

Fewer Roads, Less Congestion - bootload
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/008957.html

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scott_s
I'm reading "The Power Broker" by Robert Caro. It's about Robert Moses, who
was responsible for building much of the road infrastructure around NYC, and
many of the bridges into and between the boroughs.

Several of the bridges he built were done so to alleviate traffic, but traffic
was always _worse_ after the bridge opened up. There were two main problems:
more people wanted to use the "fast" routes, and the total volume of traffic
increased.

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gojomo
Wireless routing advice to individual vehicles and/or dynamic tolls (or other
'soft walls') can probably achieve optimality without blocking any roads.

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weegee
it didn't work like this in SimCity.

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DaniFong
Actually, in Simcity 4, with the patch that improved pathfinding, with
elongated blocks, and one way roads that inhibited stoplights, congestion
measurably decreased for I and the other urban planning nerds at simtropolis
who were odd enough to measure it.

Christopher Alexander mentioned an effect similar to this in "A Pattern
Language". The result is due to something different though: less stoplights,
less stops! In this case the problem is related to edge network flow.

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weegee
Interesting. I did buy SimCity 4 and attempted to get a city going. However,
it was so different from SimCity 2000 that I had some problems with
infrastruture not working right and other stuff. Mostly I think I was just
burned out!

I do like the idea of narrower streets to slow people down rather than using
stoplights and stop signs. This also increases the ability for pedestrians and
cyclists to feel that they are welcome, rather than an afterthought.

