4 ms·

I often read that it's pointless to widen/improve the capacity of roads because increased traffic will swallow the wins (in individual transit times). I think

I often read that it's pointless to widen/improve the capacity of roads because increased traffic will swallow the wins (in individual transit times). I think that's the wrong way to look at it: I argue that the increased traffic throughput allows for economic growth in the region: Individuals are of course likely to only think about latency/transit time (which hasn't improved, because of the increased traffic.). The society and the local economy cares about the throughput though.

melling 10y ago
Unfortunately, it doesn't scale. There's a limit to widening the roads. What happens in 50 years when the population is a couple of million people larger? More cars, more space dedicated to parking, etc.
- maxsilver 10y ago
  > Unfortunately, it doesn't scale. There's a limit to widening the roads. That's true of everything though. All infrastructure doesn't scale. The water pipes / fiber lines / housing stock / schools / etc in the city today likely won't handle the needs of 50+ years either. It's ok to build infrastructure to meet today's needs, even if it won't work 50+ years from now. "Perfect is the enemy of good."
  - Tiktaalik 10y ago
    Yeah but some solutions scale dramatically better than other solutions, so let's switch to those. Cars physically take up a very large amount of space compared to a pedestrian or person on a bike. This is why car oriented transportation scales so badly. With highway expansion we're trying to scale up the transportation solution that is that requires the most area. This is dumb and expensive.
    - maxsilver 10y ago
      > Yeah but some solutions scale dramatically better than other solutions, Better for who? Most of the people using this freeway likely don't live within decent public transit access, and the money spent here is so low, that fact wouldn't have changed for most of them. > With highway expansion we're trying to scale up the transportation solution that is that requires the most area. This is dumb Yes it takes up the most space. But it's also the most compatible with existing housing + job transportation, and is the most flexible in terms of arrival and departure time, and is the least likely to hurt the housing market (increase costs, gentrify area). Trains and buses are great too, but they have their own negatives as well. This "all freeways are bad" attitude simply isn't true. > and expensive. This freeway project costs $22 million per mile. Yes, light rail has a higher carrying capacity for pedestrians, but it usually costs between $50 million and $100 million per mile. A lot of your "take up less space" requests explode the costs. LA's Crenshaw Line, for instance, is $165 million per mile, in part because some of it is underground. Light rail is a great option that all cities should be investing in. But there's no need to race-to-the-bottom on transportation. LA is growing fast enough to need a freeway and more light rail. It's OK that money gets spent on some of both. It's not like LA is ignoring public transit. There's already 11 active bus/rail projects in some state of construction right now, and many more on the way - https://www.metro.net/interactives/datatables/project/ https://www.metro.net/interactives/datatables/project/
      - Tiktaalik 10y ago
        > This freeway project costs $22 million per mile. And look how much was achieved for that money. Apparently not much. Whatever capacity gains appeared were immediately gobbled up. And what next? Scaling further will be harder and more expensive. It's not enough to compare highway costs and transit costs independent of everything. We need to consider the long term implications of the design choices that are being made. This point additionally references your comments about how transportation works with the existing infrastructure. We can keep doubling down on the way things have been done for the last 50 years, but I think cities need to take a step back, be more reflective about what they're doing, and work toward undoing some of the effects of bad decisions made decades earlier.
  - melling 10y ago
    No one said anything about a perfect solution. Did you throw that in there to make a really bad solution seem acceptable? If you don't have proper urban planning a lot of things, like mass transit, will be much more expensive in the future. You need right of ways, for example. One of the reasons that the "bullet train" between LA to SF is so ridiculously expensive is because getting the land is a lot harder than it would have been 50 years ago. In fact, they changed the route so it would be cheaper. $100 billion dollars...
majormajor 10y ago
You're treating it as if widening roads is the only possible use of the funds, and ignoring things like building out a mass transit network as an alternative.
- chrishacken 10y ago
  My thoughts exactly. We could have put that money towards an impressive rail system, or even a metro Hyperloop.
- johansch 10y ago
  Well, no, I am not. You are incorrectly extrapolating that from my argument. What I am saying is that from an regional economic point of view, throughput is more important that individual latency. In the context of widening highways. That is it. I did not say anything about other competing transportation methods.
yason 10y ago
It would be interesting to see economic data from areas near the Katy Freeway in TX with a total of 26 lanes and see if the economic growth is abnormally high around there.

melling 10y ago

Unfortunately, it doesn't scale. There's a limit to widening the roads. What happens in 50 years when the population is a couple of million people larger? More cars, more space dedicated to parking, etc.

maxsilver 10y ago
> Unfortunately, it doesn't scale. There's a limit to widening the roads. That's true of everything though. All infrastructure doesn't scale. The water pipes / fiber lines / housing stock / schools / etc in the city today likely won't handle the needs of 50+ years either. It's ok to build infrastructure to meet today's needs, even if it won't work 50+ years from now. "Perfect is the enemy of good."
- Tiktaalik 10y ago
  Yeah but some solutions scale dramatically better than other solutions, so let's switch to those. Cars physically take up a very large amount of space compared to a pedestrian or person on a bike. This is why car oriented transportation scales so badly. With highway expansion we're trying to scale up the transportation solution that is that requires the most area. This is dumb and expensive.
  - maxsilver 10y ago
    > Yeah but some solutions scale dramatically better than other solutions, Better for who? Most of the people using this freeway likely don't live within decent public transit access, and the money spent here is so low, that fact wouldn't have changed for most of them. > With highway expansion we're trying to scale up the transportation solution that is that requires the most area. This is dumb Yes it takes up the most space. But it's also the most compatible with existing housing + job transportation, and is the most flexible in terms of arrival and departure time, and is the least likely to hurt the housing market (increase costs, gentrify area). Trains and buses are great too, but they have their own negatives as well. This "all freeways are bad" attitude simply isn't true. > and expensive. This freeway project costs $22 million per mile. Yes, light rail has a higher carrying capacity for pedestrians, but it usually costs between $50 million and $100 million per mile. A lot of your "take up less space" requests explode the costs. LA's Crenshaw Line, for instance, is $165 million per mile, in part because some of it is underground. Light rail is a great option that all cities should be investing in. But there's no need to race-to-the-bottom on transportation. LA is growing fast enough to need a freeway and more light rail. It's OK that money gets spent on some of both. It's not like LA is ignoring public transit. There's already 11 active bus/rail projects in some state of construction right now, and many more on the way - https://www.metro.net/interactives/datatables/project/ https://www.metro.net/interactives/datatables/project/
    - Tiktaalik 10y ago
      > This freeway project costs $22 million per mile. And look how much was achieved for that money. Apparently not much. Whatever capacity gains appeared were immediately gobbled up. And what next? Scaling further will be harder and more expensive. It's not enough to compare highway costs and transit costs independent of everything. We need to consider the long term implications of the design choices that are being made. This point additionally references your comments about how transportation works with the existing infrastructure. We can keep doubling down on the way things have been done for the last 50 years, but I think cities need to take a step back, be more reflective about what they're doing, and work toward undoing some of the effects of bad decisions made decades earlier.
- melling 10y ago
  No one said anything about a perfect solution. Did you throw that in there to make a really bad solution seem acceptable? If you don't have proper urban planning a lot of things, like mass transit, will be much more expensive in the future. You need right of ways, for example. One of the reasons that the "bullet train" between LA to SF is so ridiculously expensive is because getting the land is a lot harder than it would have been 50 years ago. In fact, they changed the route so it would be cheaper. $100 billion dollars...

majormajor 10y ago

You're treating it as if widening roads is the only possible use of the funds, and ignoring things like building out a mass transit network as an alternative.

chrishacken 10y ago
My thoughts exactly. We could have put that money towards an impressive rail system, or even a metro Hyperloop.
johansch 10y ago
Well, no, I am not. You are incorrectly extrapolating that from my argument. What I am saying is that from an regional economic point of view, throughput is more important that individual latency. In the context of widening highways. That is it. I did not say anything about other competing transportation methods.

yason 10y ago

It would be interesting to see economic data from areas near the Katy Freeway in TX with a total of 26 lanes and see if the economic growth is abnormally high around there.