4 ms·

Because you want to discourage use.

AnthonyMouse 6y ago
But now you're making a statement which is too general. There is no benefit to discouraging use of highways at night, or uncongested suburban/rural roads. The thing you really want to prevent is congestion. And even that is not inherently best solved through punitive fees. If you can reduce congestion by e.g. building more housing near where people work so they don't have to commute as far, that's preferable to levying fees the drivers can't avoid because a viable alternative to a long commute isn't actually available. Sometimes turning a four lane road into a six lane road really does resolve the congestion, even accounting for the increase in use that comes from the reduction in congestion. And then you don't gain anything by discouraging use there. The number of cases where you actually want to discourage use is very small, to the point that they may not even really exist, given that most uses are productive (and already have to overcome the inherent cost in fuel and time). The best case for it would be something like Manhattan during rush hour, but even there you might be better off to use the carrot instead of the stick and e.g. stop charging fees for use of the subway.
- berkes 6y ago
  The amount of NOx and CO2 emission is a direct product of use, and not (or hardly) congestion. The world doesn't heat up slower if we manage to use roads 100% during nighttime too. Same for wear and tear.
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    > The amount of NOx and CO2 emission is a direct product of use, and not (or hardly) congestion. We're talking about electric vehicles which don't have that. That issue can obviously be solved for gasoline and diesel vehicles via fuel taxes (which encourage people to buy electric vehicles). > Same for wear and tear. As discussed, nearly all of the wear and tear is a result of large heavy vehicles and the amount caused by passenger vehicles is negligible.
- URSpider94 6y ago
  I don’t have good citations handy, but it’s generally accepted that the construction of the American interstate freeway system after WWII was the primary enabler of the mass exodus of the white middle class to the suburbs, and the subsequent abandonment of people of color in inner cities for several generations. Furthermore, continuing to build more travel lanes to alleviate congestion has been shown to simply lead to more traffic. It’s a circular problem. We are finally seeing this turn around in a very painful way in Silicon Valley. There’s no longer political will, nor is there tax revenue, to keep expanding the highways. As a result, commute times have gone up dramatically. As a further result, over the past decade, I’ve watched previously undesirable near suburbs like Sunnyvale and Santa Clara be bid up dramatically in housing price as people have realized that spending 3 hours per day in their car isn’t worth having a giant house with a giant yard in the far south suburbs like Morgan Hill and Gilroy.
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    > I don’t have good citations handy, but it’s generally accepted that the construction of the American interstate freeway system after WWII was the primary enabler of the mass exodus of the white middle class to the suburbs, and the subsequent abandonment of people of color in inner cities for several generations. This is like arguing against rope because it was the primary enabler of lynchings. > Furthermore, continuing to build more travel lanes to alleviate congestion has been shown to simply lead to more traffic. It’s a circular problem. It isn't. What those studies are showing is that congestion suppresses demand, so if you relieve some of the congestion, some of the demand comes back. So to relieve congestion you'd need enough lanes to carry not the existing level of traffic, but the amount there would be if there wasn't any congestion suppressing it. This is clearly demonstrated in China where they build multi-lane highways to nowhere as a jobs program and then traffic does not magically appear to fill them. The problem is that in some places, satisfying all of the demand by only increasing the number of travel lanes would require like twenty travel lanes, which isn't ideal. But that doesn't mean you can't reduce congestion there by adding travel lanes, only that you need other solutions there too. Add a travel lane or two but not ten, build more housing closer to businesses so people don't have to commute as far, stop charging user fees for mass transit etc. By doing these things together you can alleviate congestion without needing twenty lane highways. > We are finally seeing this turn around in a very painful way in Silicon Valley. The problem there is totally unambiguously not "insufficient highways" and is in fact "insufficient housing" which induces those long commutes for whoever can't afford the existing housing close to the city where the jobs are (and also outrageous housing costs for the housing that is, because nobody wants that commute). Build more housing.

But now you're making a statement which is too general. There is no benefit to discouraging use of highways at night, or uncongested suburban/rural roads. The thing you really want to prevent is congestion. And even that is not inherently best solved through punitive fees. If you can reduce congestion by e.g. building more housing near where people work so they don't have to commute as far, that's preferable to levying fees the drivers can't avoid because a viable alternative to a long commute isn't actually available. Sometimes turning a four lane road into a six lane road really does resolve the congestion, even accounting for the increase in use that comes from the reduction in congestion. And then you don't gain anything by discouraging use there. The number of cases where you actually want to discourage use is very small, to the point that they may not even really exist, given that most uses are productive (and already have to overcome the inherent cost in fuel and time). The best case for it would be something like Manhattan during rush hour, but even there you might be better off to use the carrot instead of the stick and e.g. stop charging fees for use of the subway.

berkes 6y ago
The amount of NOx and CO2 emission is a direct product of use, and not (or hardly) congestion. The world doesn't heat up slower if we manage to use roads 100% during nighttime too. Same for wear and tear.
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  > The amount of NOx and CO2 emission is a direct product of use, and not (or hardly) congestion. We're talking about electric vehicles which don't have that. That issue can obviously be solved for gasoline and diesel vehicles via fuel taxes (which encourage people to buy electric vehicles). > Same for wear and tear. As discussed, nearly all of the wear and tear is a result of large heavy vehicles and the amount caused by passenger vehicles is negligible.
URSpider94 6y ago
I don’t have good citations handy, but it’s generally accepted that the construction of the American interstate freeway system after WWII was the primary enabler of the mass exodus of the white middle class to the suburbs, and the subsequent abandonment of people of color in inner cities for several generations. Furthermore, continuing to build more travel lanes to alleviate congestion has been shown to simply lead to more traffic. It’s a circular problem. We are finally seeing this turn around in a very painful way in Silicon Valley. There’s no longer political will, nor is there tax revenue, to keep expanding the highways. As a result, commute times have gone up dramatically. As a further result, over the past decade, I’ve watched previously undesirable near suburbs like Sunnyvale and Santa Clara be bid up dramatically in housing price as people have realized that spending 3 hours per day in their car isn’t worth having a giant house with a giant yard in the far south suburbs like Morgan Hill and Gilroy.
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  > I don’t have good citations handy, but it’s generally accepted that the construction of the American interstate freeway system after WWII was the primary enabler of the mass exodus of the white middle class to the suburbs, and the subsequent abandonment of people of color in inner cities for several generations. This is like arguing against rope because it was the primary enabler of lynchings. > Furthermore, continuing to build more travel lanes to alleviate congestion has been shown to simply lead to more traffic. It’s a circular problem. It isn't. What those studies are showing is that congestion suppresses demand, so if you relieve some of the congestion, some of the demand comes back. So to relieve congestion you'd need enough lanes to carry not the existing level of traffic, but the amount there would be if there wasn't any congestion suppressing it. This is clearly demonstrated in China where they build multi-lane highways to nowhere as a jobs program and then traffic does not magically appear to fill them. The problem is that in some places, satisfying all of the demand by only increasing the number of travel lanes would require like twenty travel lanes, which isn't ideal. But that doesn't mean you can't reduce congestion there by adding travel lanes, only that you need other solutions there too. Add a travel lane or two but not ten, build more housing closer to businesses so people don't have to commute as far, stop charging user fees for mass transit etc. By doing these things together you can alleviate congestion without needing twenty lane highways. > We are finally seeing this turn around in a very painful way in Silicon Valley. The problem there is totally unambiguously not "insufficient highways" and is in fact "insufficient housing" which induces those long commutes for whoever can't afford the existing housing close to the city where the jobs are (and also outrageous housing costs for the housing that is, because nobody wants that commute). Build more housing.