthly payment.

Public transit makes sense in very dense areas. Everywhere else it’s an expensive boondoggle and the working class is better off driving old clunkers than the damn bus.

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

#390

Post by dogbait »

mtalantikite wrote: post #385
mrangle wrote: post #378

Hardly anyone commenting, let alone policymakers with lifelong privilege and who are career incentivized to stay within a certain perspective, has significant if any experience taking the bus. I took the urban bus to and from school for years: at least 1.5 hours each way. Often two, with at least one transfer. Outside of the city center, reliance on buses is a massive poverty tax in terms of reduced quality of life.…

As someone who has never had a license and admittedly doesn’t know much about car costs, aren’t they expensive? Like how much is a car payment plus insurance every month? And then gas and maintenance? It seems like requiring car ownership to survive is also not great. But yeah I’m sorry your commute was so bad. No one should need to spend two hours on a bus commuting to school, that sounds like a failure of local pub…

Expensive. Here in North Virginia (just outside of DC) it was $26k OTD for a 2021 Camry LE. We pay $223/mo in car insurance for my wife and I and $1k/yr in property tax for the car.

Both held a license for 20+ years, both in our early 40s with no accidents in that time.

Car maintenance cost varies - haven't had to deal with that yet.

Depending on the study you look at it costs an owner $8 876 per year and society about 1/3 of the lifetime cost in supporting the vehicle (in the form of roads, pollution, infrastructure etc.)

I never had a car in London (where public transport is used by all regardless of income and background). Here in the US we have a long way to go before we level up our public transportation system.

That said, Washington DC's Metro is very good indeed. I hope they extend it further and further out.

Sources: https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2022/02/04/lifetime...

https://usa.streetsblog.org/2022/02/09/study-car-ownership-c...

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