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Exactly. I live in a small town. We have no traffic jams, and never have. I believe that proves it’s possible to build sufficient infrastructure to eliminate o

Exactly. I live in a small town. We have no traffic jams, and never have. I believe that proves it’s possible to build sufficient infrastructure to eliminate or reduce traffic jams. It’s just that most large cities elect not to.

wjnqx 9y ago
I don't think the cost of that is justified in large cities. LA already dedicates more land area to automobile infrastructure than anything else, and the region is still plagued by traffic jams. At the end of the day, a single rail line can bring an amount of people in and out a city equivalent to multiple lanes of traffic. That's a lesson Americans forgot after 1945 for whatever reason, and now we have to re-learn it from the rest of the world now that we've hit the limits of car-oriented development.
mantas 9y ago
Dense large cities are economically unviable if you try to accommodate car traffic. The tale of them being cheaper is true only if you give up large living spaces and personal transport.
dmoy 9y ago
Or perhaps for a large enough city, you can't build enough roads, because you'd need like >70% of all area for roads and parking. The scaling doesn't work. For another similar example, think of how much percentsge space you need in a 2 story building devoted to elevators (almost none) vs a 200 story building (a significant percentage of the middle core of the building is nothing but elevators). Take that and scale it even worse, and you have roughly the small town vs big city traffic issue.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
quotemstr 9y ago
Yep. Induced demand is a nuanced concept that's been perverted by a certain community of activists into "science says you can't build enough roads so let's not build any!!!!1111". The truth is that you can, in fact, build enough roads to reduce congestion. It may be too expensive. The road land use fraction may be too high. There may be political problems. All of these factors have to be taken into account before deciding to build more roads. Nevertheless, it is physically possible to build enough roads, and anyone who doesn't acknowledge this basic reality isn't having a serious conversation.
- flukus 9y ago
  > Nevertheless, it is physically possible to build enough roads Sure it's probably possible, but by the time we've built that many roads we'd need to cycle from the carpark to the building anyway.
lostcolony 9y ago
What's your population density compared with a large city? If roads took up zero physical space, I'd agree with you, but the perverse thing is that as population density goes up, you not only have more people on the roads (requiring more road), but you also have more need for living space, stores, and office buildings (all which take up space, giving less room for roads). As it is, comparing it to a small town is meaningless.

wjnqx 9y ago

I don't think the cost of that is justified in large cities. LA already dedicates more land area to automobile infrastructure than anything else, and the region is still plagued by traffic jams. At the end of the day, a single rail line can bring an amount of people in and out a city equivalent to multiple lanes of traffic. That's a lesson Americans forgot after 1945 for whatever reason, and now we have to re-learn it from the rest of the world now that we've hit the limits of car-oriented development.

mantas 9y ago

Dense large cities are economically unviable if you try to accommodate car traffic. The tale of them being cheaper is true only if you give up large living spaces and personal transport.

dmoy 9y ago

Or perhaps for a large enough city, you can't build enough roads, because you'd need like >70% of all area for roads and parking. The scaling doesn't work. For another similar example, think of how much percentsge space you need in a 2 story building devoted to elevators (almost none) vs a 200 story building (a significant percentage of the middle core of the building is nothing but elevators). Take that and scale it even worse, and you have roughly the small town vs big city traffic issue.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

quotemstr 9y ago

Yep. Induced demand is a nuanced concept that's been perverted by a certain community of activists into "science says you can't build enough roads so let's not build any!!!!1111". The truth is that you can, in fact, build enough roads to reduce congestion. It may be too expensive. The road land use fraction may be too high. There may be political problems. All of these factors have to be taken into account before deciding to build more roads. Nevertheless, it is physically possible to build enough roads, and anyone who doesn't acknowledge this basic reality isn't having a serious conversation.

flukus 9y ago
> Nevertheless, it is physically possible to build enough roads Sure it's probably possible, but by the time we've built that many roads we'd need to cycle from the carpark to the building anyway.

lostcolony 9y ago

What's your population density compared with a large city? If roads took up zero physical space, I'd agree with you, but the perverse thing is that as population density goes up, you not only have more people on the roads (requiring more road), but you also have more need for living space, stores, and office buildings (all which take up space, giving less room for roads). As it is, comparing it to a small town is meaningless.