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Building more housing decreases traffic as people move to shorten their commutes. Building offices without housing is what increases traffic, which is what most

Building more housing decreases traffic as people move to shorten their commutes. Building offices without housing is what increases traffic, which is what most cities in the bay are currently doing.

logfromblammo 8y ago
Indeed. If the offices were in the same building as the homes, some of that commuter traffic even moves to the elevators and stairwells, and never leaves the site.
bluGill 8y ago
Not really. It changes things, but in the location of the new housing things get busier. The major hiways elsewhere see less traffic and the average is probably better, but the local situation needs to be fixed to handle it. Of course ideally the local situation would be everybody works within a couple blocks and so the elevators and sidewalks can handle it. Most zoning boards hate this idea though.
- moultano 8y ago
  It's a classic prisoner's dilemma. If everywhere built housing, traffic would get better everywhere, but no one individually has an incentive to build it because on its own it makes traffic in the immediate vicinity worse.
- several 8y ago
  Not necessarily bluGill. If new housing is built across most of the city or state, there could well be less thru-traffic from the suburbs into the city. I do agree with you though that if new housing is only built in a small number of areas, those areas could very well see more traffic. A goal of SB-827 was to increase housing across the entire state, particularly near areas well served by mass transit, in the hope it would result in less people commuting by car.
  - bluGill 8y ago
    You are mistaking long term with short term. Short term it is impossible to build/rebuild housing. Short term that street is no longer big enough. Short term you will discover unintended consequences that don't work out for you. Long term we will (as always) re-create the entire city. Long term we will notice that the street is too busy and do something about it. Long term we might even be do something about it people not working close to their home. Long term will will figure out what the true consequences of our decisions are and make further decisions to mitigate them which in turn will result in a new set of unintended decisions.

Building more housing decreases traffic as people move to shorten their commutes. Building offices without housing is what increases traffic, which is what most cities in the bay are currently doing.

logfromblammo 8y ago

Indeed. If the offices were in the same building as the homes, some of that commuter traffic even moves to the elevators and stairwells, and never leaves the site.

bluGill 8y ago

Not really. It changes things, but in the location of the new housing things get busier. The major hiways elsewhere see less traffic and the average is probably better, but the local situation needs to be fixed to handle it. Of course ideally the local situation would be everybody works within a couple blocks and so the elevators and sidewalks can handle it. Most zoning boards hate this idea though.

moultano 8y ago
It's a classic prisoner's dilemma. If everywhere built housing, traffic would get better everywhere, but no one individually has an incentive to build it because on its own it makes traffic in the immediate vicinity worse.
several 8y ago
Not necessarily bluGill. If new housing is built across most of the city or state, there could well be less thru-traffic from the suburbs into the city. I do agree with you though that if new housing is only built in a small number of areas, those areas could very well see more traffic. A goal of SB-827 was to increase housing across the entire state, particularly near areas well served by mass transit, in the hope it would result in less people commuting by car.
- bluGill 8y ago
  You are mistaking long term with short term. Short term it is impossible to build/rebuild housing. Short term that street is no longer big enough. Short term you will discover unintended consequences that don't work out for you. Long term we will (as always) re-create the entire city. Long term we will notice that the street is too busy and do something about it. Long term we might even be do something about it people not working close to their home. Long term will will figure out what the true consequences of our decisions are and make further decisions to mitigate them which in turn will result in a new set of unintended decisions.