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> During the peak hour, the vehicle lanes carry about 400 cars and perhaps 500 people. The entire article is based on this incredibly misleading sentence! The

> During the peak hour, the vehicle lanes carry about 400 cars and perhaps 500 people. The entire article is based on this incredibly misleading sentence! The reason that number is so low is because of how bad the traffic is. A second lane could reduce that traffic and get you to the normal 1500-2400 cars per lane (source: light googling/wikipedia). Which is actually superior to the 1750 people per lane you get from the trams! (Given the 1.25 people per car he mentioned)

vincnetas 7y ago
Have we read the same article? It explicitly discusses scenario about what would happen if second lane would be given to cars: That would give us one more lane of travel in each direction. With the addition of turning lanes at the intersections, that would help a great deal: Now we have the room to move 700 to 800 cars per hour. (“Voila! The model shows that we are at Level of Service C or D,” reports the engineer. “Not great, but better than before”). But they’re forgetting about the 3,500 people in trams (and the thousands more on foot and on bikes). How many of them would continue using the tram if it ran in mixed traffic, and consequently was much slower and less reliable? What if just 1,000 of them decided to switch to driving or to Lyft, now that the tram would be in much poorer shape? Remember: This is a rich city, after all—people have choices. Now we are back to square one.
- concordDance 7y ago
  > It explicitly discusses scenario about what would happen if second lane would be given to cars Yes, it's just wrong in assuming a simple linear relationship. Unless there's something very special about Swiss roads that mean they have only a quarter of the normal throughput, then the abysmal throughput the author observed will be down to it being an endless traffic jam which could be alleviated by another lane.
  - vincnetas 7y ago
    ”During the peak hour, the vehicle lanes carry about 400 cars and perhaps 500 people. (I counted!) ” He counted, not looked up the statistics. And this is during peak hour, not peak throughtput.
    - concordDance 7y ago
      I don't see how that contradicts anything I've posted?
iggldiggl 7y ago
1800 cars/h means a continuous uninterrupted stream of traffic, which is a reasonable assumption for motorways and other grade-separated roads, but less so for an urban road, where you will have frequent other traffic wanting to cross at-grade. So for urban roads it's typically intersections that are the limiting factor for capacity, not the stretches of road inbetween.

vincnetas 7y ago

Have we read the same article? It explicitly discusses scenario about what would happen if second lane would be given to cars: That would give us one more lane of travel in each direction. With the addition of turning lanes at the intersections, that would help a great deal: Now we have the room to move 700 to 800 cars per hour. (“Voila! The model shows that we are at Level of Service C or D,” reports the engineer. “Not great, but better than before”). But they’re forgetting about the 3,500 people in trams (and the thousands more on foot and on bikes). How many of them would continue using the tram if it ran in mixed traffic, and consequently was much slower and less reliable? What if just 1,000 of them decided to switch to driving or to Lyft, now that the tram would be in much poorer shape? Remember: This is a rich city, after all—people have choices. Now we are back to square one.

concordDance 7y ago
> It explicitly discusses scenario about what would happen if second lane would be given to cars Yes, it's just wrong in assuming a simple linear relationship. Unless there's something very special about Swiss roads that mean they have only a quarter of the normal throughput, then the abysmal throughput the author observed will be down to it being an endless traffic jam which could be alleviated by another lane.
- vincnetas 7y ago
  ”During the peak hour, the vehicle lanes carry about 400 cars and perhaps 500 people. (I counted!) ” He counted, not looked up the statistics. And this is during peak hour, not peak throughtput.
  - concordDance 7y ago
    I don't see how that contradicts anything I've posted?

iggldiggl 7y ago

1800 cars/h means a continuous uninterrupted stream of traffic, which is a reasonable assumption for motorways and other grade-separated roads, but less so for an urban road, where you will have frequent other traffic wanting to cross at-grade. So for urban roads it's typically intersections that are the limiting factor for capacity, not the stretches of road inbetween.