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In LA all you need is a train from Sherman Oaks into one of the stations in Santa Monica or Culver City. That would cut way down on the 405 congestion. It gets
by 9erdelta 8y ago
In LA all you need is a train from Sherman Oaks into one of the stations in Santa Monica or Culver City. That would cut way down on the 405 congestion. It gets tedious reading articles that come up with "stop funding public transit" as a conclusion. In math class that would be the "trivial" therefore useless answer. Seeing as how cities have more roadway now than ever, yet congestion is arguably getting worse...Clearly, building more roads doesn't work. Because WE HAVE built more roads. The Sepulveda pass in LA is not that old, yet it is so congested as to be useless every single day of the week, at almost every hour of the day (ok maybe this is an exaggeration).
One thing I have noticed is Google Maps will suggest going off a main street for a few blocks then merge back into the said main route. This cuts off everyone who's been waiting in line, and potentially puts me in a situation of having to make a left across perhaps 4 lanes of congested traffic, with no light or turn signal. This _IS_ kind of assinine, and it certainly wouldn't hurt for Google/Waze et. al. to feel some pressure to cut these suggestions out.
- cleansy 8y ago> Clearly, building more roads doesn't work There is a great video[1] by Wendover Productions about how to fix traffic, explaining exactly this effect. tl;dr: The more road capacity you supply, the more traffic will come since potential demand will "always" outstrip supply. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4PW66_g6XA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4PW66_g6XA
- pfranz 8y agoCitizens care a lot about travel time (but not enough to live closer, move, or take another mode of transportation), cities and governments care about throughput (economic opportunity and growth). I think often they ignore each other. I'm also curious how those traffic issues apply to subways. I feel like I've seen similar problems where subways exceed capacity. I wonder if the cost/benefit or travel time/capacity is better or worse?
- ivionday 8y agoRelated: Jevons Paradox. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
- humanrebar 8y ago> One thing I have noticed is Google Maps will suggest going off a main street for a few blocks then merge back into the said main route. That's a jerk thing to do in uniformly bad traffic, but it actually makes sense if traffic clears up ahead.
- dec0dedab0de 8y ago> One thing I have noticed is Google Maps will suggest going off a main street for a few blocks then merge back into the said main route. That's a jerk thing to do in uniformly bad traffic, but it actually makes sense if traffic clears up ahead. If everyone does it, it's just using available capacity. I get that people don't like spillover traffic coming through their neighborhood, but maybe that would be incentive to improve the main road.
- praptak 8y agoIf everyone does it, then it's just clogging the side road without doing anything to improve throughput (assuming the traffic doesn't clear ahead). It's sort of a modified tragedy of the commons - as long as few people do it, it rewards the side-road takers. Then the side-road saturates and nobody is any better, only the locals are worse off.
- dec0dedab0de 8y agoIt just means that there will be more capacity for the length of road that has matching side roads. Couple with the buffering issue of people not starting up fast enough when they have to stop for traffic, and it is an overall gain. Think about when there are two lanes merging into one. If everyone gets over early it dramatically slows down, but if everyone merges last minute like a zipper it is not as bad.
- cmurf 8y agoNope. My very first thought is "spike strip". The rational version is some redesigning to block all the through streets with dead ends, cul-du-sacs, speed bumps, and compulsory turns at four way intersections. Neighborhoods have little political power to improve main roads, which are usually county or state managed, not local roads.
- stefs 8y ago> Clearly, building more roads doesn't work. this is not generally true - look at the north korean highways. lanes upon lanes and not single traffic jam in sight. ... i'm kidding.
- MrFantastic 8y agoHow do people travel the last mile?
- bagacrap 8y agoThey've recently connected DTLA and Santa Monica via trains and I don't think the 10 has improved at all. The problem is that most everyone prefers to drive and the only thing limiting their willingness to drive is traffic itself. Thus, traffic will never get better than whatever the masses deem acceptably bad (and their tolerance seems ludicrously high in LA).
- pfranz 8y agoI think fully utilizing it will take at least 10 years of shops and infrastructure to grow up around it. I also don't think the 10 will improve, but I imagine the throughput for that area already has improved significantly. In the months leading up to the opening of the last section of the trains I knew people that had jobs already near train stops. A few had moved into apartments specifically to take advantage of the train. They talked about taking advantage of it on weekends, too. My wife had one of those jobs and we were looking at houses near the train line and could see the home prices increasing. While the weather is nice year round, she worked late hours and was concerned about walking to/from the train stop alone.