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That's like saying that building houses doesn't solve the housing crisis because they are immediately bought. Are you suggesting that Istanbul or London would

That's like saying that building houses doesn't solve the housing crisis because they are immediately bought. Are you suggesting that Istanbul or London would be just fine with a single bridge?

masklinn 5y ago
> That's like saying that building houses doesn't solve the housing crisis because they are immediately bought. I'm not sure Jevon's paradox applies to houses, whereas it absolutely applies to car traffic.
- hdjfntnrn 5y ago
  Like it or not, that increased car traffic delivers more utility. You can't have a car free metropolis. That's a contradiction.
  - masklinn 5y ago
    > Like it or not, that increased car traffic delivers more utility. It rarely delivers enough utility to even compensate for it costs. > You can't have a car free metropolis. That's a contradiction. It's absolutely not, your assertion is outright nonsensical. Car-centricity is by far the worst way to build a metropolis.
    - ben_w 5y ago
      “Car free” is one of several ways to not be “car-centric”, but not the only way. I believe it’s possible to make a car-free metropolis, but I don’t know if any (modern) metropolis demonstrates this.
      - masklinn 5y ago
        Sure but I’m not the one which set up this straw man dichotomy and saw no reason to care for or acknowledge it.
  - tux3 5y ago
    Paris is certainly trying. The idea that you need a car to move around a city is probably cultural.
    - masklinn 5y ago
      Paris is hardly the only city doing that either, and far from the first.
      - masklinn 5y ago
        While a fair bit smaller, Amsterdam is probably a better example here (and it helps that they got started in the 90s). And as points of difference (aside from size), Amsterdam has a much smaller metro network, but a larger tram network (Paris completely shut down its tram system in the late 30s and has been rebuilding it since the 90s, whereas Amsterdam's tram network was never completely shut down, and while a number of Amsterdam's tram lines were switched over to buses in the 40s and early 50s, trams got repopularized very quickly, as soon as the late 50s).
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - KptMarchewa 5y ago
    The utility vehicles, buses, delivery of goods to stores etc are percentage of overall vehicles on the road and require little infrastructure compared to using cars as main individual mode of transportation.
  - adrianN 5y ago
    You can't have a car-free metropolis, but you sure can have a metropolis where cars are used by much, much fewer people than is typical today.
- MaxBarraclough 5y ago
  See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess's_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess's_paradox > adding one or more roads to a road network can slow down overall traffic flow through it.
hn8788 5y ago
Oh look, a 5 minute old account created just to be argumentative.
burlesona 5y ago
It depends on what you want to optimize. Usually cities build new roads hoping to eliminate traffic jams, but city after city has found that there is essentially infinite demand for free car lanes in urban areas. There are only two things that can fix traffic congestion: 1. You can demolish large chunks of the city so that fewer people have a reason to visit, and spread development paper-thin over a wide area so that it stays beneath the incredibly low density threshold that causes car congestion. This is the approach taken by most US cities after WW2, however it has only worked in cities that have gone into economic decline because the places with meaningful growth consistently fill in more densely than cars can accommodate even with half the old downtown reduced to parking lots and strict zoning laws etc. 2. You can charge for the roads. Congestion pricing deters people who don’t really need to drive at a particular place and time from doing so, and thus allows the roads to flow freely even in urban centers. Surprisingly, it doesn’t take a huge toll to eliminate rush hour, as (1) the tipping point for traffic congestion is roughly the last 10% of cars that can fit on the road, and (2) it turns out that there’s a lot of low-value driving on the margin which simply stops when there’s a price attached to it. The smart option is #2.
- MereInterest 5y ago
  For option #2, do metered highway entrances provide a similar effect? On the one hand, the goal is to prevent that last 10% of cars from being able to enter the highway during peak hours. But on the other hand, unlike tolls, it isn't known until you reach a highway entrance whether they'll be present, so they wouldn't impact trip planning as much. So I could see it going either way.
  - drewmate 5y ago
    I think that metered entrances don't necessarily reduce the number of cars on the freeway, for exactly the reason you mentioned. Instead, it is designed to break up 'platoons' of cars from trying to merge in at the same time which cause ripple braking effects and traffic jams. The net result of meters is squeezing more cars at the same speed and maximizing flow rate of traffic. So you wait a little bit at the meter but your (and everyone else's) overall travel time is actually faster. I recommend this YouTube video (and the whole channel) for great explanations of the traffic dynamics. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30uzZRSVxXQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30uzZRSVxXQ
FridayoLeary 5y ago
>That's like saying that building houses doesn't solve the housing crisis because they are immediately bought. Makes sense. London is blessed with apparently empty high rise apartment blocks. 'Investment' flats, bought by foreign owners, who haven't seen their places and have no interest in them. It's just a safe place to store their wealth and they don't care if they screw up everyone who's actually trying to buy a home. Tax empty homes, should help things a lot. Now, my idea to solve congestion is a bit different. For useless, bloated big SUV's, place restrictions and taxes on exterior options like alloys and paints. Incentivise smaller cars. That should help congestion a bit. And is it just me or are even supposed minis absurdly bloated and elongated these days?
- iso1210 5y ago
  How would taxing a particular paint effect congestion?
  - FridayoLeary 5y ago
    It's an accumulation of small things. Forcing blander paint colours and less 'bling' in general on over-sized cars, will disencourage unnecessary purchases. Instead of looking to go flashy with a huge Mercedes G-wagen, people will look at smaller cars. Smaller cars may partially help with congestion. At the minimum, they pollute less.
    - iso1210 5y ago
      If you want people to pollute less, charge more for generating the pollution.

That's like saying that building houses doesn't solve the housing crisis because they are immediately bought. Are you suggesting that Istanbul or London would be just fine with a single bridge?

masklinn 5y ago

> That's like saying that building houses doesn't solve the housing crisis because they are immediately bought. I'm not sure Jevon's paradox applies to houses, whereas it absolutely applies to car traffic.

hdjfntnrn 5y ago
Like it or not, that increased car traffic delivers more utility. You can't have a car free metropolis. That's a contradiction.
- masklinn 5y ago
  > Like it or not, that increased car traffic delivers more utility. It rarely delivers enough utility to even compensate for it costs. > You can't have a car free metropolis. That's a contradiction. It's absolutely not, your assertion is outright nonsensical. Car-centricity is by far the worst way to build a metropolis.
  - ben_w 5y ago
    “Car free” is one of several ways to not be “car-centric”, but not the only way. I believe it’s possible to make a car-free metropolis, but I don’t know if any (modern) metropolis demonstrates this.
    - masklinn 5y ago
      Sure but I’m not the one which set up this straw man dichotomy and saw no reason to care for or acknowledge it.
- tux3 5y ago
  Paris is certainly trying. The idea that you need a car to move around a city is probably cultural.
  - masklinn 5y ago
    Paris is hardly the only city doing that either, and far from the first.
    - masklinn 5y ago
      While a fair bit smaller, Amsterdam is probably a better example here (and it helps that they got started in the 90s). And as points of difference (aside from size), Amsterdam has a much smaller metro network, but a larger tram network (Paris completely shut down its tram system in the late 30s and has been rebuilding it since the 90s, whereas Amsterdam's tram network was never completely shut down, and while a number of Amsterdam's tram lines were switched over to buses in the 40s and early 50s, trams got repopularized very quickly, as soon as the late 50s).
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- KptMarchewa 5y ago
  The utility vehicles, buses, delivery of goods to stores etc are percentage of overall vehicles on the road and require little infrastructure compared to using cars as main individual mode of transportation.
- adrianN 5y ago
  You can't have a car-free metropolis, but you sure can have a metropolis where cars are used by much, much fewer people than is typical today.
MaxBarraclough 5y ago
See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess's_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess's_paradox > adding one or more roads to a road network can slow down overall traffic flow through it.

hn8788 5y ago

Oh look, a 5 minute old account created just to be argumentative.

burlesona 5y ago

It depends on what you want to optimize. Usually cities build new roads hoping to eliminate traffic jams, but city after city has found that there is essentially infinite demand for free car lanes in urban areas. There are only two things that can fix traffic congestion: 1. You can demolish large chunks of the city so that fewer people have a reason to visit, and spread development paper-thin over a wide area so that it stays beneath the incredibly low density threshold that causes car congestion. This is the approach taken by most US cities after WW2, however it has only worked in cities that have gone into economic decline because the places with meaningful growth consistently fill in more densely than cars can accommodate even with half the old downtown reduced to parking lots and strict zoning laws etc. 2. You can charge for the roads. Congestion pricing deters people who don’t really need to drive at a particular place and time from doing so, and thus allows the roads to flow freely even in urban centers. Surprisingly, it doesn’t take a huge toll to eliminate rush hour, as (1) the tipping point for traffic congestion is roughly the last 10% of cars that can fit on the road, and (2) it turns out that there’s a lot of low-value driving on the margin which simply stops when there’s a price attached to it. The smart option is #2.

MereInterest 5y ago
For option #2, do metered highway entrances provide a similar effect? On the one hand, the goal is to prevent that last 10% of cars from being able to enter the highway during peak hours. But on the other hand, unlike tolls, it isn't known until you reach a highway entrance whether they'll be present, so they wouldn't impact trip planning as much. So I could see it going either way.
- drewmate 5y ago
  I think that metered entrances don't necessarily reduce the number of cars on the freeway, for exactly the reason you mentioned. Instead, it is designed to break up 'platoons' of cars from trying to merge in at the same time which cause ripple braking effects and traffic jams. The net result of meters is squeezing more cars at the same speed and maximizing flow rate of traffic. So you wait a little bit at the meter but your (and everyone else's) overall travel time is actually faster. I recommend this YouTube video (and the whole channel) for great explanations of the traffic dynamics. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30uzZRSVxXQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30uzZRSVxXQ

FridayoLeary 5y ago

>That's like saying that building houses doesn't solve the housing crisis because they are immediately bought. Makes sense. London is blessed with apparently empty high rise apartment blocks. 'Investment' flats, bought by foreign owners, who haven't seen their places and have no interest in them. It's just a safe place to store their wealth and they don't care if they screw up everyone who's actually trying to buy a home. Tax empty homes, should help things a lot. Now, my idea to solve congestion is a bit different. For useless, bloated big SUV's, place restrictions and taxes on exterior options like alloys and paints. Incentivise smaller cars. That should help congestion a bit. And is it just me or are even supposed minis absurdly bloated and elongated these days?

iso1210 5y ago
How would taxing a particular paint effect congestion?
- FridayoLeary 5y ago
  It's an accumulation of small things. Forcing blander paint colours and less 'bling' in general on over-sized cars, will disencourage unnecessary purchases. Instead of looking to go flashy with a huge Mercedes G-wagen, people will look at smaller cars. Smaller cars may partially help with congestion. At the minimum, they pollute less.
  - iso1210 5y ago
    If you want people to pollute less, charge more for generating the pollution.