
Road Unpricing - jamesbowman
https://medium.com/@daedalus3000/road-unpricing-6539c2a34691
======
gambiting
"On the freeway, rewarding drivers 1 cent for every minute that they kept
their speed at 50 mph resulted in a traffic planner’s dream: a smooth flow of
vehicles all traveling at the optimal speed for maximum road utilization."

I'd happily lose that "reward" to drive faster. If you want to keep everyone
driving at a certain speed for extended periods of time, there is only one way
that really works - average speed cameras as implemented in the UK. There are
long stretches of the motorway(50 miles long for example) where you have a
camera at the entry point and at every exit point - the camera reads your
licence plate when entering and when leaving, calculating your average speed
based on time.

For the entire length of the limited zone people do drive at the limit,
because everyone knows that there is absolutely no escape from the fine. At a
regular speed camera or police checkpoint you can slow down momentarily only
to accelerate again. There's no escaping average speed cameras.

~~~
thechao
I used to spend a huge amount of my commute frustrated, tailing someone in the
left lane, trying to pass. One day, it really "clicked" that the behavior was
totally unproductive. However, I didn't want to just passively accept the
traffic status quo. Instead, I opted for what I call my "slow drive":

1\. Always drive in the right lane;

2\. Always make sure the car ahead is slowly pulling away;

3\. Always make sure there is space on my left for someone to pass me on the
left.

The 3rd rule is the hardest, and I will admit to some dickish behavior to stop
other drivers from pacing me "on the left", or (worse) in my blind spot---
mostly by very tightly hugging the center line, or by turning on my blinker
and slowly moving into the left lane.

As a practical nuts-and-bolts, I'm averaging about 5mph less than I used to,
but a wash on total commute times---I'm usually at the front of lights, and
jackrabbit to clear the intersection.

My favorite part is seeing _dozens_ of cars passing on the left at high speed,
while (on one occasion) more than a dozen cars were very slowly plodding
behind me.

I'm certain there were angry people trying to turn right but, considering I'm
going as much as 15mph below the posted limit, a little forethought would have
them passing me---it is this very thoughtlessness that I'm targeting.

There also a lot of rural one lane highways out where I'm at. For these, I go
the posted limit; if I'm being tailed I pull over & yield the right of way.

My commute, while still irritating and long, is much more pleasant.

------
jacobolus
In general, most roads shouldn’t have a price for most drivers, and rewards
for maintaining a particular speed sounds stupid.

However, we’d get big improvements to our urban/suburban city planning if we
had (a) much less street parking, most of it metered; (b) looser or no parking
requirements for houses and businesses written into the zoning laws, with
mixed-use zoning allowing both smaller parking-free residential units and for-
profit parking structures to pick up the slack from the reduction in free and
required parking; (c) lower speed limits on urban streets encouraged by better
street designs and enforced more strictly by traffic cops; (d) tolls on most
highways; (e) much higher gas taxes to offset health and environmental costs
of driving, and a removal of various automobile subsidies; (f) tolls for large
vehicles like trucks which cause most road damage and cost the most in road
maintenance, proportional to the amount of road wear they cause, which
increases something like mass per wheel to the fourth power (a semi-trailer
truck causes something like 1000x the road wear of a passenger car).

~~~
yason
I agree on everything else but (a).

Street parking actually makes streets better. It slows down traffic by
reducing the available width (everybody keeps a safe margin to parked cars)
and by causing disruptions (motorists entering or exiting a parking spot).
Street parking also makes pedestrians feel safer as the barrier of parked cars
insulate them from the moving traffic. A street with lots of parked cars
generally also feels safer because human activity can be expected from time to
time, unlike on a completely cleared street where there is only traffic.

------
adrianhon
FYI Daedalus was a column by David E. H. Jones in New Scientist by a fictional
inventor, containing all sorts of fun, odd, and satirical ideas:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_E._H._Jones](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_E._H._Jones)

~~~
gjm11
Some of these columns were collected in book form.

The Inventions of Daedalus: [http://www.amazon.com/Inventions-Daedalus-
Compendium-Plausib...](http://www.amazon.com/Inventions-Daedalus-Compendium-
Plausible-Schemes/dp/0716714132)

The Further Inventions of Daedalus: [http://www.amazon.com/Further-Inventions-
Daedalus-Compendium...](http://www.amazon.com/Further-Inventions-Daedalus-
Compendium-Plausible/dp/0198504691)

------
Piskvorrr
Sounds interesting. Alas, the last sentence has triggered a Cobra Effect
alert.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect)

~~~
nathancahill
Yeah. The last sentence made me thing the whole bit was satire, and now I'm
just confused.

~~~
stevetrewick
Spoilers
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_E._H._Jones](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_E._H._Jones)

------
rwmj
I think Daedalus (writing in the 1970s/80s) didn't anticipate that we'd spend
our time working for free to gain HN karma, Facebook likes and so on. No need
to pay out cents at all, just ring the little bell!

~~~
hobs
The only way that would work is if your bell rang in other people's cars.

A big part of those gamification systems is a competitive/social aspect, so
you can win against your friends and boast about your e-points.

So, add a scoreboard for the best drivers on that mile of road, add some
points, do a "best of the day", there are tons of options there.

------
rascul
Where does the money come from? Not just for the payouts, but to setup and
maintain the program?

Seems like there would be some major privacy concerns also.

Pretty sure it's satire, though.

