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I have a weak intuition that adding lanes to Alma and El Camino made the traffic problem worse, independently of the possible increase in traffic in the road. T
by jl2718 5y ago
I have a weak intuition that adding lanes to Alma and El Camino made the traffic problem worse, independently of the possible increase in traffic in the road. This is because it became impossible to do left turns into or out of the road, nor cross the road, without a traffic light, so they had to be installed at every intersection. Before the lane doubling, there was a slow-moving flow that was easy to navigate across, but after the lane doubling, there was either four lanes of high speed or a quadruple wall of cars. It also removed visibility because cars used to be able to pull out a bit before merging, but now they sit behind trees and pray nobody is coming in the right lane. Realizing this, the town tried to reverse or prevent Junipero Serra from being used as a fast double-lane road by installing a concrete serpentine across the middle and bike lane, with the obvious consequence of turning Saturday morning drives into a trolley problem. Good intention, but… maybe some paint instead. Sometimes I think Palo Alto might be a nicer place to live if the town lacked the budget to entertain new ideas.
- Lio 5y agoBraess's Paradox[1], mentioned in the article, is a wonderful observation on traffic flow. I was once told that "common sense is just what the stupid think is obvious without actually checking", which makes me chuckle[2]. All these counter-intuitive OR observations are wonderful because they remind us to dig deeper and measure stuff instead of guessing. 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess%27s_paradox https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess%27s_paradox 2. Because we are all stupid occasionally, to one degree or another.
- satyrnein 5y agoindependently of the possible increase in traffic in the road I don't see how this is possible with the same amount of total traffic; worst case the gaps are the same size, best case the cars are overlapped in the additional lane and the gaps are bigger. Unless you mean the same amount of cars per lane or something.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- gumby 5y agoPalo Alto’s traffic dept is quite good. Unfortunately they get overridden by the city council.
- twistedpair 5y agoI wish the fallacy of induced demands and its knock ons were accepted common knowledge, but alas I'm always disproven. People always complain that "it's so hard to get your section of town" when the visit. We know that. We don't widen the roads, or built new ones, because we know exactly what that will lead. Relish your steady state.