10 ms·

Why predicted gridlock almost never happens

100 points by samsolomon 10y ago

awjr 10y ago
A number of cities around the world have removed highways through the centre of their cities without impacting congestion noticably. Breass Paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess%27_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess%27_paradox Removing shortcuts within a system can make the system more efficient. Induced Demand/Traffic Evaporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand Build it and make it easier to use will generate more traffic. Remove it and the traffic just vanishes. Traffic Evaporation surprises many planners. The problem being that they assume traffic is just like water and must go somewhere else. Traffic is intelligent movement of individuals and people shift modes when one mode becomes less efficient either in time and/or money.
- taway_1212 10y ago
  > Traffic is intelligent movement of individuals and people shift modes when one mode becomes less efficient either in time and/or money. I think it practice it often means for example taking less desirable jobs because a better one is now too far away in terms of commute time, visiting their friends and family less often etc.
  - awjr 10y ago
    Quality of life is always important. I've taken a lower paying contract within a 10 minute cycle ride from hom rather than one paying 15% more but over an hour by train away.
    - M_Grey 10y ago
      Short of a bad marriage or a chronic illness, few things can ruin a life like a long, bad commute. I see your choice as being very rational.
      - douche 10y ago
        And a long, bad commute can contribute to those first two. I already wish I could have back all the hours I've wasted sitting behind the wheel, and I'm not that old yet...
        M_Grey 10y ago
        Absolutely. It doesn't help that I feel like I'm "the worst version of me" in a traffic jam either. At best, I'm battling against my worst impulses of judgmental anger... at worst I'm just fuming. The view of driving is going to be very different from the perspective of people who never had to do it, whenever that generation is born. Clean, automated cars are going to make our era look like Victorians living with coal fires in their homes.
        grillvogel 10y ago
        long commute where you have to drive yourself vs long commute on mass transit are pretty different
        closeparen 10y ago
        Indeed. I get into a pretty pleasant mental place behind the wheel, even in traffic, while standing on mass transit is pure misery. Never imagined I would care about climbing the corporate ladder until I realized it could mean cutting mass transit out of my life and living close enough to walk. The rent is at least $1000 more, but $300 less in fares will help, and not being on mass transit is priceless.
    - cafard 10y ago
      Indeed. A co-worker left last year because the effects of WMATA's Safe Track program on his commute.
    - StavrosK 10y ago
      If you spend 100 more minutes every day going to work on the second job, and work 8 hours, you're spending 20% more of your time for work and only getting paid 15% less. That's bad ROI, even without considering the adverse psychological impact of a long commute.
      - pdelbarba 10y ago
        Having gone from a 1hr commute to about 15min/30 by bike, I can say just the difference in psychological impact is well worth it.
      - nickez 10y ago
        Commuting more than 60 minutes a day (in total) is not acceptable for 8 hours of work. I simply cannot understand why you would spend your spare time commuting. I have 15 minutes by bike to work right now which gives me a lot of time to do what I love
        sbov 10y ago
        I could also say choosing where to live based upon where you work is unacceptable, but many people do it. In reality there are many conflicting priorities in our lives, and each person chooses how much each matter to them. E.g. we chose where to live because of the schooling and it's close to family. But I work from home so it doesn't matter that it's a suburb. However if I ever got an office job I could be met with a daily total commute of 90 minutes. Should I sacrifice family and schooling so I can be closer to the job centers? Why is doing so any less unacceptable than a 90 minute commute?
        closeparen 10y ago
        Because if your industry centralizes in expensive cities, you think roommates are worse than a long commute, and you are not in the top 0.1% by income available for rent, 60+ minutes is what you're going to get.
        grillvogel 10y ago
        >Commuting more than 60 minutes a day (in total) is not acceptable for 8 hours of work. according to who? my commute is a combination of bus and walking and takes about an hour each way, but i actually kinda prefer it to when i lived close in the city. living in the city is not pleasant for me anymore, i can live somewhere i actually like, have time to myself on the bus to read/listen to music/whatever, and also get in several miles of walking every day.
    - vkjv 10y ago
      William Shatner feels the same way. > I don't think of favorite roles like 'This was my favorite thing to do, and that isn’t.' I just wish they hadn't cancelled Shit My Dad Says because I could bicycle to work. https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/11/10/17/150212/william-shatner-answers-in-826-words https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/11/10/17/150212/wil...
  - drzaiusapelord 10y ago
    Absolutely this, and then the real estate in the 'job centers' in dense urban areas that have streets removed or lanes cut down to turn into bike lanes vastly jump up in price because you have to be within a bus ride or bike ride to work to get those good jobs, thus demand outstrips supply. Commuting 90+ minutes from the suburbs is a non-starter for most. Look at how much it costs to live in SF, London, Paris, etc. Applauding these methods is questionable, it certainly doesn't help people trying to find work and puts up a barrier to entry to access these desirable jobs. Its massively gentries those areas which makes sure the only kinds of people able to get those jobs are the already well-off. I find it ironic that HN'ers complain about SF and other big city pricing, but also encourage 'lock in' strategies like over-use of bike lanes, elimination of parking lots, and anti-car policies that only make real estate more expensive.
    - njs12345 10y ago
      All of the places you listed have massive problems with NIMBYism. If the places a 30 minute cycle away from the City of London had the residential density of Hong Kong, what do you think house prices would be like?
    - LordKano 10y ago
      We're seeing this happen in my city. Areas that were on the verge of becoming urban wastelands 15 years ago are now upscale. They won't ever admit it but city planners are trying to use economic forces to reverse the white flight of the 60s and 70s by pushing poorer, darker people out into the suburbs and attracting a more affluent, whiter demographic into the city. They're billing these things as quality of life enhancements but all they're doing is making traffic less tolerable. This city has half the population it did 60 years ago and the commute is as terrible as ever.
      - drzaiusapelord 10y ago
        I live in one of these areas and very close to my downtown job, and when I first started my career I absolutely couldn't afford to live here. Worse, the never-ending clamor of removing more traffic lanes for bike lanes continues on, even as traffic only gets worse. There's definitely an aspect of "I got mine, fuck you" at work here and definitely an attraction to keeping the 'wrong' people out. I find myself thinking like this sometimes and try very hard to fight it. I find the bike crowd is almost exclusively white and relatively well off and I don't think that's a coincidence. I also think there's something wonderful about having streets and enough traffic capacity to allow people access to every part of the city and region. We shouldn't be building silos of rich areas that are foot or bike traffic only. Its just a big 'keep out' sign especially in my town where bike lane usage is low and 6 months out of the year unusable due to the cold.
  - ajuc 10y ago
    Don't stop at 1 step. This in turn makes workers' pool smaller, which increases salaries, and encourages employers to move to the better connected areas. And so on.
    - marcosdumay 10y ago
      > which increases salaries In that now expensive part of the city that most people can't move to. And reduces them everywhere else. > encourages employers to move to the better connected areas Moving the transit there at the same time. There's something to say about creating infrastructure at the surrounds of the cities. It seems to have worked very well in the last decades. There's also something to say about forcing (by government power) a change in purpose for the center of cities. But simply cutting the movement of people does not look like a net gain most of the time.
- Declanomous 10y ago
  I wonder how WAZE interacts with the Breass Paradox. When I started using it, I noticed it could cut 10 minutes off my commute. Over time I noticed that more and more people were taking shortcuts, and now my commute is longer than it would have been had I just stayed on the standard route 5 years ago. Part of that is surely the growing population with cars in the neighborhoods in-between where I live and where I work, but I wouldn't be surprised if WAZE somehow made traffic worse.
  - awjr 10y ago
    WAZE is interesting as is Google Directions. In effect they have enabled side roads to 'absorb' the increase in car use without having to deal with actual shifting people out of cars into other modes. In the WAZE Driver Satisfaction survey, the Netherlands came out on top. I'm guessing this is because so many people can choose not to drive to work/school/shops/etc. https://www.waze.com/driverindex https://www.waze.com/driverindex The Netherlands also have the happiest children in the world with the best child travel independence. I'm guessing creating a world where active travel (walking and cycling) is built into your environment from the getgo sets you up for life to be active. Their diet is bloody awful. ;)
  - pdelbarba 10y ago
    I recall seeing articles a few years back about SF neighborhoods petitioning google to stop showing cut-through routes that increased the traffic on their side streets. I don't think it went anywhere but google does occasionally bend to this kind of thing (see the Hollywood sign controversy)
  - saosebastiao 10y ago
    Waze ensures that the paradox manifests itself. Braess' paradox relies on individuals acting rationally without respect for the system's behavior. That is exactly what Waze does.
  - ballenf 10y ago
    Waze seems to show few if any shortcuts anymore, until I manually start to take the route. Then the ETA drops by a couple minutes as it re-routes. Don't know if that's in response to complaints, but the shortcuts it continues to offer are usually through low-income areas. People who would be perhaps less likely to complain. /conspiracy theory over When services reach critical mass, they don't need to offer the same value proposition. Only value Waze has left for me is police awareness, but even that has been mostly thwarted by changing police patterns. They rarely camp out in one place anymore and instead operate more like stings -- pull over and nab a speeder in 20-30 seconds.
- hammock 10y ago
  It may not impact congestion but what else does it impact? For example if more people are staying home does that affect the local economy?
- pif 10y ago
  This only makes sense for those who think that removing congestion is intrinsically good. The social cost of removing congestion must be taken into account. Nobody likes to drive in congested roads, still many people choose to do so because of the outcome (hint: work). Reducing the congestion is useless if drivers are not free to enjoy the liberated roads. PS: Yes, I agree with taway_1212
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - CalRobert 10y ago
    It's useful for everyone who breathes, hears, or walks.
    - oftenwrong 10y ago
      >breathes Many people do not realize how damaging to one's health it is to be near a highway: https://now.tufts.edu/articles/big-road-blues-pollution-highways https://now.tufts.edu/articles/big-road-blues-pollution-high...
  - astrange 10y ago
    Congestion is a tragedy of the commons caused by the people driving, who "could" have avoided it by not all driving 1 person per 4-person 2000lb car. I'm sure they realize that, but most people can't seem change their lives to escape it by riding the bus or whatever.
    - pif 10y ago
      Time is the matter key. Faster transportation mode will always win. Congestion will vanish when public transport will yield a shorter door-to-door time than driving through congestion.
- ak217 10y ago
  Right, people are intelligent enough to not go into a gridlocked city if they have a choice. They'll avoid it altogether. This is the problem with this class of argument, and the one in the article. They rely on cherry-picking data or isolated observations. I haven't seen any of these arguments try to take into account transportation quality measures like travel time index, average commute time/distance, average trip time, physical mobility, number of jobs, wages and population over time, or satisfaction levels.
- JupiterMoon 10y ago
  Most people don't drive for the sake of it. The 'induced demand' is actually fulfilled latent demand. People had journeys they would like to make but were unable to because the journey time was unmanageable. Building the road allowed them to make the journey. Removing the road results in more unfulfilled journeys i.e. economic loss (e.g. people being unable to take a more optimal job) and social loss (e.g. people not being able to travel to visit family).
  - awjr 10y ago
    It isn't so much latent demand as the cost/benefit of travelling in by car is better than alternative methods. The problem primarily is around the exclusion of other modes of travel from the system. Roads need to be built with space for walking, cycling and driving and should prioritise walking and cycling. This enables local journeys to be removed from the road network.
rplst8 10y ago
I think this overlooks the number of people whose commutes would go from manageable to very painful.
- _jal 10y ago
  They aren't measuring misery, they're measuring traffic flow. I absolutely take your point. Just saying that wasn't the focus.
cperciva 10y ago
Some travel is discretionary. High profile disruptions in road capacity tend to result in a reduction in discretionary travel. But this doesn't mean that all travel is discretionary, or that road capacity can be reduced by an arbitrarily large amount without causing traffic bottlenecks.
zitterbewegung 10y ago
Although the gridlock is not occurring I think the fact that the claim that less people would get on the freeway would have a significant economic impact for destinations that the freeway makes more conveinent or reachable.
sandworm101 10y ago
So blocking up a road results in fewer trip in the affected area? This is news? Block up two roads and you will see even more reduction. Heck, block all the roads. Traffic solved. Local congestion is only half the story. How many people simply altered routes, perhaps traveling longer? How many instead went elsewhere rather than not go anywhere? I want to see not a city-wide but an area-wide measurement of total miles travelled. That number matters more (economically, environmentally) than local congestion. If cutting traffic in the city core results only in greater traffic elsewhere, that is no net good. In fact it only contributes to urban sprawl as people travel further to reach various destinations.
- eli 10y ago
  Just like adding a lane doesn't improve traffic much because more people use the road
  - nitrogen 10y ago
    That claim is frequently used on HN to justify anti-driving policies, but the economic cost/benefit inside and outside the affected area is never considered. If you only focus on one metric (traffic density), you miss the bigger picture.
    - sandworm101 10y ago
      Note that those making such arguments rarely extend them to bike lanes. If cutting lanes really reduces unneeded trips, that principal should apply to all modes of transport. Closing a subway station would certainly reduce the foot traffic cluttering up nearby sidewalks. Those people will work from home instead.
      - galdosdi 10y ago
        Your rhetorical question has an obvious answer, which I'll illustrate with evidence: I live in Manhattan, the USA's most crowded place in terms of bikes and pedestrians. Yet, we are not anywhere near capacity for bikes and pedestrians, anywhere, anytime. For cars, we are at/over capacity pretty much all the time during the day. Why is obvious -- cars are way bigger. Duh. Cars are just very space-ineffecient -- the space consumed by one car could service many times more transit riders, pedestrians, cyclists. Getting people to switch from car to anything else multiples manyfold the number of people we can service, which is a good thing. Getting people to switch from anything else, on the other hand, doesn't do much good. Even if we did reach sidewalk capacity somewhere, it would make sense to just convert one car lane into additional sidewalk, since a lane can fit at least 10x as many people if they're walking versus driving.
jakub_g 10y ago
If you have a big city with 1000s of road, people can adjust, like in the internet. I work in a small (geographically) technopolis which has 2 main roads out (so more like intranet). Recently, a tiny secondary road was closed due to repairs. It was a carmageddon due to suddenly most of the people having to go through the same shared 1km bottleneck.
- LordKano 10y ago
  I live in Pittsburgh and a single disabled vehicle during the morning commute changes everything. A closure on one of the less traveled routes into the city also has an enormous impact on the commute for everyone.
maxsilver 10y ago
> "people travel on roadways because the capacity is available for their trips, when when the capacity goes away, so does much of the trip making." > "46,000 fewer trips per day across the river after the bridge collapsed." Can we also start including quality of life and transportation times and housing costs in these measurements. 46,000 people wanted to go somewhere and couldn't. The article plays this like a success, but that sounds like a quality-of-life drop for many people. Something can still be a bad idea, even if it is not "the end of the world". Tearing down useful infrastructure is still a bad idea, even if it doesn't literally destroy the city.
- Symbiote 10y ago
  OK, but you also need to consider the quality of life for people living or working near the roads -- that increases when there is less traffic.
  - cwilkes 10y ago
    Really depends on what work that is. If the business depends on people from all over the city it might suffer. While I sort of liked the tone of the article the same could be said about cutting off a limb. Sure you can survive without it.
  - scythe 10y ago
    When I lived in Atlanta I had an apartment in south Buckhead within sight of I-85 actually quite close to where it collapsed. I don't recall many sleep disturbances. But when I lived in a complex on 10th street there were sirens going down the road at all hours of the night. The low grumble of car motors is pretty minor by noise standards. Fire engines and ambulances however...
    - closeparen 10y ago
      Try rail level crossings with train horns every few minutes. It's amazing to me that car tires are even considered noise. That's just the floor. There are much worse offenders in urban environments. I guess in a rural or suburban environment you might have actual silence without the highway, but I've never noticed the highway to be much louder than the wind unless a particularly bad diesel engine, illegal-exhaust motorcycle, or emergency vehicle is passing.
treyreynolds 10y ago
A few weeks ago was my first experience of living in Austin during South by Southwest. I heard dire warnings to stay home and avoid traffic trying to reach my 7th street office building. As you probably expect, now due to this article, traffic was actually considerably better than my commute today!
crusso 10y ago
I live in an Atlanta suburb. My commute back from the airport (definitely a route impacted by this road collapse) this past Friday morning was almost twice as long as it normally is at that time of day. Before the news of the collapse, I was planning on performing an errand in midtown on my way home - but going right through town would have been especially painful since the normal route home from there is over the collapsed roadway. People I've talked to in my neighborhood are avoiding going into or through Atlanta if at all possible. They're finding ways to make even otherwise mandatory trips "discretionary". This article is a bit like the Y2K aftermath where many claimed that the hype was overblown. While it's true that the direst of predictions didn't come to pass, harping on those predictions as though they didn't effect behavioral changes seems to be ignoring half the picture.
- spcelzrd 10y ago
  I live in town and feel the same way. Some trips just aren't worth it. It would be easier for me to go to Chattanooga than Perimeter Mall. Most areas of Midtown are really easy though, so no change there.
neom 10y ago
I ran the morning commute last Tuesday vs this Tuesday through the platform our company builds, looks like the amount of congestion did not change, but the locations did. https://twitter.com/staehere/status/849280329982644224 https://twitter.com/staehere/status/849280329982644224
- madcaptenor 10y ago
  That would explain why some of us in Atlanta are saying it's worse than usual and some are saying it's better.
woofyman 10y ago
I live in Atlanta and this article is false. First of all, it's spring break and the schools are closed which reduces traffic. Surface streets have become parking lots as people find alternate routes around the interstate. This has affected lots of the local businesses. It's dangerously affected emergency response times for firetrucks and ambulances.
- squozzer 10y ago
  So do I, and won't argue with your take on the situation. But I also remember 1996 and how the news predicted a disaster of Olympic proportions. Turns out my commute during the Olympics was the fastest I can remember.
  - aero142 10y ago
    I know that when there is a big public event, I can work from home without worrying about it looking bad. I wonder how many people do that when there is a something big to point to to justify it.
  - woofyman 10y ago
    They did a good job of scaring people into taking vacations, telecommuting, etc. But a lot of businesses were hurt, especially restaurants. It's was great for me. You could walk in to any restaurant without a reservation.
    - madcaptenor 10y ago
      In San Francisco this is called the "Burning Man rapture".
- spcelzrd 10y ago
  Spring break has made things easier. Monday will be interesting. I don't think the bridge collapse will have any lasting effect on the city, though. (Other than the DOT will stop storing flammable material under the Interstate)
atlantacrackers 10y ago
Atlanta resident. Commutes are longer by a factor of 2 if not more. A co-workers commute from Roswell to Cumberland that did take 25 minutes is over an hour since the bridge fell. And, that commute doesn't go anywhere near the bridge. Additionally, many schools are on spring break this week further reducing traffic. While it might not be total gridlock, the traffic is being impacted significantly and will continue to be.
spcelzrd 10y ago
Atlanta commuter here. The bridge collapse has impacted my daily drive. The first half of the trip is much quicker. The second half is much slower. Results in a slightly longer daily commute. There are certain areas of the city I just won't go to until they fix the bridge. Last night I had to go to Ansley Park and the traffic at Piedmont and Monroe was absurd. Not an area I visit frequently, but there was gridlock, and I suspect most people were there because they had no other route. 285, the perimeter road, is much worse in both directions at all times of day. I've lived in Atlanta most of my life. I would prefer we spend no more money on roads and instead funnel those resources into public transit.
- oddlyaromatic 10y ago
  Also live in Atlanta, commute is the same story, I was laughing all the way down 85 till the 3/4 mile backup at my exit, and I ended up just a little late.
  - madcaptenor 10y ago
    I had the easiest commute I've had in a while yesterday, complete with the miracle of traffic moving just fine on 285. It reminded me of one of those days where there are flurries is some mountain town and so everybody in Atlanta stays home. On the other hand, Friday evening was one of the worst Atlanta traffic jams I've ever been in, so I don't know what the new normal is.
- atom-morgan 10y ago
  As an Atlanta resident, I feel we're on our way to being the next LA.
  - spcelzrd 10y ago
    I think we've been LA for a while.
    - RileyKyeden 10y ago
lisper 10y ago
This is a very misleading article in many ways, but I'll just point out one: they show a Google Traffic map showing traffic normal "late in the morning." But to measure how much time people are spending in traffic you can't just take one snapshot. Traffic might be the same at 11 AM while rush hour congestion now extends for several extra hours before and after what it did before. Based on anecdotal evidence in other comments here I would bet that is what is actually happening.
awinter-py 10y ago
car flow improved when 42 traffic lights zonked out in beverly (east yorkshire, UK, the earth) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3266133/All-FORTY-TWO-traffic-lights-break-Britain-s-chaotic-junction-guess-happens-flow-cars-IMPROVES.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3266133/All-FORTY-TW... (kind of amusing that the number is 42) Related conclusion is that crowdsourcing decisions works when a few conditions are met (all related to decentralized information). More here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wisdom_of_Crowds#Four_elements_required_to_form_a_wise_crowd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wisdom_of_Crowds#Four_elem...
chairmanwow 10y ago
I would love to see a ridesharing company weigh in on how trip volume / average trip length / average trip duration / average street road speed has been affected by the collapse. They are the only party I can think of that would have accurate data on this subject. This article focuses on local traffic congestion, which I honestly don't think is helpful in assessing the true effects of the bridge collapse. While at first, it may be surprising that traffic isn't 10x worse without a segment of a major highway, traffic is the flow of individuals who are aware of traffic conditions, much like traffic on the internet. My predictions for what is currently happening in Atlanta: * Less trips are being taken (telecommuting / not going out for dinner) * Mandatory trips average length has increased * Mandatory trip average duration has increased * Average speed on street-level roads has dropped
- cvoss 10y ago
  Also we should keep in mind that it is currently spring break for Fulton, Cobb, DeKalb, and Gwinnett counties. Many families are out of town or have fewer activities to attend.
framebit 10y ago
A number of other commenters have addressed this, but for emphasis: 1. Many commutes around the city HAVE gotten a lot worse since the bridge fell. Anybody who has to get on 285 for anything is feeling the pain. 2. It's Spring Break for the public schools and many private schools this week. Let's see what happens next week.
danesparza 10y ago
It just so happens the bridge collapse mentioned happened late on a Thursday, the week before spring break. I think the real test might be on Monday 4/10 or Tuesday 4/11 when traffic is traditionally higher.
siliconc0w 10y ago
Less cars on the road isn't necessarily a categorical good - people are likely driving around for a reason. Closing roads will have subtle and long term impacts we clearly don't fully understand yet.
athenot 10y ago
The original point may still hold but an important omission in this article is the fact that this week is spring break for most counties around Atlanta, thus creating a much lighter load of traffic.' Edit: I should add that current traffic feels as if it wasn't spring break. It will be interesting to see how next week shapes to be.
hpritch5 10y ago
It's "Spring Break" for many of the counties in Metro Atlanta. This week is one of the worst weeks to base your commute off of. Wait until next Monday and check google maps.

100 points by samsolomon 10y ago

awjr 10y ago

A number of cities around the world have removed highways through the centre of their cities without impacting congestion noticably. Breass Paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess%27_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess%27_paradox Removing shortcuts within a system can make the system more efficient. Induced Demand/Traffic Evaporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand Build it and make it easier to use will generate more traffic. Remove it and the traffic just vanishes. Traffic Evaporation surprises many planners. The problem being that they assume traffic is just like water and must go somewhere else. Traffic is intelligent movement of individuals and people shift modes when one mode becomes less efficient either in time and/or money.

taway_1212 10y ago
> Traffic is intelligent movement of individuals and people shift modes when one mode becomes less efficient either in time and/or money. I think it practice it often means for example taking less desirable jobs because a better one is now too far away in terms of commute time, visiting their friends and family less often etc.
- awjr 10y ago
  Quality of life is always important. I've taken a lower paying contract within a 10 minute cycle ride from hom rather than one paying 15% more but over an hour by train away.
  - M_Grey 10y ago
    Short of a bad marriage or a chronic illness, few things can ruin a life like a long, bad commute. I see your choice as being very rational.
    - douche 10y ago
      And a long, bad commute can contribute to those first two. I already wish I could have back all the hours I've wasted sitting behind the wheel, and I'm not that old yet...
      - M_Grey 10y ago
        Absolutely. It doesn't help that I feel like I'm "the worst version of me" in a traffic jam either. At best, I'm battling against my worst impulses of judgmental anger... at worst I'm just fuming. The view of driving is going to be very different from the perspective of people who never had to do it, whenever that generation is born. Clean, automated cars are going to make our era look like Victorians living with coal fires in their homes.
      - grillvogel 10y ago
        long commute where you have to drive yourself vs long commute on mass transit are pretty different
        closeparen 10y ago
        Indeed. I get into a pretty pleasant mental place behind the wheel, even in traffic, while standing on mass transit is pure misery. Never imagined I would care about climbing the corporate ladder until I realized it could mean cutting mass transit out of my life and living close enough to walk. The rent is at least $1000 more, but $300 less in fares will help, and not being on mass transit is priceless.
  - cafard 10y ago
    Indeed. A co-worker left last year because the effects of WMATA's Safe Track program on his commute.
  - StavrosK 10y ago
    If you spend 100 more minutes every day going to work on the second job, and work 8 hours, you're spending 20% more of your time for work and only getting paid 15% less. That's bad ROI, even without considering the adverse psychological impact of a long commute.
    - pdelbarba 10y ago
      Having gone from a 1hr commute to about 15min/30 by bike, I can say just the difference in psychological impact is well worth it.
    - nickez 10y ago
      Commuting more than 60 minutes a day (in total) is not acceptable for 8 hours of work. I simply cannot understand why you would spend your spare time commuting. I have 15 minutes by bike to work right now which gives me a lot of time to do what I love
      - sbov 10y ago
        I could also say choosing where to live based upon where you work is unacceptable, but many people do it. In reality there are many conflicting priorities in our lives, and each person chooses how much each matter to them. E.g. we chose where to live because of the schooling and it's close to family. But I work from home so it doesn't matter that it's a suburb. However if I ever got an office job I could be met with a daily total commute of 90 minutes. Should I sacrifice family and schooling so I can be closer to the job centers? Why is doing so any less unacceptable than a 90 minute commute?
      - closeparen 10y ago
        Because if your industry centralizes in expensive cities, you think roommates are worse than a long commute, and you are not in the top 0.1% by income available for rent, 60+ minutes is what you're going to get.
      - grillvogel 10y ago
        >Commuting more than 60 minutes a day (in total) is not acceptable for 8 hours of work. according to who? my commute is a combination of bus and walking and takes about an hour each way, but i actually kinda prefer it to when i lived close in the city. living in the city is not pleasant for me anymore, i can live somewhere i actually like, have time to myself on the bus to read/listen to music/whatever, and also get in several miles of walking every day.
  - vkjv 10y ago
    William Shatner feels the same way. > I don't think of favorite roles like 'This was my favorite thing to do, and that isn’t.' I just wish they hadn't cancelled Shit My Dad Says because I could bicycle to work. https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/11/10/17/150212/william-shatner-answers-in-826-words https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/11/10/17/150212/wil...
- drzaiusapelord 10y ago
  Absolutely this, and then the real estate in the 'job centers' in dense urban areas that have streets removed or lanes cut down to turn into bike lanes vastly jump up in price because you have to be within a bus ride or bike ride to work to get those good jobs, thus demand outstrips supply. Commuting 90+ minutes from the suburbs is a non-starter for most. Look at how much it costs to live in SF, London, Paris, etc. Applauding these methods is questionable, it certainly doesn't help people trying to find work and puts up a barrier to entry to access these desirable jobs. Its massively gentries those areas which makes sure the only kinds of people able to get those jobs are the already well-off. I find it ironic that HN'ers complain about SF and other big city pricing, but also encourage 'lock in' strategies like over-use of bike lanes, elimination of parking lots, and anti-car policies that only make real estate more expensive.
  - njs12345 10y ago
    All of the places you listed have massive problems with NIMBYism. If the places a 30 minute cycle away from the City of London had the residential density of Hong Kong, what do you think house prices would be like?
  - LordKano 10y ago
    We're seeing this happen in my city. Areas that were on the verge of becoming urban wastelands 15 years ago are now upscale. They won't ever admit it but city planners are trying to use economic forces to reverse the white flight of the 60s and 70s by pushing poorer, darker people out into the suburbs and attracting a more affluent, whiter demographic into the city. They're billing these things as quality of life enhancements but all they're doing is making traffic less tolerable. This city has half the population it did 60 years ago and the commute is as terrible as ever.
    - drzaiusapelord 10y ago
      I live in one of these areas and very close to my downtown job, and when I first started my career I absolutely couldn't afford to live here. Worse, the never-ending clamor of removing more traffic lanes for bike lanes continues on, even as traffic only gets worse. There's definitely an aspect of "I got mine, fuck you" at work here and definitely an attraction to keeping the 'wrong' people out. I find myself thinking like this sometimes and try very hard to fight it. I find the bike crowd is almost exclusively white and relatively well off and I don't think that's a coincidence. I also think there's something wonderful about having streets and enough traffic capacity to allow people access to every part of the city and region. We shouldn't be building silos of rich areas that are foot or bike traffic only. Its just a big 'keep out' sign especially in my town where bike lane usage is low and 6 months out of the year unusable due to the cold.
- ajuc 10y ago
  Don't stop at 1 step. This in turn makes workers' pool smaller, which increases salaries, and encourages employers to move to the better connected areas. And so on.
  - marcosdumay 10y ago
    > which increases salaries In that now expensive part of the city that most people can't move to. And reduces them everywhere else. > encourages employers to move to the better connected areas Moving the transit there at the same time. There's something to say about creating infrastructure at the surrounds of the cities. It seems to have worked very well in the last decades. There's also something to say about forcing (by government power) a change in purpose for the center of cities. But simply cutting the movement of people does not look like a net gain most of the time.
Declanomous 10y ago
I wonder how WAZE interacts with the Breass Paradox. When I started using it, I noticed it could cut 10 minutes off my commute. Over time I noticed that more and more people were taking shortcuts, and now my commute is longer than it would have been had I just stayed on the standard route 5 years ago. Part of that is surely the growing population with cars in the neighborhoods in-between where I live and where I work, but I wouldn't be surprised if WAZE somehow made traffic worse.
- awjr 10y ago
  WAZE is interesting as is Google Directions. In effect they have enabled side roads to 'absorb' the increase in car use without having to deal with actual shifting people out of cars into other modes. In the WAZE Driver Satisfaction survey, the Netherlands came out on top. I'm guessing this is because so many people can choose not to drive to work/school/shops/etc. https://www.waze.com/driverindex https://www.waze.com/driverindex The Netherlands also have the happiest children in the world with the best child travel independence. I'm guessing creating a world where active travel (walking and cycling) is built into your environment from the getgo sets you up for life to be active. Their diet is bloody awful. ;)
- pdelbarba 10y ago
  I recall seeing articles a few years back about SF neighborhoods petitioning google to stop showing cut-through routes that increased the traffic on their side streets. I don't think it went anywhere but google does occasionally bend to this kind of thing (see the Hollywood sign controversy)
- saosebastiao 10y ago
  Waze ensures that the paradox manifests itself. Braess' paradox relies on individuals acting rationally without respect for the system's behavior. That is exactly what Waze does.
- ballenf 10y ago
  Waze seems to show few if any shortcuts anymore, until I manually start to take the route. Then the ETA drops by a couple minutes as it re-routes. Don't know if that's in response to complaints, but the shortcuts it continues to offer are usually through low-income areas. People who would be perhaps less likely to complain. /conspiracy theory over When services reach critical mass, they don't need to offer the same value proposition. Only value Waze has left for me is police awareness, but even that has been mostly thwarted by changing police patterns. They rarely camp out in one place anymore and instead operate more like stings -- pull over and nab a speeder in 20-30 seconds.
hammock 10y ago
It may not impact congestion but what else does it impact? For example if more people are staying home does that affect the local economy?
pif 10y ago
This only makes sense for those who think that removing congestion is intrinsically good. The social cost of removing congestion must be taken into account. Nobody likes to drive in congested roads, still many people choose to do so because of the outcome (hint: work). Reducing the congestion is useless if drivers are not free to enjoy the liberated roads. PS: Yes, I agree with taway_1212
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- CalRobert 10y ago
  It's useful for everyone who breathes, hears, or walks.
  - oftenwrong 10y ago
    >breathes Many people do not realize how damaging to one's health it is to be near a highway: https://now.tufts.edu/articles/big-road-blues-pollution-highways https://now.tufts.edu/articles/big-road-blues-pollution-high...
- astrange 10y ago
  Congestion is a tragedy of the commons caused by the people driving, who "could" have avoided it by not all driving 1 person per 4-person 2000lb car. I'm sure they realize that, but most people can't seem change their lives to escape it by riding the bus or whatever.
  - pif 10y ago
    Time is the matter key. Faster transportation mode will always win. Congestion will vanish when public transport will yield a shorter door-to-door time than driving through congestion.
ak217 10y ago
Right, people are intelligent enough to not go into a gridlocked city if they have a choice. They'll avoid it altogether. This is the problem with this class of argument, and the one in the article. They rely on cherry-picking data or isolated observations. I haven't seen any of these arguments try to take into account transportation quality measures like travel time index, average commute time/distance, average trip time, physical mobility, number of jobs, wages and population over time, or satisfaction levels.
JupiterMoon 10y ago
Most people don't drive for the sake of it. The 'induced demand' is actually fulfilled latent demand. People had journeys they would like to make but were unable to because the journey time was unmanageable. Building the road allowed them to make the journey. Removing the road results in more unfulfilled journeys i.e. economic loss (e.g. people being unable to take a more optimal job) and social loss (e.g. people not being able to travel to visit family).
- awjr 10y ago
  It isn't so much latent demand as the cost/benefit of travelling in by car is better than alternative methods. The problem primarily is around the exclusion of other modes of travel from the system. Roads need to be built with space for walking, cycling and driving and should prioritise walking and cycling. This enables local journeys to be removed from the road network.

rplst8 10y ago

I think this overlooks the number of people whose commutes would go from manageable to very painful.

_jal 10y ago
They aren't measuring misery, they're measuring traffic flow. I absolutely take your point. Just saying that wasn't the focus.

cperciva 10y ago

Some travel is discretionary. High profile disruptions in road capacity tend to result in a reduction in discretionary travel. But this doesn't mean that all travel is discretionary, or that road capacity can be reduced by an arbitrarily large amount without causing traffic bottlenecks.

zitterbewegung 10y ago

Although the gridlock is not occurring I think the fact that the claim that less people would get on the freeway would have a significant economic impact for destinations that the freeway makes more conveinent or reachable.

sandworm101 10y ago

So blocking up a road results in fewer trip in the affected area? This is news? Block up two roads and you will see even more reduction. Heck, block all the roads. Traffic solved. Local congestion is only half the story. How many people simply altered routes, perhaps traveling longer? How many instead went elsewhere rather than not go anywhere? I want to see not a city-wide but an area-wide measurement of total miles travelled. That number matters more (economically, environmentally) than local congestion. If cutting traffic in the city core results only in greater traffic elsewhere, that is no net good. In fact it only contributes to urban sprawl as people travel further to reach various destinations.

eli 10y ago
Just like adding a lane doesn't improve traffic much because more people use the road
- nitrogen 10y ago
  That claim is frequently used on HN to justify anti-driving policies, but the economic cost/benefit inside and outside the affected area is never considered. If you only focus on one metric (traffic density), you miss the bigger picture.
  - sandworm101 10y ago
    Note that those making such arguments rarely extend them to bike lanes. If cutting lanes really reduces unneeded trips, that principal should apply to all modes of transport. Closing a subway station would certainly reduce the foot traffic cluttering up nearby sidewalks. Those people will work from home instead.
    - galdosdi 10y ago
      Your rhetorical question has an obvious answer, which I'll illustrate with evidence: I live in Manhattan, the USA's most crowded place in terms of bikes and pedestrians. Yet, we are not anywhere near capacity for bikes and pedestrians, anywhere, anytime. For cars, we are at/over capacity pretty much all the time during the day. Why is obvious -- cars are way bigger. Duh. Cars are just very space-ineffecient -- the space consumed by one car could service many times more transit riders, pedestrians, cyclists. Getting people to switch from car to anything else multiples manyfold the number of people we can service, which is a good thing. Getting people to switch from anything else, on the other hand, doesn't do much good. Even if we did reach sidewalk capacity somewhere, it would make sense to just convert one car lane into additional sidewalk, since a lane can fit at least 10x as many people if they're walking versus driving.

jakub_g 10y ago

If you have a big city with 1000s of road, people can adjust, like in the internet. I work in a small (geographically) technopolis which has 2 main roads out (so more like intranet). Recently, a tiny secondary road was closed due to repairs. It was a carmageddon due to suddenly most of the people having to go through the same shared 1km bottleneck.

LordKano 10y ago
I live in Pittsburgh and a single disabled vehicle during the morning commute changes everything. A closure on one of the less traveled routes into the city also has an enormous impact on the commute for everyone.

maxsilver 10y ago

> "people travel on roadways because the capacity is available for their trips, when when the capacity goes away, so does much of the trip making." > "46,000 fewer trips per day across the river after the bridge collapsed." Can we also start including quality of life and transportation times and housing costs in these measurements. 46,000 people wanted to go somewhere and couldn't. The article plays this like a success, but that sounds like a quality-of-life drop for many people. Something can still be a bad idea, even if it is not "the end of the world". Tearing down useful infrastructure is still a bad idea, even if it doesn't literally destroy the city.

Symbiote 10y ago
OK, but you also need to consider the quality of life for people living or working near the roads -- that increases when there is less traffic.
- cwilkes 10y ago
  Really depends on what work that is. If the business depends on people from all over the city it might suffer. While I sort of liked the tone of the article the same could be said about cutting off a limb. Sure you can survive without it.
- scythe 10y ago
  When I lived in Atlanta I had an apartment in south Buckhead within sight of I-85 actually quite close to where it collapsed. I don't recall many sleep disturbances. But when I lived in a complex on 10th street there were sirens going down the road at all hours of the night. The low grumble of car motors is pretty minor by noise standards. Fire engines and ambulances however...
  - closeparen 10y ago
    Try rail level crossings with train horns every few minutes. It's amazing to me that car tires are even considered noise. That's just the floor. There are much worse offenders in urban environments. I guess in a rural or suburban environment you might have actual silence without the highway, but I've never noticed the highway to be much louder than the wind unless a particularly bad diesel engine, illegal-exhaust motorcycle, or emergency vehicle is passing.

treyreynolds 10y ago

A few weeks ago was my first experience of living in Austin during South by Southwest. I heard dire warnings to stay home and avoid traffic trying to reach my 7th street office building. As you probably expect, now due to this article, traffic was actually considerably better than my commute today!

crusso 10y ago

I live in an Atlanta suburb. My commute back from the airport (definitely a route impacted by this road collapse) this past Friday morning was almost twice as long as it normally is at that time of day. Before the news of the collapse, I was planning on performing an errand in midtown on my way home - but going right through town would have been especially painful since the normal route home from there is over the collapsed roadway. People I've talked to in my neighborhood are avoiding going into or through Atlanta if at all possible. They're finding ways to make even otherwise mandatory trips "discretionary". This article is a bit like the Y2K aftermath where many claimed that the hype was overblown. While it's true that the direst of predictions didn't come to pass, harping on those predictions as though they didn't effect behavioral changes seems to be ignoring half the picture.

spcelzrd 10y ago
I live in town and feel the same way. Some trips just aren't worth it. It would be easier for me to go to Chattanooga than Perimeter Mall. Most areas of Midtown are really easy though, so no change there.

neom 10y ago

I ran the morning commute last Tuesday vs this Tuesday through the platform our company builds, looks like the amount of congestion did not change, but the locations did. https://twitter.com/staehere/status/849280329982644224 https://twitter.com/staehere/status/849280329982644224

madcaptenor 10y ago
That would explain why some of us in Atlanta are saying it's worse than usual and some are saying it's better.

woofyman 10y ago

I live in Atlanta and this article is false. First of all, it's spring break and the schools are closed which reduces traffic. Surface streets have become parking lots as people find alternate routes around the interstate. This has affected lots of the local businesses. It's dangerously affected emergency response times for firetrucks and ambulances.

squozzer 10y ago
So do I, and won't argue with your take on the situation. But I also remember 1996 and how the news predicted a disaster of Olympic proportions. Turns out my commute during the Olympics was the fastest I can remember.
- aero142 10y ago
  I know that when there is a big public event, I can work from home without worrying about it looking bad. I wonder how many people do that when there is a something big to point to to justify it.
- woofyman 10y ago
  They did a good job of scaring people into taking vacations, telecommuting, etc. But a lot of businesses were hurt, especially restaurants. It's was great for me. You could walk in to any restaurant without a reservation.
  - madcaptenor 10y ago
    In San Francisco this is called the "Burning Man rapture".
spcelzrd 10y ago
Spring break has made things easier. Monday will be interesting. I don't think the bridge collapse will have any lasting effect on the city, though. (Other than the DOT will stop storing flammable material under the Interstate)

atlantacrackers 10y ago

Atlanta resident. Commutes are longer by a factor of 2 if not more. A co-workers commute from Roswell to Cumberland that did take 25 minutes is over an hour since the bridge fell. And, that commute doesn't go anywhere near the bridge. Additionally, many schools are on spring break this week further reducing traffic. While it might not be total gridlock, the traffic is being impacted significantly and will continue to be.

spcelzrd 10y ago

Atlanta commuter here. The bridge collapse has impacted my daily drive. The first half of the trip is much quicker. The second half is much slower. Results in a slightly longer daily commute. There are certain areas of the city I just won't go to until they fix the bridge. Last night I had to go to Ansley Park and the traffic at Piedmont and Monroe was absurd. Not an area I visit frequently, but there was gridlock, and I suspect most people were there because they had no other route. 285, the perimeter road, is much worse in both directions at all times of day. I've lived in Atlanta most of my life. I would prefer we spend no more money on roads and instead funnel those resources into public transit.

oddlyaromatic 10y ago
Also live in Atlanta, commute is the same story, I was laughing all the way down 85 till the 3/4 mile backup at my exit, and I ended up just a little late.
- madcaptenor 10y ago
  I had the easiest commute I've had in a while yesterday, complete with the miracle of traffic moving just fine on 285. It reminded me of one of those days where there are flurries is some mountain town and so everybody in Atlanta stays home. On the other hand, Friday evening was one of the worst Atlanta traffic jams I've ever been in, so I don't know what the new normal is.
atom-morgan 10y ago
As an Atlanta resident, I feel we're on our way to being the next LA.
- spcelzrd 10y ago
  I think we've been LA for a while.
  - RileyKyeden 10y ago

lisper 10y ago

This is a very misleading article in many ways, but I'll just point out one: they show a Google Traffic map showing traffic normal "late in the morning." But to measure how much time people are spending in traffic you can't just take one snapshot. Traffic might be the same at 11 AM while rush hour congestion now extends for several extra hours before and after what it did before. Based on anecdotal evidence in other comments here I would bet that is what is actually happening.

awinter-py 10y ago

car flow improved when 42 traffic lights zonked out in beverly (east yorkshire, UK, the earth) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3266133/All-FORTY-TWO-traffic-lights-break-Britain-s-chaotic-junction-guess-happens-flow-cars-IMPROVES.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3266133/All-FORTY-TW... (kind of amusing that the number is 42) Related conclusion is that crowdsourcing decisions works when a few conditions are met (all related to decentralized information). More here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wisdom_of_Crowds#Four_elements_required_to_form_a_wise_crowd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wisdom_of_Crowds#Four_elem...

chairmanwow 10y ago

I would love to see a ridesharing company weigh in on how trip volume / average trip length / average trip duration / average street road speed has been affected by the collapse. They are the only party I can think of that would have accurate data on this subject. This article focuses on local traffic congestion, which I honestly don't think is helpful in assessing the true effects of the bridge collapse. While at first, it may be surprising that traffic isn't 10x worse without a segment of a major highway, traffic is the flow of individuals who are aware of traffic conditions, much like traffic on the internet. My predictions for what is currently happening in Atlanta: * Less trips are being taken (telecommuting / not going out for dinner) * Mandatory trips average length has increased * Mandatory trip average duration has increased * Average speed on street-level roads has dropped

cvoss 10y ago
Also we should keep in mind that it is currently spring break for Fulton, Cobb, DeKalb, and Gwinnett counties. Many families are out of town or have fewer activities to attend.

framebit 10y ago

A number of other commenters have addressed this, but for emphasis: 1. Many commutes around the city HAVE gotten a lot worse since the bridge fell. Anybody who has to get on 285 for anything is feeling the pain. 2. It's Spring Break for the public schools and many private schools this week. Let's see what happens next week.

danesparza 10y ago

It just so happens the bridge collapse mentioned happened late on a Thursday, the week before spring break. I think the real test might be on Monday 4/10 or Tuesday 4/11 when traffic is traditionally higher.

siliconc0w 10y ago

Less cars on the road isn't necessarily a categorical good - people are likely driving around for a reason. Closing roads will have subtle and long term impacts we clearly don't fully understand yet.

athenot 10y ago

The original point may still hold but an important omission in this article is the fact that this week is spring break for most counties around Atlanta, thus creating a much lighter load of traffic.' Edit: I should add that current traffic feels as if it wasn't spring break. It will be interesting to see how next week shapes to be.

hpritch5 10y ago

It's "Spring Break" for many of the counties in Metro Atlanta. This week is one of the worst weeks to base your commute off of. Wait until next Monday and check google maps.