3 ms·

I really do disagree here. There's been plenty of road diets in my area where 4 lanes where reduced to 2, and this had no effect on travel time, capacity. Of c

by trgn 3y ago

I really do disagree here. There's been plenty of road diets in my area where 4 lanes where reduced to 2, and this had no effect on travel time, capacity. Of course, reality, it's multifaceted etc etc.... but more lanes/more capacity is only true on paper, not in practice.

bsder 3y ago
> There's been plenty of road diets in my area where 4 lanes where reduced to 2, and this had no effect on travel time, capacity. Sorry. I'm going to ask for a reference. I'm also going to challenge you because I have dealt with an old city with sections with mostly 2 lane roads and driving through it SUUUUUUCKS (see: Pittsburgh--particularly the areas Wilkinsburg, Squirrel Hill, Shadyside, Bloomfield, etc.). In all of the places that I have lived (all in the US), roads are expensive enough that they rarely get overbuilt past 2 lanes unless required by capacity (generally) or by law (rarer). A 4 lane road almost always indicates that the original 2 lane road hit 100% capacity at least some hours of the day and was painful enough that somebody, somewhere had enough political pressure to kick off the project to upgrade the number of lanes. I am trying to think of a 4 lane road anywhere I have lived that could be downgraded to 2 lanes and am really struggling. Maybe Western Pennsylvania, somewhere. Some of the towns where the mills and mines collapsed probably have some overbuilt roads. It's kind of interesting because I find that this discussion mirrors the people pushing roundabouts in the US without understanding traffic differences. UK traffic is medium speed and medium density for most of the day in most areas where roundabouts work best. The problem is that US traffic tends to be 100+% during a couple of hours in the day and much lower utilization at other times--roundabouts fail really hard in those conditions.

by trgn 3y ago

bsder 3y ago

> There's been plenty of road diets in my area where 4 lanes where reduced to 2, and this had no effect on travel time, capacity. Sorry. I'm going to ask for a reference. I'm also going to challenge you because I have dealt with an old city with sections with mostly 2 lane roads and driving through it SUUUUUUCKS (see: Pittsburgh--particularly the areas Wilkinsburg, Squirrel Hill, Shadyside, Bloomfield, etc.). In all of the places that I have lived (all in the US), roads are expensive enough that they rarely get overbuilt past 2 lanes unless required by capacity (generally) or by law (rarer). A 4 lane road almost always indicates that the original 2 lane road hit 100% capacity at least some hours of the day and was painful enough that somebody, somewhere had enough political pressure to kick off the project to upgrade the number of lanes. I am trying to think of a 4 lane road anywhere I have lived that could be downgraded to 2 lanes and am really struggling. Maybe Western Pennsylvania, somewhere. Some of the towns where the mills and mines collapsed probably have some overbuilt roads. It's kind of interesting because I find that this discussion mirrors the people pushing roundabouts in the US without understanding traffic differences. UK traffic is medium speed and medium density for most of the day in most areas where roundabouts work best. The problem is that US traffic tends to be 100+% during a couple of hours in the day and much lower utilization at other times--roundabouts fail really hard in those conditions.