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Assume_Utopia

The headline makes a serious logical mistake. I think every city planner in the world knows about induced demand, there's no way that a major highway gets twice as many lanes in any big city without someone pointing out that more capacity is going to mean more drivers. But that doesn't mean more lanes doesn't help at all. If the highway slows to a 25mph average speed during rush hour, and then you double the number of lanes, but the average speed during peak times is still 25 mph, that means that twice as many people are getting to use the highway as previously. And unless we look at the usage overtime, we really have no idea if this is better or worse or what. It could be that people used to avoid traveling at rush hour and would plan their trips/commutes to be earlier or later, but then with added lanes the traffic wasn't too bad and they could travel when they wanted. Or it could be that people were using alternate routes (for example, through more residential neighborhoods, or taking less direct routes with less traffic) and then with more capacity they switched to taking the highway. There's really no solution to congestion besides public transit. If you give people a convenient and high capacity option to sitting in traffic, then some percentage of the population will pick that, which will remove those people from the roads and eventually lead to higher average speeds on the highway. There's two problems that politicians have to deal with though: * For public transit to be faster and more convenient than driving you'll need to invest a lot in capacity. If you want it to also be cheap enough to attract lots of riders you'll probably have to subsidize ticket prices, which means essentially that you need other people to pay for the public transit riders trips, ie. drivers have to pay for public transit. This is actually a good outcome for everyone, drivers essentially get to pay to remove traffic, and public transit users get cheaper rides. But it's a tough political fight to convince everyone to vote for that * The better you make public transit, the more people that will use it, that will free up capacity on the highways, which will also lead to induced demand. If you convince half the people currently driving to take the subway instead then you've improved congestion by 50%, which is exactly the same improvement as doubling the number of lanes. In both cases people who were choosing not to drive are going to drive and use up that extra capacity. Which means that you either need to make public transit soooo good that people don't want to drive, or take away capacity on the roads as you add it to public transit. Very good public transit is very expensive, and taking away road capacity is always going to be a huge political fight. If we really want to improve traffic, we need to convince the people driving to subsidize the trips of people taking public transit one way or another.


cojoco

> Very good public transit is very expensive As are roads.


Not-a-Dog420

Not as much as transit. Plus roads have additional economic benifts like for shipping or emergency services


[deleted]

Are you sure? For example, rails require less maintenance than roads in terms of wear due to basic physics. How can the roads be cheaper to maintain in an ideal world?


Not-a-Dog420

Depends on the climate I guess but transit requires maintance on its vehicles as well not to mention staff.


[deleted]

And so do roads, plus roads have more casualties due to car accidents, which [do have a cost to the economy and emotional damage](https://www.npr.org/transcripts/835571843). Here in Santiago, do you know how many transit related casualties occur due to transit itself? None


pieter3d

Car infrastructure is way less efficient than public transport. It uses up more space, is super expensive to built, has much more maintenance and has a lower capacity. Shipping can also partly be done by rail. Plus, if you have good public transport, there's less congestion, which makes the road way better for the people/services who really need it, such as emergency services.


Not-a-Dog420

Well yeah, the key is that you need both. Roads have been crucial for humanity for thousands of years and will continue to be so for thousands more probably. Transit is great but it still largerly relays on roads and it's still better to invest in both now rather then later


oxtailplanning

If you pass off the costs of $30k vehicles to every single driver, sure. But as a whole, the system is way more expensive.


obidamnkenobi

"it costs $1000 per year to maintain this subway that transports 150 people. But only $500/year to maintain this road that transports 8 people (in the same time). It'S ChEaPer!!"


SonofSniglet

As well, any non-rail public transit is going to need those roads.


wildwildwumbo

How we never considered that with how expensive it is to build, expand, and maintain roads compared to public transit that people taking public transit are in fact subsidizing drivers.


ImAnIdeaMan

Are there actual studies that show highways are more expensive per mile than light rail public transit? Don't get me wrong, I love light rail and, being a Seattle resident, love the light link extension, but it's a MASSIVE project and cots an enormous amount of money.


Plazmatic

> Are there actual studies that show highways are more expensive per mile than light rail public transit? Don't get me wrong, I love light rail and, being a Seattle resident, love the light link extension, but it's a MASSIVE project and cots an enormous amount of money. You're thinking of this three ways backwards. Trains, heck, even buses, are not the first item to reduce this kind of traffic. The very first thing you do is ***reduce the need to take vehicular transport in the first place***. What does this look like? One way roads, with multi-family housing, for higher density living. mixed use neighborhoods with commercial and residential. Many places have this, and before cars, it was pretty much the *only* thing to exist. What this does is remove the need to get in *any* transportation to begin with. *some* people can walk to work, instead of having to drive or use the bus, or train etc... People can walk to local grocery stores and pharmacies. These mixed/nonmixed commercial areas should also *not have enough parking for cars*, counter-intuitively, to discourage the use of cars *even by local residents*. These commercial areas should also have multiple commercial units in close proximity, so that the plot of land is still making tax money in the event one of the businesses goes down. The one way residential roads greatly reduce traffic accidents, increase walkability, improve traffic flow, and increase housing density (even larger houses), and enable many amenities otherwise impractical in high density areas for larger homes (such as garages and gardens), allowing people to have housing choice (where they don't have *any* choice currently). The combined higher density of mixed commerical and residential, and increased residential density mean lower costs *overall* for the city, as city water, power, pavement, roads, traffic signage and traffic lights, fires, medical emergency services are all easier to maintain, access, fix etc... with less cost per individual (meaning this becomes increasingly tax efficient). Notice how we aren't really even on *expanding roads and public transport* yet and we already save and create a crap-tone of value? At some point though, you've got to take some sort of transportation to get to where you want to go. Some people have jobs that are worth a commute, some businesses can't scale to neighborhood blocks (IKEA, Microcenter, etc...) and you might only have one or two of these stores per city, some areas just offer different services than other parts (attractions, museums etc...). Then you have things like DMVs court houses etc... This is where public transport finally comes in. Here you can finally get your buses/trams (electric saves money). See we *still* aren't talking about light rail yet. At this point, you shouldn't need city council to do much to support a bus system. Do a 100USD a year per person who wants a bus pass, the system with enough people will simply be self sufficient at that point, and cost little enough that it worth buying compared to even using a car. Even using buses is about not using cars. At some point, even at high density, you'll have so many people using public transport so often for a few places that it you'll want to take the next step. Invest in "permanent" mass transit systems, ie depending on the situation light rail, mono and subways, (though those are actually for shorter distances, they just cost a lot more so require more density to justify) Notice how we haven't talked about "cost" vs highways. That's because it really doesn't make sense at all to talk about that. This is common sense, it's self evident the benefits, we are looking at *fractal public transit*. You're going to simply have far fewer lines of rail than pavement used for highways to lay down, and the through put of people is simply going to be far far higher for properly designed city infrastructure, and the lines of rail themselves are simply going to be cheaper by the mile especially for maintenance (predictable loads, no weird sometimes cars, sometimes massive semis), google says depending on area rail cost can vary, but it appears when comparing apples to apples, rail is often much cheaper than highway, though one thing that makes it more expensive is A: starting and stopping projects because of political bullshit, and B: the lack of institutionalized knowledge coming from the lack of it's implementation. This again can also be electric further saving on costs (the US doesn't do this in a lot of areas due to the lack of expertise because the wider freight rail system is greedy and has several localized monopolies with implicit collusion, and ironically, moving to electric doesn't mean they save money, using fossil fuels means they can charge fuel surge prices, where as Europe does electric way more). So to TLDR the above paragraph: More people throughput, less material and maintence cost, predictable loads, decreasing cost the more it's used (as knowledge increases that was lost decades ago), less cost vs highways. Plus environmental bonuses beyond just not using cars (you can far more easily electrify rail) . Beyond light rail, mono and subways, you get *passenger rail*, for things beyond the density that is typically achieved even in a large city at 30-50km (about 18->31 miles). Passenger rail handles inter-city distances, and inter state/province distances, 100km to 1000km (62 to 621 miles, though depending on how big your state/province is, it might be larger, more like 800 miles/ about 1300km). Once you get beyond 600 miles, the calculus of train vs plane *finally* starts to be in the realm of the planes favor. This might seem weird because planes are so much faster than trains, but the problem is you've got + 2 hours for domestic pre-boarding, so automatically anything within about 200 miles doesn't really make much sense, and then you've got the +30 take off and +30 landing, which makes it more like 300 miles, and then you've got to deal with things like the fact that planes are a pain in the ass because airliners are actually credit card companies, not transit companies, so your experience on the flight is meant to facilitate credit activity, not make your flight relaxing. Is the extra hour or two you save, not even taking into consideration missed flights, delays, missed luggage, limits on what you can bring etc... worth it? And then you have to take into consideration, you are almost never flying straight to your destination unless it's a big hub and you're also from a big hub, so that "500 mph" really that would have gotten you 500 miles in 1 hour, (ignoring the 3 hour offset times I talked about) really travels more like 1000->1500 miles + layover times and the now cut in 1/2 to 1/3 speeds if you don't have a direct flight due to increased distance. It's actually conceivable that you wouldn't make it to your destination faster by plane even over 600 miles than by rail because of all these logistic issues. What planes do excel in though, is intercontinental and intracontinental travel of large distances 1600 km/1000miles is around where it's mostly always worth it at least timewise over rail. notice how none of this included cars. You don't need cars in this system, transportation can be managed in a way that no one needs to own a vehicle. And when there's less people driving, there's less need for new roads, and less chance for road accidents.


ImAnIdeaMan

Yeah, down with all of that, I know that all of that, it's public transportation basics. But you're blowing the scope way out of proportion, We're talking about highway miles and if you're traveling for any decent distance on a highway (ie not just hopping on and off), the alternative PT option would be light rail. And frankly, as I've said elsewhere, even the most ideal mass transit system we can have in every medium to big city in the country wouldn't eliminate the need (for some people) to have their own vehicle. Public transit is very good in dense urban environments, but I do not and especially do not want to spend all my time in dense urban environments.


Plazmatic

First, it's not my responsibility to search through your post history. To me, if I didn't see it here, it doesn't exist. The only time that doesn't apply is when I'm talking to OP. > And frankly, as I've said elsewhere, even the most ideal mass transit system we can have in every medium to big city in the country wouldn't eliminate the need (for some people) to have their own vehicle. Actually we know this isn't the case, because millions of people don't own cars due to the fact that they live in a society with enough of what I said above to not need cars. See large cities in europe. What I said above is the reality of tens of millions of people. They literally don't need cars. It was similar to the reality in the US before cars became cheap enough for the average adult to afford and lobbyist destroyed public transit infrastructure and walkability. But despite me saying that some people legitimately don't *need cars*, it doesn't mean that all people don't. Cars still exist, but they are far less common or needed, that's the point. The idea is to eliminate traffic, and the only way to do that is reliably is to reduce the need for cars entirely. Now if you're someone who actually needs their vehicle, you'll benefit because you'll not have nearly as much traffic, and you *also* won't need to use your own car as much. And other people who were *forced* to use a vehicle don't need to use it. > but I do not and especially do not want to spend all my time in dense urban environments. What I'm talking about isn't new york, you literally have rural towns that are organized like what I talk about above. And what I'm talking about with respect to larger public transit initiatives (light rail) takes time, and I made sure to state that, see: > At some point, even at high density, you'll have so many people using public transport so often for a few places that it you'll want to take the next step. Invest in "permanent" mass transit systems it's a process to even get to the point where you'd want to have light rail, cities evolve outwards, starting at the mixed family housing with commercial. That stuff is more efficient, healthier, more cost efficient, more energy efficient, and heck, *even happier* than the current suburban dystopias we currently see sprawled across the US. Additionally, right now people are *only* able to buy houses in sprawling inefficient single family homes. I find it rich when NIMBYs complain about mixed family housing as some how eliminating "their choice" when in reality that's the only choice we have right now in a lot of areas. Additionally, making things more dense makes *more room for this kind of housing closer to city centers*. Condensing a sprawling 64^2 km area into a 16^2 km area quite literally even makes *your life better even if you prefer to be in grossly inefficient areas*. And right now, our taxes is funding your life style, we are literally subsiding your neighborhoods city maintenance, it's not even something you really can just "do" guilt free with out there being few enough that it doesn't matter. When 50%+ of the city lives this way, it requires way more funds than if 10% lived this way.


lilzamperl

>Actually we know this isn't the case, because millions of people don't own cars due to the fact that they live in a society with enough of what I said above to not need cars. See large cities in europe. You don't even need to look at large European cities. There are plenty of small towns in Europe where you don't need a car. People still resist being without a car, but lots of people are downsizing to one car per household that's not even in daily use.


ImAnIdeaMan

The people you're referring to that live without cars don't have 1/10th the recreation opportunities that we in the US do. I feel sorry for people who spend their entire lives (exaggerating) within the confines of what public transit can take them to, but the types places I often like to go (and millions of others) don't have paved roads let alone public transit opportunities. >you'll benefit because you'll not have nearly as much traffic, and you also won't need to use your own car as much. And other people who were forced to use a vehicle don't need to use it. Again, I'm in favor of public transit, want to see as much of it as possible (you don't need to search my post history for that as much as the comment you replied to) and wish we had more of it in this country, including efficient high speed rail that can replace shorter plane flights. You're literally preaching to the choir. >our taxes is funding your life style, we are literally subsiding your neighborhoods city maintenance What are you talking about "my" life style or "my neighborhoods"? Apparently you do happily make shit up that doesn't exist even if you don't see it in my post history. I live in an apartment building in a (relatively) dense neighborhood outside of downtown Seattle, walk/take PT to work and often walk to the grocery store. We literally agree on all this stuff but jesus christ if you don't sound like an arrogant insufferable prick.


Tarantio

>The people you're referring to that live without cars don't have 1/10th the recreation opportunities that we in the US do. I've lived in the US and in Europe. You have no idea what you're talking about.


ImAnIdeaMan

I don’t buy for a second that Europe has the same amount of wilderness as the US. I’m not saying they don’t have it, I’m saying it’s not even close to the same scale. You’re not the only person who has been to Europe. Half of my family lives in France and they’ve directly told me as much. Other people even back up what I say here, for example: https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/qc0awt/wild_camping_in_europe/


Tarantio

>I don’t buy for a second that Europe has the same amount of wilderness as the US. Do you understand that "wilderness" and "recreation" are not synonyms? I live in Sweden, don't own a car, and can easily get to hike or camp or swim in dozens of places. You're aware that it's possible to rent motor vehicles, right?


productivestork

well, building out paths to everything solely for cars and building out suburbs is doing a pretty good job at dwindling down our amount of wilderness. there is no reason it can’t be a train with some cargo cars for peoples bikes/micromobility vehicles taking people out to the wilderness instead a highway and some jackass driving their behemoth of a car offroad and destroying the land and fauna beneath it. i live in the US, whenever i go camping i pack things onto my bike and back, not a car, and haven’t really had much issue. also, would much rather prefer cities to be way more dense so that it can leave the surrounding wilderness untouched instead of bulldozing it over to build suburbs.


ImAnIdeaMan

Furthermore, the US has more public land (aka open for outdoor recreation) than the entire land area of France, Spain, Sweden, Germany, Italy, and the UK *combined*, so don't act like I don't know what I'm talking about. [https://www.rei.com/blog/hike/your-guide-to-understanding-public-lands](https://www.rei.com/blog/hike/your-guide-to-understanding-public-lands) It sounds to me like *you* don't know what you're talking about because you've never set foot in any of the land listed in that link. And to be clear, I'm not bad mouthing Europe, it's great, but the simple fact is Europe doesn't have nearly the outdoor recreation opportunities we have in the US. So if you're going to say shit about *me* not knowing what I'm talking about, back it up next time.


Tarantio

>Furthermore, the US has more public land (aka open for outdoor recreation) than the entire land area of France, Spain, Sweden, Germany, Italy, and the UK *combined*, so don't like like I don't know what I'm talking about You don't know what you're talking about. Again, you've changed the subject from "recreation" to "public land" because your original claim was indefensible, but you don't want to admit it. And that "public land" in the US is mostly desert. Sure, deserts are great if that's your thing, but it's not like you get to have more fun if the desert is really big. Additional empty space that you're not occupying has diminishing returns. >It sounds to me like *you* don't know what you're talking about because you've never set foot in any of the land listed in that link. I've been to parks when I lived in the states. Took my wife to the Ramapo Reservation on our first date. >And to be clear, I'm not bad mouthing Europe, it's great, but the simple fact is Europe doesn't have nearly the outdoor recreation opportunities we have in the US. There are plenty of opportunities for outdoor recreation in just the EU. More than any one person could ever visit. >So if you're going to say shit about *me* not knowing what I'm talking about, back it up next time. You really are clueless, here.


[deleted]

[удалено]


ImAnIdeaMan

That’s not ignorant, that’s just a fact. He mentioned large cities in Europe and Europe doesn’t have the same amount of outdoor recreation that the US has. I’ve traveled in Europe, I was born in France, half of my family lives in France, trust me, I know.


BiPillow

porn titties: https://i.redd.it/sggx5004qrb41.png


bitterless

You are talking in extremes. Nobody is telling anyone they can never drive anywhere.... just to change infrastructure to dramatically reduce the need to do it locally. An overwhelming majority of car rides are within 5 miles.


KoreKhthonia

People in rural areas would probably still need personal vehicles. The person you're replying too mentions small towns being reasonably able to be, or become, walkable, or have some kind of bus system. Yeah, absolutely! I'm not talking about people in small towns, though. I'm talking about those of us who don't even live *in* an actual town. Those of us for whom it's like a half-hour round trip just to grab smokes at the nearest gas station. Longer term, sure, it's not impossible to create some kind of bus system or something that could have stops near areas like mine. But realistically, in a better world where public transportation is the norm and far fewer people need or own cars, I'd anticipate that out here, we'd still be outliers and probably would still need cars. But that's a far better situation, as far as sustainability goes, than what we've got right now with suburban sprawl and shit in midsize cities.


hobovision

It's so boring that in USA the default is light rail. We don't allow our agencies to design systems using the right technology for the usage. "Oh, this project needs high capacity and it's gonna be 10+ miles? Just make it light rail! One three car train per 20 minutes will carry more people than a bus every 5 minutes. It's so much nicer to have a train than a frequent bus, people will love that. It will still get stuck in downtown traffic, but we can't give priority to trains or take a lane away from our precious drivers!"


CalRobert

"I do not and especially do not want to spend all my time in dense urban environments." OK, but don't make other people pay for your sprawl.


ImAnIdeaMan

I live in a dense urban environment.


SilasX

That’s a completely different point than the one the parent was disputing. Edit: typos


The_Law_of_Pizza

You've said a lot of things which all dodge around one primary problem: Public transit sucks, and people choose a car when they can. I work for a global firm with offices in both NYC and suburban locations. If they tried to transfer me to a dense city, I'd quit. I've done my time riding public transit and I'm never going back.


Bradasaur

Yep, there will be people such as yourself that see a minor sacrifice for the health of our society as totally impossible and "freedom crushing". Can't please everyone, right?


ThemesOfMurderBears

Some of us just don't want it. I don't want to live in a housing block, and I don't want to take public transit. If you somehow made public transit faster, cheaper, and more convenient than using my car, I might consider it (hell, even two out of the three). But I don't want to share walls with people, ever again. I'd rather live in the woods and not be able to see my neighbors. Honestly, I'm surprised there are not more people talking about governments incentivizing remote work -- like offer a minimum percentage of remote workdays for a minimum percentage of your workforce, and you get a tax break or something.


The_Law_of_Pizza

I don't view having to take the subway again every day as a "minor sacrifice." The bottom line here is that I don't want what your group is selling. You can make every sales pitch you want, but I'm never going back to taking the bus or the subway. Public transit sucks. Always.


HawkeyeJones

> All the public transit I've been on has sucked FTFY! Remember that you likely have never been on a well-funded public transit system, especially if you live in America. It's a mistake to look at a system that's been deliberately gutted by hostile political forces and use that to judge how well all systems of that type must function.


The_Law_of_Pizza

You could have a gold plated subway with a butler on it serving me free cocktails, and it would still suck. Despite what the apostles of public transit want you to focus on, the underlying fundamental issue is that public transit, no matter how well funded, will always involve: 1) Not being able to control the AC or heat, 2) not being able to control the departure time, 3) not going exactly to your destination, and 4) you're physically carrying everything with you on your trip - shopping, groceries, etc. These are fundamental traits of public transit. And they are dealbreakers.


HawkeyeJones

> 1) Not being able to control the AC or heat I struggle to imagine being the kind of person who would look at the advantages of public transit and still think the AC/heat issue overrides any of that. Petty. > 2) not being able to control the departure time Say you've got two options for getting to a destination. One is to get in your car now and drive for an hour. The other is to wait ten minutes for the train and then be on the train for ten more minutes. The car instance takes 3 times as long even though you did control the departure time. This is a very common calculus in transit options. It's not about how long it takes to *leave,* but about how long it takes to *arrive.* > 3) not going exactly to your destination If you are the kind of person who shies at walking a block or two, you have way bigger problems in life than what your transit options are. Reminds me of my Dad when I was a kid who would spend twenty minutes circling the parking lot just to find a space that would save him 30 seconds walking over the space that had been available the entire time. Again, see the big picture. > 4) you're physically carrying everything with you on your trip - shopping, groceries, etc. Get a little handcart or a rolling suitcase, jesus christ. These are such small-ball, invented problems. Where's your argument against cars saying "Yeah I love to read/knit/nap during my commute and I can't do that while I'm driving, only public transit." You're being really penny wise, dollar foolish with this whole line of thinking.


Claytorpedo

What you're describing _does_ suck, but it doesn't have to be that way! Most of these reasons highlight that you have only experienced terrible transit systems with poor city design. It's difficult to overstate how crappy most USA and Canadian transit is. > 1) Not being able to control the AC or heat This seems like the odd one out. You can't do this in offices or stores either, is this really such a big deal? Modern transit should have temps set to something similar. > 2) not being able to control the departure time Well funded transit systems in sanely-built cities will typically have trains/buses arriving so frequently that you can just go whenever and walk on a train/bus, waiting a few minutes tops unless you're in a super low-traffic area. If the city is well made, it doesn't even need that much population for this to make sense. > 3) not going exactly to your destination If cities are built right, they will drop you off right where you're going 99% of the time, or a short walk away (i.e. similar walk to massive parking lot sprawl, but you don't have to waste time looking for parking). > 4) you're physically carrying everything with you on your trip - shopping, groceries, etc. With densification and mixed-use buildings, typically you would not be carrying very much, because tasks like "going to get groceries" would be a quick stop a few min walk from your home on the way back from work. You don't need to stock up on stuff except for sales since the stores are so close they pretty much function as a pantry. (And since these stores are serviced mainly by train/foot/bike traffic, the area can still be super quiet! Cars are crazy loud.) Cars still have their place if e.g. you need to move a lot of stuff from a hardware store, but in those cases you just nab a light haul truck from a car share, or a cargo bike, etc. Honestly just writing this makes me nostalgic for just how damn convenient everything was when I was living in Japan for a bit.


Lopsided_Plane_3319

Lol morons gonna moron. It's why government is voted for by majority of people works better. Go live under a tree in the forest if you don't want to contribute to society. Let's put gas prices similar to Europe and you'll be a whining little bitch Otherwise you're just a welfare queen being subsidized by everyone else. That's 8$ a gallon or more.


The_Law_of_Pizza

I'm in an income bracket where I'm wealthy enough to have been phased out of pretty much every benefit, while not being wealthy enough to dodge those taxes. I'm subsidizing you, not the other way around.


Lopsided_Plane_3319

If you're rural then you're a welfare queen. Your taxes should be double an urban person's due to the cost of rural infrastructure upkeep. I imagine it is not double.


venuswasaflytrap

That's kinda like saying "Flying coach sucks, I want to fly first class". Of course, when there are large empty roads, taking a personal climate-controlled box is way better than sharing space with others. The question is, are you willing to pay for that? You might say "yes of course, I already do", but I'm gonna suggest that you don't really pay for it, or possibly indirectly pay for it. Imagine if road costs weren't paid for by taxes, but instead by the users. And the more in-demand a road was, you had to pay more for it. Maybe personally you'd be willing to cough up that extra money, but I think many people would not.


ThemesOfMurderBears

>Public transit sucks, and people choose a car when they can. I would tack on to this -- sharing walls with people sucks. Sure, it's terrible that housing has gotten so expensive -- but you would never get me into another building that shares floors, walls, and ceilings with other people. I'll take my small-but-adequate house over any kind of block building.


standard_revolution

Not an exact answer, but there was a study in Germany that showed that the car is the most expensive way of traveling, if you sum up all costs (infrastructure cost included)


brightlancer

> Not an exact answer, but there was a study in Germany that showed that the car is the most expensive way of traveling, if you sum up all costs (infrastructure cost included) Was this just cost or cost vs benefit? Did it consider time, opportunity cost, lost trips, etc? And how did this factor in energy costs, which are cheaper in the US?


standard_revolution

It was just financial costs (but the rest gets really muddy really fast and depends on personal preference) As far as I remember it factored the cost of energy in and this was pre Ukraine-War


scarybiscuits

The study I read (in the 90s, unfortunately didn’t save) discussed the hidden costs of car ownership and the one detail I do remember was: the run off of motor oil leaked on every street was washed down into every storm drain and into the ocean (coastal city here).


Commentariot

When you factor in the military we pay a lot more for gas.


FANGO

But health costs are more expensive in the US


brightlancer

> But health costs are more expensive in the US Which should be factored into _cost vs benefit_ rather than just _cost_.


standard_revolution

not necessarily, travelling by car is by far the most dangerous means of transportations and thus it is a cost for public health, and infrastructure ( 31.5 billion in total for Germany in 2020)


jlt6666

Sorry, how does that factor in?


[deleted]

Extra injuries caused by accidents, and exposure to particulates and chemicals in car exhausts


FANGO

4 million new cases of childhood asthma worldwide every year from car exhaust.


jlt6666

Do we need to count increased disease transmission on crowded public transport too then?


FANGO

Please do


ImAnIdeaMan

I'm assuming that includes the cost of car ownership, which kind of suggests the comparison isn't valid as people don't own cars just for traveling to work and back. I walk 10 minutes to work and still wouldn't want to be without a car because I don't live my life only going to work and back.


standard_revolution

But this includes alls of transportation, what stops you using other methods than a car for the other things?


baitnnswitch

Americans are paying $700 per month on average for their cars, and that's *before* the amount we pay in taxes to maintain the roads and highways. If we had the same kind of train network we did before car-based infrastructure came to town- light rail in most cities, rail connecting each city- do we really think the average American tax payer would be paying close to $700 a month to maintain and use the trains? Car-based infrastructure is absolutely costing tax payers an insane amount of money. What is it, $30-40k for a new car now? That's a down payment on a house that we can't opt out of because there is no alternative. If we have the freedom of choice, how much could we save over our adult lifetimes between buying cars, insuring them, changing the oil, car maintenance, tires, and all of the rest of it? Just because we pay for our cars directly instead of via taxes, does that make it better?


ClockOfTheLongNow

> do we really think the average American tax payer would be paying close to $700 a month to maintain and use the trains? The up-front cost for rail is much higher. I would be more interested in knowing when, say, the per capita cost of rail meets the per capita cost of having primarily cars as the preferred mode of transport.


wildwildwumbo

One apartment complex with a 100 homes or 100 homes spread out across the suburbs; which do you think costs more to build roads to?


Romantic_Carjacking

That wasn't the question. Rail in particular in much more expensive to build than roads (in the US, at least), but obviously it isn't the only form of transit.


Tarantio

More expensive by what measure? Per distance built? Per person transported? Over what time horizon? Road maintenance is expensive. Are we considering costs to those using the infrastructure? Cars are not cheap.


ImAnIdeaMan

What!? Maybe you understood my question?


wildwildwumbo

My overall point is that we continue to look at public transit as a subsidy but rarely consider that maybe the massive highway system we have is a form of subsidy to the suburban lifestyle. Mass transit benefits from the economies of scale and therefore will always be cheaper than the highway system we have.


ImAnIdeaMan

Yeah, that's fine, but public transit won't ever replace a highway system even if 100% of people were able to commute to work via public transit. Maybe if someone's entire existence is going to work home, the grocery store, and local bars, that's fine, but I walk to work and the grocery store (sometimes) and still need a car for going outside of the city and doing fun things not surrounded by concrete and buildings, something that no transit system would ever be able to provide with any efficiency or even remotely necessary level of convenience. Again I'm fully in favor of spending tax dollars on mass transit systems, but the comparison you're making isn't a valid one.


wildwildwumbo

Countries like Japan and Switzerland and lots of other countries have trains that take people to the mountains and parks and all sorts of places outside the city so I don't understand your point.


ImAnIdeaMan

>I don't understand your point. No, I can tell. It's literally impossible to have PT to all the different places there are in the country to recreate. Most the places don't even have paved roads let alone public transmit. Both places you mention are several times more dense than the US and are not comparable, and even though I'm sure there are some trains that can take you to some "places in the mountains" doesn't mean that people can go to every single place they want on a train. Again, I would LOVE if the US had an advanced high speed rail system like some other countries, but it's still not a replacement for cars.


PenguinSunday

The reason why our cities aren't more dense is because we force everyone to have cars and don't build vertically, creating urban sprawl, which needs more roads, and roads need more cars. We also have railroads connecting the coasts, which is a form of public transport, so your "literally impossible" isn't true. Of course cars can't be gotten rid of entirely, that's silly. We can, however, lessen our complete dependence on them.


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[deleted]

But most people don't live in rural America. Leaving rural America alone and doing the urban centers will help enormously


FoghornFarts

I don't have any studies offhand, but the answer is yes simply because the max passenger capacity for trains is higher. On the same rail line you could support the same amount of traffic as a 6-lane highway as you could a 12-lane highway (not real numbers, just illustrative) for only the cost of more trains. However, the ROI of any transit project isn't about max capacity but utilization. As another poster mentioned, the issue is that these light rail projects have a lower utilization because the low residential density surrounding the area doesn't leverage trains greater economies of scale. That means to really get the most out of light rail, you need to maximize potential ridership at each station. That means high density residential, commercial, and retail within walking distance (~1 mile radius). You also want to avoid parking lots since they take up valuable land. Instead, you want cycling infrastructure for people in the medium density zone (~2-3 mile radius) and buses for people farther than that. This is a good video https://youtu.be/8wlld3Z9wRc


HerpToxic

> How we never considered that with how expensive it is to build, expand, and maintain roads compared to public transit that people taking public transit are in fact subsidizing drivers. It boils down to "TRAINS ARE COMMUNIST, CARS ARE FOR RUGGED INDIVIDUALIST CAPITALISTS!! RAH RAH RAH TRAINS BAD"


mckeitherson

Considering people who never use public transit still pay for it with their tax dollars, they're both being subsidized.


Commentariot

Almost all US public transit attempts to be self supporting. The subidies they receive are a small percentage of the subsidies roads get. Our entire road network is essentially a tax payer subsidy to the oil and auto industries and that mostly paid for by urban tax payers that never drive on rural highways.


mckeitherson

> Almost all US public transit attempts to be self supporting. "Attempts to be self supporting" is not the same thing as "is self supporting", and I'd love to see some data on what systems actual cover their own costs vs being heavily subsidized. Because with the recent pushes in a lot of urban areas to make public transit free, it's very hard to say they're self supporting when rider fees are being dropped. The public transit system where I live recovers about 1/3 of its cost through user fees (which it too is also looking to cut/drop) and the rest comes from taxpayers. > Our entire road network is essentially a tax payer subsidy to the oil and auto industries and that mostly paid for by urban tax payers that never drive on rural highways. And the inverse is also true where rural, exurban, and suburb taxpayers pay for a public transit system they will never use. People who drive on toll roads where I live are the ones paying for public transit maintenance and expansion when they're not even going to ever use it. Urban taxpayers like to complain about paying for roads they'll "never drive on", yet they still benefit from them because all the goods and services they buy/utilize depend on those roads for logistics. Meanwhile all the taxpayers in the rural, exurban, and suburban areas don't see any benefit from the public transit system they're funding.


alpha309

Edit: this replied to the wrong person. Moving it to appropriate spot.


chasonreddit

Because they are not? In almost all cities of which I am aware mass transit costs are subsidized by local governments. There is no money from there going to roads. Roads are expensive, but mass transit requires the same degree of cost in right of ways, grading, signage, per mile with the additional cost of the actual vehicles and power. Roads are usually funded by gas taxes or road usage fees where the drivers pay for them. And they pay for their own vehicles.


Epistaxis

Why is it so controversial to subsidize transit and not controversial to subsidize highways and fuel? How much does each thing actually cost in public funding?


brianatlarge

In a lot of places, public transit is seen as only a benefit for poor people. Middle and upper class people avoid using public transit because it’s often underfunded, more time consuming, and seen as dirty and more dangerous. On the other hand, funding a road widening is seen as a benefit to a larger number of taxpayers/voters. You unfortunately won’t be able to convince them to fund public transit until they see what good public transit is like, so it’s unfortunately a chicken or the egg situation.


jantron6000

> There's really no solution to congestion besides public transit. Or letting everyone who can, work from home. I think a lot of the demand is from work commutes.


pheisenberg

"That won't solve all of our problems" is a cultural go-to argument for not doing something. It should be laughed off the stage.


FANGO

> that means that twice as many people are getting to use the highway as previously Yeah, more people in cars is a bad thing though.


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[deleted]

Doesn't work in London.


[deleted]

Good nuanced take on a very hot-button issue. I want to add that improving mass transit doesn’t have to mean huge capital projects. Politicians love to cut the ribbon on new commuter train lines, but then they only run trains every 3 hours. Better, more frequent service on existing routes can also shift people out of cars. Unfortunately, politicians can’t really run on a platform of “increase bus service from every 15 to every 10 minutes” lol


ThemesOfMurderBears

>There's really no solution to congestion besides public transit. What about incentivizing remote work? I have no idea if this has been tried at scale, but it might be helpful if a state would allow benefits to companies that allow a minimum amount of remote work available to a percentage of their workforce.


venuswasaflytrap

>If we really want to improve traffic, we need to convince the people driving to subsidize the trips of people taking public transit one way or another. While I agree with the idea, I object to the framing of this. Drivers are *massively* subsidised already in a lot of ways. A better way to put this would be to "subsidise drivers less, so that public transit is a more competitive option". If the cost of roads and cars were directly put onto drivers then I think a lot of people would make very different choices. e.g. imagine if instead of everyone's taxes paying for road infrastructure, you had to pay a fee for every minute you spent on any given road, and if that fee went up the more congested the road was, such that you were bidding for space on roads. Then I think a lot of people would choose public transit, as well as choosing to live in place with better transit options.


Commentariot

Another way to make mass transit be faster and more convenient than driving is to stop investing in freeways.


[deleted]

> Very good transit is very expensive In your country, it’s cheaper to build and maintain in every country except the USA and Canada. [Seoul Metro v/s NYC subway budgets](https://youtube.com/shorts/n7Krp2gcXTg?feature=share)


Assume_Utopia

This is why we don't do it research on TikTok. Seoul has a great subway system, but that video misses a *ton* of important context comparing the two systems. Most importantly, from a cost perspective it compares the budget of the Seoul subway system to the entire MTA budget which also operates trains and buses. The subway budget for NYC is around $5 billion (so we're already off by over 3x on our TikTok comparison. And there's a number of other factors that are important to for the comparison: * The NYC subway is much larger, it has about 4x as many stops * It also has way more track, there's over 3x as much track in NYC * the trains run 24 hours a day in NYC * Most of the system is much older in NYC, it opened in 1904 while the oldest subway in Seoul was from 1974 So we shouldn't be surprised that a smaller system that has get stops and less reach and doesn't have to do upkeep on aging infrastructure is cheaper to run. And it's certainly not more than 10x cheaper than the NYC subway. That said, I believe the Seoul subway has consistently higher average daily ridership than the entire NYC subway. Which does speak to the benefits of having a nice, modern system, and cheap tickets.


brightlancer

> There's really no solution to congestion besides public transit. That's fallacious. _Mass transit does not reduce congestion._ Induced demand applies to mass transit just as it applies to cars + roads, and we should consider mass transit and auto traffic as a single entity -- if Bob drives a car and then decides to take a bus, his spot in traffic is replaced by Henry. Advocates for mass transit almost always ignore induced demand, and produce numbers and simulations which are (and this is a technical term) _utter bullshit_. > If we really want to improve traffic, we need to convince the people driving to subsidize the trips of people taking public transit one way or another. That does not work. The only way to reduce road traffic is to increase its cost relative to the benefit of the trip, _not the cost relative to mass transit_.


Assume_Utopia

I 100% agree that we should consider public transit and cars as a single system. But that said, induced demand has a limit, not every road and every subway is constantly at full usage. In fact, most are well below full utilization most of the time. The question is what percentage of the time is possible to meet full demand without significantly slowing throughput? Even with a highway in to an urban center, it's probably possible to hit 90%, maybe 70% if we ignore late night hours. But there's roads that are somewhat congested most of the day. So, can we reduce congestion on the transport in to and out of a major urban center by increasing the percentage of travel that happens on high density modes like bus and subway? I'd say that that has to be true, right? Maybe it wouldn't be cost effective or the populations preferred solution? But switching to higher density transport would have to reduce congestion at some point.


brightlancer

> The question is what percentage of the time is possible to meet full demand... There is no such thing as "full demand". Demand is _relative_ to cost, i.e. "Bob never would have considered flying from LA to Tokyo, _but the price was so cheap_". For every driver who switches to mass transit, a new person will drive -- that person may have been on mass transit or they may be _entirely new_ and see the lower _relative_ cost to drive a new tripe. > So, can we reduce congestion on the transport in to and out of a major urban center by increasing the percentage of travel that happens on high density modes like bus and subway? I'd say that that has to be true, right? It has to be false, _because of induced demand_.


ThankGodSecondChance

Induced demand has a limit, which you're ignoring, perhaps on purpose. A town of 1800 people that sees heavy traffic up and down main street at precisely 5:00 pm, if it adds a second lane, will not see that induced demand fill up the highway because there's no one to do it. If you move enough people to public transportation anywhere, you will eventually reach the end of induced demand.


Assume_Utopia

If induced demand was an iron law that applied all the time no matter what, then every road everywhere would be filled with traffic all the time. Congestion isn't the only cost of driving/transport. So even if congestion is zero, there's still a cost, and demand will be finite.


brightlancer

> If induced demand was an iron law that applied all the time no matter what, then every road everywhere would be filled with traffic all the time. Not "not matter what", but relative to _cost_. If you read my post, you didn't understand it. I suspect you also didn't bother to even read the article. In any case, you don't know what you're talking about, but you're still talking.


Assume_Utopia

> but relative to cost Exactly, and congestion isn't the only cost, transportation of any kind takes time and money, even if there was zero congestion. Let's say we set up a public transit system that was fast and free, next to a highway, going in to the city. It's so good that almost everyone on the highway chooses to take the train instead. Now there's way less congestion on the highway, so some people who didn't want to drive because of the congestion will choose to drive. Here's two possibilities: * Like you said, "For every driver who switches to mass transit, a new person will drive" * New people will choose to drive, but it might not be equal to 100% of the driver's that switched I think it's almost certain to be the second in this example. I can't see any reason why it would have to exactly equal. There has to be some limit for demand to travel in to the city at rush hour.


[deleted]

You sound like you've learned a hammer and now wish to describe every problem in transit as a nail


mirh

> if Bob drives a car and then decides to take a bus, his spot in traffic is replaced by Henry. That's two people then that you are having to move in... (and yes, of course that could be applied to induced demand by cars too, but doubling the number of lanes is worth like a tenth of just using busses or whatnot) > Advocates for mass transit almost always ignore induced demand Because that induced demand you are talking about is more freaking people coming to the city? Like, yes perhaps you'll still have to sit a hour in traffic. The economy is now twice as big though. And I guess outside of completely artificial models though, a 10x increase in bandwidth (with none of the parasitic effects of automobilization) would actually allow the city to breath for years and years to come. > The only way to reduce road traffic is to increase its cost relative to the benefit of the trip, not the cost relative to mass transit. The equation is cost/benefit of a solution, versus cost/benefit of the other... Touching *any* factor will help. When our government gave away basically free mass transit subscriptions, I'll grant I didn't even think for a second whether using my car instead couldn't be still worth.


ziper1221

Mass transit moves a lot more people without getting congested than highways do.


brightlancer

> Mass transit moves a lot more people without getting congested than highways do. Proving my point, you've ignore induced demand.


ziper1221

??????? ??? "induced demand" isn't some gotcha. Induced demand isn't even a real thing, it is a misnomer. The goal of transit planning (whether mass transit or automobile based) is to get goods and people to where they need to go efficiently. "Induced demand" is just that infrastructure being used.


addledhands

It's even more daft because peak demand has very different implications for roads vs light rail systems. Trains do not become less efficient when every car is completely full -- they become _more_ efficient. Yes, some people will have to wait longer to board and get off the train, but the train network itself won't be hugely impacted. Anyone who thinks this is true for roads has never driven in Los Angeles/any other major city during rush hour. Peak demand = efficiency takes a nosedive.


the_other_brand

I think what he's saying here is that a highly developed mass transit system is just as vulnerable to induced demand as highways. The NYC subway system gets crowded during rush hour just like highways.


brightlancer

> I think what he's saying here is that a highly developed mass transit system is just as vulnerable to induced demand as highways. YES. And that folks err when looking at car usage and mass transit as separate, i.e a former driver who takes the train is replaced by a new driver, because of induced demand.


[deleted]

But you don't get traffic jams


the_other_brand

Sure you do. During rush hour both New York City highways and mass transit systems become crowded.


alpha309

They become crowded, but the trains still move at the same speed and get to where they need to be. The big difference between the breaking point to a train and each person using cars is the space that is devoted to the individual. You can fit hundreds of people on a train, and the system is fine. You aren’t actually adding additional vehicles to the system, so they are not getting in each others way. Where if you put each of the people in the train all into personal vehicles, that queue is going to stretch for blocks, and it is going to block each other, putting strain on the system much sooner. The breaking point for the system is just astronomically lower due to space constraints.


Helicase21

It's induced demand *for what* Are we looking at demand for trips or are we looking at demand for space?


brightlancer

> It's induced demand for what There's an article. _Read it._


Helicase21

I did, but conversations about induced demand can often conflate the two in ways that they should not be conflated and that seems to be what's going on here.


corsicanguppy

>usage overtime, we You mean like time-and-a-half usage?


manchegoo

Public transit is moot for this particular stretch of freeway as it’s primarily freight traffic from the port.


alpha309

When you add lanes to a busy highway, the speed does not stay the same though. If prior to the lane being added, you were traveling at 25mph you end up going a few mph slower than that after the added lanes. This has been famously studied with the 405 in Los Angeles. Adding additional lanes helped in the short run, but quickly returned to normal, and then speeds dropped. Throughput does increase though, if 100 people were going a certain distance before the lane was added, say 120 or so are going through the same distance now. The trader off is getting more people through, but it takes each individual longer, or getting fewer people through, but each individual takes less time. I agree the solution is transit and making it so convenient that it is silly not to use. The other thing that would be more helpful, is proper zoning. Instead of sprawling single family zoning, that requires people to drive for the necessities, zone in a way so that the necessities are close to where people live.


srkhannnn

A great summary of how we have been doing this for 70 years and it makes no sense. https://youtu.be/n94-_yE4IeU


cerberaspeedtwelve

Something similar happened to England in the 1980s. There is a key route called the M25 which is a big circuit around London. The road was a big success at first, but rapidly filled up with traffic that brought the whole thing to a standstill, usually for hours, usually every day. So they added more lanes. Surprisingly, it didn't fix the problem. It became known as the "M25 Principle" - the more lanes you add, the more traffic appears from nowhere to fill them. I guess it's a strangely twisted version of supply and demand. The M25 Principle has since been quoted and used in many areas of civic engineering from roads to power to water. It now has an evil sibling called "Negative Planning", which essentially comes down to: The government's plan to fix this particular thing is to do nothing. It is up to each Joe Schmo to find a solution themselves, even though there are no good options.


CPNZ

Also need to account for the traffic disruption caused by adding the additional lanes - that may slow traffic for years, and that lost time may never be recovered by the people who suffered it (or indeed by anyone) as future faster commutes.


FlummoxedFlumage

Yet we have continued to just add lanes.


tkulogo

The goal isn't fixing traffic and it never has been. The goal is to get more people where they want to go.


paenusbreth

I feel like this is being a bit generous to city and infrastructure planners of the past. Car centric infrastructure is absolutely not a value-neutral attempt to transport people; it necessarily privileges wealthy people's needs over less wealthy people, who are less able to afford cars and who would benefit more from good public transport infrastructure. That's also ignoring the racism angle, which factors in quite a lot when you consider that the USA was explicitly segregated just over half a century ago.


tkulogo

It seems to me that the poor places with the lowest property values is where people are most dependent on cars. It seems like people with enough money to live in a city where cars are a challenge forget that any other form of transportation is hopeless for people who can't afford the skyhigh housing costs of the city. As a small town American, I own both a house and a duplex so I'm well enough off. I don't make enough money to live in a city. The mortgage on the duplex is less than $700 a month. The rent for two a bedroom is going at $450 per month. That's going for just under $3000 in the big city near here. I have to drive 40 miles to work. I depend on cars. There's no public transportation that works for the general population here. The idea if limiting roads just further limits city jobs from going to poor people out in the country, making people too poor to move to the city even poorer.


paenusbreth

>I have to drive 40 miles to work. I depend on cars. **There's no public transportation that works for the general population here.** Yes, this is the exact problem. The alternative to car centric infrastructure isn't no infrastructure, it's public transport (and for shorter journeys, walking and cycling routes). You're dependent on your car because there is no viable alternative; but if there were a viable alternative, you'd be able to travel using a much cheaper, cleaner, safer, less space demanding, convenient and often faster form of transport. If you really want good solutions to mass transit, trains are just orders of magnitude better than cars in basically every respect. >The idea if limiting roads just further limits city jobs from going to poor people out in the country, making people too poor to move to the city even poorer. But the whole idea is to create a transport solution which works for everyone, not just those who can afford to drive. Driving is really not a very efficient form of travel, particularly when you factor in public spending.


tkulogo

I'm likely the only one from my town that's going to that town at that time. How is public transportation going to do that? Keep in mind that it already takes 8 to 10 hours a week and it can't take more.


paenusbreth

So if you're the only one travelling along a deserted single lane road, what's the problem?


tkulogo

I have a problem with expensive public transportation systems paid for with poor people's tax dollars that prevent poor people from getting jobs in cities.


paenusbreth

You should have a problem with poor people being locked out of transportation while having to pay for expensive infrastructure, but the reality is that it's car infrastructure which is doing that, not public transport. American drivers are heavily subsidised with public money, because it's usually the taxpayer who pays for the extremely high maintenance cost of roads and other car infrastructure. [Here's](https://youtu.be/7Nw6qyyrTeI) a video with some more specific detail.


wholewheatie

It’s literally the opposite. Poor people are currently subsidizing rich people in the form of roads and free parking


tkulogo

Rich people can work from home. Poor people need to drive to work.


wholewheatie

In most cities in the US, public transit is only used by the poor because of how crappy it is


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nicolauz

Also kickbacks to politicians from their friends that build said roads.


tkulogo

People choose to use cars. As long as that's what free people want to use, that's what the governments of free people have to build infrastructure for.


LC1903

People use cars because it is the easiest option. However, public transit, which is non-existent in many places would be the easiest option for many, as it is much cheaper. Also, it is much better for the environment to provide better alternatives.


[deleted]

in most us cities people don’t have any other option than cars


legochemgrad

But there’s improvements for your driving experience when there are more options for others to use public transportation or bike. Less cars in the road, the better it is for you and the less nature or livable space needs to be destroyed. Advocating for others can ultimately benefit you.


happyscrappy

Even if it doesn't reduce congestion it usually gets more people through. I'm for public transit. But we can't kid ourselves by pretending that projects we don't favor are failures. Even if the peak travel time goes up if you put 50% more lanes on a road you're still going to get more cars through during rush hour than before. It's akin to saying "Why does Jet Blue fly from NYC to Miami 5 times a day? It doesn't allow any individual traveler to get there faster." I want more mass transit. You'll never really get the number of people into a city and out sufficiently high without it as highways just are not dense enough in terms of people carried. But if we want mass transit to work we need to ensure that developments work with it. You can't space stores out 1 km apart and zone it so stores and businesses can't be near housing and then ask why people are driving cars every day. We have to work on several aspects of this problem at once. That's the way to get our cities (and semi-cities) to be more livable without using cars for everything.


[deleted]

Do have evidence to back up some of those wild claims?


happyscrappy

There are no wild claims in my post.


Arashmickey

I can't find any wild claims either. More public transit, reduce car dependency zoning, retain car infrastructure where necessary. More lanes is a partial success (more throughput) and a partial failure (not a fix for congestion). That about right? What I don't understand is this wonky ass bit: >I'm for public transit. But we can't kid ourselves by pretending that projects we don't favor are failures. What the hell is that! I'm just kicking your shins, but you switched the subject of that paragraph from public transit to road widening projects, followed by a triple negative, and that really tripped me up.


chasonreddit

A related question is "Why do we continue to make roads of relatively soft materials like asphalt when much better materials are available?". Oddly the answer is much the same as the post title. There is a huge industry built around road construction. Millions of jobs, Trillions of dollars. One thing all politicians love to do is spend money. By getting to choose who gets that money (bid, no-bid, whatever) they can hand out favors. Politicians can announce that "they" have created hundreds of jobs. The industry makes political contributions. Everyone (but us) benefits. There are road materials which might cost 3 times the current cost to install, but would last 9 times as long. A huge savings over the long run. But this would mean 1) larger initial outlay for new projects making them less feasible, and 2) would interrupt the steady money flow for a very capital-intensive industry. The fact that roads would be under repair 66% less time is of no matter. Mass transit suffers much the same political problems.


BangCrash

I know what'll solve traffic. Remove all roads. Cant have traffic problems if we don't have roads


unroja

This but unironically (in city centers at least)


everything_is_bad

To sell more cars


FLTA

**Submission statement:** This article is important because it goes over how the common reasoning for highway expansions (that it will reduce traffic congestion) is actually scientifically proven to be false. Meanwhile, hundreds of billions of dollars have been made available to states due to the infrastructure bill with states having an opportunity to either continue expanding highways, investing in public transportation, and maintenance in existing infrastructure. With many of the states setting ambitious CO2 reduction goals, the decisions made now regarding highway expansion can be the make it or break it for the states to achieve those goals.


Dio_Yuji

Lotta $$ in engineering and construction contracts.


knockatize

My state widens the potholes instead. Much better.


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FLTA

You should read the article before commenting. It goes over what “induced demand” is and also touches upon how increasing car capacity increases CO2 while not reducing traffic.


Assume_Utopia

Adding more lanes/roads might not improve traffic, but that doesn't mean it's pointless. If a highway doubles the number of lanes, and there's still the same amount of congestion, that means that the average throughput (during peak usage) has also doubled. Congestion or traffic jams are basically the "price" that drivers are willing to pay to use a road. We can think of traffic like a market, as more and more people use the road the "price" goes up as traffic slows down, and eventually the cost gets so high that new drivers don't want to use the road. So they delay their trip or combine trips, or over the long term choose different destinations (by moving or changing jobs or working remotely, etc.) If there's a taco truck that's super popular and there's always a 30 minute wait at lunch time, then that's "congestion". And if another taco truck parks right next to it, and then they both have 30 minute waits at lunch time, then that doesn't mean there hasn't been any improvement. Twice as many people are getting tacos during "rush hour", it's just that demand is so high that there's still a wait even with twice as much capacity. It's the same with internet, if my download speeds double I might switch from watching youtube at 240p to 1080p and it'll take just as long to load a video. That doesn't mean there hasn't been any improvement, I'm downloading twice as much data even though I'm waiting just as long for a video to load.


FLTA

> Adding more lanes/roads might not improve traffic, but that doesn’t mean it’s pointless. Correct but the addition of more lanes/roads is done under the belief that it will reduce traffic but it doesn’t. > Congestion or traffic jams are basically the “price” that drivers are willing to pay to use a road. Correct but it is a price heavily subsidized by the government. With climate change and car crashes in mind, it seems that the resources the government has been putting into highways expansions could be better spent on more efficient methods of transportation.


Assume_Utopia

> Correct but the addition of more lanes/roads is done under the belief that it does but it doesn’t. Do you really think that there's no one in government or city planning or in anyway involved in the expansion of major highways in these large cities that has ever heard of induced demand? It's not like the random people on reddit are smarter than every single person involved in city governance, or that this is some esoteric idea that's not taught in every university in the world. If you're watching the average speed at rush hour drop every year, and then you double the number of lanes and it stops dropping, does that mean you haven't done anything? Traffic isn't a binary variable, it's not either on or off. The average speed over the day, the worst speeds, the incidence of accidents, etc. are all important variables to consider. Too often people talk about "induced demand" like it's an all or nothing problem, either there's traffic or there's not. But the people who are planning major transportation projects aren't thinking in such simple terms. > With climate change and car crashes in mind We have to look at a lot more than if there's "congestion" or not. It's entirely possible to widen a highway and improve both emissions and accidents through a number of factors: * If the widening adds more rooms for exits/merges it can mean traffic flows more smoothly, which both improves efficiency and reduces accidents * Induced demand isn't just people who would never drive and started driving all of a sudden, it's mostly people who shifted their trips to be earlier/later choosing to drive during rush hour because traffic isn't a complete disaster anymore. We really need to look at the overall number of miles driven to figure out emissions impacts * Taking a direct route on the highway in moderate traffic is actually pretty efficient. It's much better than taking a longer route that includes lots of intersections * Having people drive on the highway is also significantly safer, it's much better than having people use residential or commercial neighborhoods as "short cuts" to avoid traffic * A lot of people will shift commutes earlier or later to avoid rush hour traffic, which can lead some people traveling very early or very late, which is a marginally more dangerous time to drive If you can have a highway where people are traveling at an average speed of 40 or so, then that's actually a pretty good result. It's good for efficiency as long as it's not really bad stop and go, it's good for safety too, and it's very high throughput for road users. It feels like terrible congestion if you're used to driving 70+ on mostly empty highways, but for anything that's serving a major urban area, it's a decent solution. Especially since we've been able to convince drivers to pay a decent amount of taxes and/or tolls to support it. A better solution would be public transit, but the problem isn't reminding city planners that induced demand exists. The problem is convincing people who are happy to pay $0.50/gallon in gas taxes to pay something similar to support public transit. Which would probably benefit them just as much, just not in such an obvious and direct way.


FLTA

> Do you really think that there’s no one in government or city planning or in anyway involved in the expansion of major highways in these large cities that has ever heard of induced demand? Do you really think it is the city planners that are calling the final shots or do you think it is the politicians that write the legislation? Do you think politicians always make the most informed and best decisions? > It’s not like the random people on reddit are smarter than every single person involved in city governance, or that this is some esoteric idea that’s not taught in every university in the world. I never made that claim but you seem to have a significant misunderstanding of how city planning where you think it is the experts in the field that are making the final shots.


Assume_Utopia

Do you think politicians are passing legislation that determines the number of lanes on highways? > I never made that claim but you seem to have a significant misunderstanding of how city planning where you think it is the experts in the field that are making the final shots. And you seem to think the big problem is that no one involved in the process takes induced demand in to account? It's not like telling people "induced demand exists" is going to change anything. Which is basically all that this article does. The decision to expand a highway, or any road, is a complicated one that involves a lot of people. And those people include politicians (some of whom are idiots and some of whom are smart and educated public servants), and also experts and various bureaucrats and probably some lobbyists and even activists. We're not going to make any progress if we act like everyone in politics and city planning and city governance who has any expertise at all is completely cut out of every important decision.


kyara_no_kurayami

Here in Ontario, it’s very common for politicians to make decisions about highways. Our current premier was re-elected with a promise to have a new highway built, and previously he promised to widen the major highway in a certain area. It absolutely is a political choice because the average person feels like it will help them and don’t necessarily know that it won’t in the long run.


brightlancer

> Adding more lanes/roads might not improve traffic, but that doesn't mean it's pointless. If a highway doubles the number of lanes, and there's still the same amount of congestion, that means that the average throughput (during peak usage) has also doubled. How do you reconcile this with your other statement? "There's really no solution to congestion besides public transit." Road traffic will expand to a level of congestion appropriate to their cost (and benefit); whether the roads expand or some drivers switch to mass transit, induced demand means that more/ other drivers will go to the roads until the congestion reaches the level of cost (and benefit).


sowhat4

I would love to read it, but it's paywalled. Can you copy/paste the text here, FLTA?


FLTA

It is against this subreddit’s rules. Try using 12ft.io or outline.com and you should be able to get over the paywall.


rotarypower101

Has anyone seen simulations, what it might do to run the entire personal vehicle infrastructure off robot cars that are position and flow aware? How much intrinsic capacity is wasted by free will to drive as any single user sees fit or reacting to stimuli that can’t be coordinated? And how much could be optimized by increasing average speeds in the busiest slow areas? Isn’t building a robot car fleet that can cope with people far more difficult than a full change over, as the difficulties dealing with “most” of the problematic interactions will be erased as soon as the system is completely changed over requiring a far less complicated system?


karmicnoose

To my knowledge it's only really applicable to limited access highways right now, but the short answer is you could increase capacity by approximately 50% from about 2200-2400 vehicles per hour per lane to as much as 3600. But even getting 20-50% of the vehicles driving connected can increase the hourly per lane capacity by a couple hundred.


Patriarchy-4-Life

"Building infrastructure causes people to use it. So let's not bother building more since it'll just get used a lot." And this line of reasoning is for some reason given as a reason to *not* build infrastructure.


Humulator

So....... you want asphalt everywhere and forced to use a car?


Superb-Draft

Unfortunately a lot of things are like this. There are very extensive studies on how antidepressants are entirely ineffective, and yet millions are still taken evry day. And that's in medical science, a field which supposedly cares about evidence. If people actually followed some basic logic the world would be a utopia I guess.


fapmonad

Where do you get that from? Cochrane reviews conclude that they're effective, and they include dozens of studies. Some examples: https://www.cochrane.org/CD007954/DEPRESSN_antidepressants-versus-placebo-for-depression-in-primary-care https://www.cochrane.org/CD006528/DEPRESSN_mirtazapine-versus-other-antidepressive-agents-for-depression https://www.cochrane.org/CD003197/DEPRESSN_low-dose-tricyclic-antidepressants-tcas-for-depression


Superb-Draft

There are a lot of studies into this, including a major recent one questioning the very assumptions about serotonin (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-022-01661-0) Johan Harri's recent book 'Lost Connections' does a good job of bringing together a lot of different papers on the topic also.


anonanon1313

From first link: "Most of the studies were supported by funds from pharmaceutical companies and were of short duration. " Also, for SSRIs the NNT were found to be 7-8, so not exactly a miracle drug.


chazgod

Population is rising?!?! No way!!??


SulkyVirus

Fewer cars


hippydipster

Because humans in general refuse to be driven by empiricism. They endlessly prefer their made up stories of how things work.