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Let's do a thought experiment. Today, Highway A that links suburban region A to city B has 2 lanes and there are Y number of people that can make a certain com

Let's do a thought experiment. Today, Highway A that links suburban region A to city B has 2 lanes and there are Y number of people that can make a certain commute in a certain amount of time. We widen it to 4 lanes. We get 7-10 years of reduced congestion that steadily gets worse until we are at the same level of congestion. Casting aside that temporary reprieve, which in itself adds value, the carrying capacity even at current levels of congestion has doubled, do we've now opened up another Y number of people with the option to make that commute. So when it's all said and done, the number of people that can make that commute has doubled, even if the time it takes remains the same. Still a win in terms of opening up options and mobility. More trucks can make deliveries. More people can commute to work.

99052882514569 7y ago
The problem with that logic is opportunity cost. What improvements to public transit could have been done with that thick wad of cash? Often (usually?) ones that would open up options and mobility to far more people.
- bluGill 7y ago
  Actually not. The highway allows undense spread out development. While you can build transit to those areas, to have useful transit (meaning stop every 5 minutes, not too many detours, and few transfers) you end up spending far more capital to build lightly used lines that are expensive to operator because so few people are on them (even if we assume private cars are illegal there wouldn't be many riders). Note that not dense is the important part of the above. If you are willing to allow dense development (which most zones in the US prohibit) everything changes.
  - magduf 7y ago
    >If you are willing to allow dense development (which most zones in the US prohibit) everything changes. Yep, this is the answer to it all: we need to build much more densely, and people need to get used to not having a big McMansion with a gigantic lawn.
zip1234 7y ago
The temporary reprieve's value is probably a minute or two each direction saved tops. The cost for that is also not paid for by the people using it.
- joncrane 7y ago
  >The temporary reprieve's value is probably a minute or two each direction saved tops. Do you have a source for that? How could you possibly know without knowing current distance and average speed?

99052882514569 7y ago

The problem with that logic is opportunity cost. What improvements to public transit could have been done with that thick wad of cash? Often (usually?) ones that would open up options and mobility to far more people.

bluGill 7y ago
Actually not. The highway allows undense spread out development. While you can build transit to those areas, to have useful transit (meaning stop every 5 minutes, not too many detours, and few transfers) you end up spending far more capital to build lightly used lines that are expensive to operator because so few people are on them (even if we assume private cars are illegal there wouldn't be many riders). Note that not dense is the important part of the above. If you are willing to allow dense development (which most zones in the US prohibit) everything changes.
- magduf 7y ago
  >If you are willing to allow dense development (which most zones in the US prohibit) everything changes. Yep, this is the answer to it all: we need to build much more densely, and people need to get used to not having a big McMansion with a gigantic lawn.

zip1234 7y ago

The temporary reprieve's value is probably a minute or two each direction saved tops. The cost for that is also not paid for by the people using it.

joncrane 7y ago
>The temporary reprieve's value is probably a minute or two each direction saved tops. Do you have a source for that? How could you possibly know without knowing current distance and average speed?