
Why Carmaggedon never comes – Seattle edition - erentz
http://cityobservatory.org/seattle_carmaggedon/
======
throwawaysea
This article provides weak arguments and no data to back up its claims. The
reason "total gridlock" hasn't happened is as simple as the city, businesses,
and individuals enacting different timings/routes/operations to avoid issues.
Both people and businesses are taking on those pains with the knowledge that
these inconveniences are temporary, and that they can return to their normal
way of life in a few weeks.

Just to provide one example, the Port of Seattle is opening freight activity
at 5am instead of the usual 7am
([https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/tunnel-
effect/how-t...](https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/tunnel-effect/how-
the-port-of-seattle-is-preparing-for-the-viaduct-
closure/281-a61f4120-cac4-41b5-9681-4926cb8a5b6a)). Some terminals are opening
3 hours early ([https://mynorthwest.com/1231341/port-of-seattle-viaduct-
clos...](https://mynorthwest.com/1231341/port-of-seattle-viaduct-closure/)).

Other things are in place temporarily as well - for example ferries that don't
service commuter routes are temporarily operating as water taxis. There are
extra temporary park and ride lots set up in some locations. And on a personal
level, I have time-shifted and even cancelled some of my activities and trips
to minimize the time I spend in otherwise worse traffic.

There is a cost to adapting to these circumstances - reduced quality of life,
increased inconveniences, etc. Just because it is hard to measure doesn't mean
it isn't happening. Frankly, assuming otherwise and boldly making claims that
roads are unnecessary seems incompetent or purposefully biased.

~~~
flaque
> The reason "total gridlock" hasn't happened is as simple as the city,
> businesses, and individuals enacting different timings/routes/operations to
> avoid issues.

This is the claim of the article.

~~~
devriesp
Yes, but as OP mentions, the article totally discounts any negative affects to
QOL.

~~~
smadge
Explaining how changes to transportation patterns effect quality of life in
general was way outside the scope of the article. It’s claim was limited and
it argued it well: road closures don’t necessarily cause traffic congestion.
It’s unclear if to me if less automobile throughput is a net positive or
negative to quality of life, but that’s a separate discussion.

~~~
tomcam
I don't think it is a separate discussion. King County's transportation
district is extremely poorly run and cost overages are in the billions. The
governing body is appointed and accountable to no one.

If people were given a realistic estimate of the costs, both financial and
quality of life, I think there would have been a drastically different
outcome.

~~~
techsupporter
Which “transportation district” do you mean?

All of them I know of are run by people who have to stand for election so they
are accountable to the voters who put them there.

------
so33
City Observatory is a publication that lobbies for urbanism. So you have to
take that into context when considering their argument.

Their argument is not that removing roads doesn't reduce quality of life –
their argument is that cities _adapt_ and that tearing away infrastructure for
cars in favor of housing and "human-scale" neighborhoods won't necessarily
result in doom and gloom.

Of course removing a highway will result in some temporary issues. But cities
are living organisms and they can adapt. America is after all a free-market
economy. If a road trip to a faraway store becomes inconvenient, a new store
will open in due time. If it becomes impractical to drive around,
neighborhoods will reconfigure to serve customers within walking distance. And
if a hypothetical highway closing permanently were to cause single-car
commutes to become impractical, companies will respond by moving offices,
encouraging telework, and subsidizing public transit commutes.

We all think we need our cars, but somehow the majority of commuters in cities
outside the United States manages to commute via public transit just fine.

~~~
ken
This is basically the Invisible Hand, and I don't see it. Seattle (at least
anywhere within 30 minutes of downtown) is being taken over by tech workers
making huge salaries. They're building condos, not stores. The stores that are
being built are high-revenue specialty stores, like cannabis.

When transportation becomes impractical, it first becomes impractical from the
bottom (like artists and service workers) -- the rich will always find a way,
whether it's paying hundreds of dollars a month (no exaggeration) for parking,
or using delivery services for every meal.

This isn't causing grocery stores to be built and public transit to be
improved. It's pushing everyone making less than $100K to pack up and move 30
miles away. High-paid tech workers often get subsidized transit, but most
other jobs do not.

Seattle is turning into Manhattan, only without any of the services
(everything shuts down at night!) that allow Manhattan to work. Even apart
from the temporary 99 closure, this is not sustainable.

~~~
MrMorden
It's illegal to build multi-family housing in 95% of Seattle's residential
area; that's not a very invisible hand.

------
ken
Possibly, but I don't believe that the 99 closure is a good test of this.

\- We know it's only temporary, and we knew about it ahead of time. It can be
easy to put off many types of errands, or work from home (lots of tech workers
here), for a little while. That doesn't mean it's sustainable.

\- They've upped the water taxi routes for the closure (but not buses,
AFAICT?), and they're taking hundreds more passengers per day. That's not
going to last. Adding more public transit options permanently would be
fantastic, but apparently that's not a sustainable option, either.

\- A lot of commutes are being time-shifted. The rule of thumb I've been
hearing is "Double your normal transportation time". That's a significant
cost. I know of people leaving home early, and then sitting in the parking lot
because their workplace isn't even open yet. There's a huge number of person-
hours being wasted just to deal with this added constraint.

\- I seem to recall hearing that the vehicle accident rate was up this week.
Based on the wrecks I've seen and the sirens I've heard (I'm hearing some
right now), I believe it.

\- The Google traffic map only shows speeds down to "Slow" ("stop and go",
claims this article), but that still covers a wide spectrum. There's 3-block
section near me that Google says is orange-to-red on a typical weekday at
4-6pm, but I avoid it entirely because it literally takes 45 minutes to drive
down those 3 blocks. (Personally, I'd call that "gridlock".) Google Traffic is
probably designed to tell you what regions to avoid as a driver, not as a
statistical analysis of traffic volume.

What other real-world costs are not visible on a simple color-coded traffic
map?

~~~
btgeekboy
> There's 3-block section near me that Google says is orange-to-red on a
> typical weekday at 4-6pm, but I avoid it entirely because it literally takes
> 45 minutes to drive down those 3 blocks.

Howell St towards I-5? Basically impossible. Everyone zips down Boren from
Capitol Hill and jumps in front of the line.

------
closeparen
Yes, people can adapt to having less mobility. That doesn’t mean mobility is
useless or that removing it is without harm.

People deciding to stay home because getting around is too much hassle isn’t a
victory condition.

~~~
saosebastiao
The real question is not about whether mobility is valuable or not, it is
about how valuable it is. When it comes to infrastructure development, we
throw tons of other people's money at the problem, but if drivers were paying
their full costs via gas taxes and congestion charges, how much demand would
there be? This article suggests that driving demand is a lot more elastic than
we like to claim.

~~~
closeparen
Can't you make this argument against any public service?

We throw a bunch of other people's money at K12. I suspect most families would
buy fewer years of schooling if they paid the true cost.

We throw a bunch of other people's money at the military. If people had to pay
the true cost of America's autonomy, they'd suck it up and learn Russian.

The compelling cost argument, IMO, is that a subway system could offer more
mobility at the same price point.

~~~
saosebastiao
Yes, you can make that argument against any public service. And it is worth
discussing for any public service. All public services have benefits, and all
of them are capable of being overprovisioned.

In the context of schools, literally everybody benefits from population wide
literacy and education. The benefits are diffuse enough that it is worth
subsidizing...although we're probably hitting diminishing returns on the
amount that we do spend. And the idea that we need to learn russian if we
don't have a military 10x bigger than the rest of the world is a cold war
rhetorical relic. Of course we could do with less military funding.

Cars though, are mostly a benefit to the occupant, and either a detriment to
everybody around them, or entirely capable of being priced into the benefit of
the goods they buy. Yes, I can afford paying $0.0025 more for a pound of
apples if it means the trucking company pays their true costs. And why should
we subsidize your drive in a BMW to your office when you can easily pay for
the whole cost yourself, or take transit? Why should we be subsidizing cars
over the much more efficient alternatives?

Cars and transit are competing forms of transportation...a vehicle mile not
traveled is very often a fare paid. Car costs scale linearly with the number
of people-miles driven, until congestion and space constraints hit and then
costs scale exponentially. Transit costs are step fixed costs, and therefore
the more riders the less they cost per person. When we subsidize car travel,
it forces us to subsidize transit travel even more, because taking away riders
makes transit less efficient. It should be remembered that before we started
price capping transit companies and subsidizing roads, transit was one of the
most profitable industries in the world. That's the power of the cost
efficiency of transit.

So yes, mobility is important and roads shouldn't just go away, but the
_amount_ of roads and car infrastructure that we fund through general taxes is
absolutely obscene and should be scaled back dramatically. Mobility can be
much more efficiently provisioned to the public with transit.

~~~
nanis
> In the context of schools, literally everybody benefits from population wide
> literacy and education.

Education is more of a private good than you seem to realize. It is definitely
excludable and in traditional settings it is quickly becomes rival past small
groups of similarly motivated people.

Self learning is not rival, i.e. my learning of something does not prevent you
from being able to learn it, but then that cannot be used to justify
government provision of education.

Once one learns something, it becomes part of one's human capital and one
cannot be separated from it. Hence the difference between loans for college
versus mortgages.

Now, in this case, people are finding out that roads are not very public goods
either (even though government entities have take over provision). First,
roads are excludable. Second, they tend to also be very rival when they are
most needed. The reduction in capacity highlighted their nature of quickly
becoming rival.

Finally, if it people actually benefited from all the time-shifting, taking
ferries instead of driving, leaving home at 5 am and sleeping in the parking
lot waiting for the office to open, they all had that option _before_ the
construction began. Ergo, people are made worse off by the change no matter
how they are adapting.

~~~
thomasz
In a society where most of the people are barely able to read, an advanced
degree isn't worth that much compared to a highly industrialized society.

~~~
nanis
Why are most people barely able to read in such a society? Do you think if
there is net return to being literate, people would not be able to learn
without government?

------
haberman
> If Seattle can survive for a couple of weeks without a major chunk of its
> freeway system, that’s a powerful indication that more modest steps to alter
> road capacity don’t really mean the end of the world.

That leaves out the fact that this is a three-week window that people know is
temporary and have time to plan for.

After the new year everyone goes to the gym and eats better. But nobody would
think of saying "if this continues until February, that's a powerful
indication that obesity will soon come to an end."

~~~
tomcam
I thought you were being obtuse when you used the phrase "a couple of weeks"
but you read the article correctly:

> In a few weeks, much of this capacity will be replaced by a new 3 billion
> dollar highway tunnel under downtown Seattle

It's worded wrong. That tunnel won't be functional for years.

~~~
haberman
What do you mean? The tunnel opens next month:
[https://www.wsdot.wa.gov/tolling/sr-99-tunnel-
tolling](https://www.wsdot.wa.gov/tolling/sr-99-tunnel-tolling)

~~~
tomcam
What I mean is... I’m an idiot and need more sleep. Thanks for the correction.

------
rossdavidh
I believe this is just another example of a well-known rule of thumb, which is
that people will adjust their commute until it's just barely tolerable. In a
short term disruption like this, they probably put off any trip which can be
postponed for a few weeks. I wonder whether visits to downtown locations like
museums are down, for example.

In longer term situations, people move where they live, or change jobs, until
their commute is just barely tolerable. Moving away from the core gets you
more space for the same money, working near the core often is required to get
your best salary, so the compromise results in a perpetual state of annoyance-
but-not-catastrophe.

------
perfunctory
I am honestly puzzled by all the comments about reduced quality of life. It
sounds completely alien to me, as if I live on a different planet. I literally
don't understand what you guys are talking about. The place where I live
everything - shops, kid's school, entertainment and recreation - is less than
10min cycling away. Work commute is less than 1hour by train in a comfortable
seat with wi-fi or a book. I do own a car but I don't depend on it for my QOL.

~~~
ken
Easy: just imagine your life without a train. Replace it with "standing-room
only bus (no wifi), and 2 transfers each way". Or "stuck in traffic". Still
seem great?

Rail is expanding in Seattle but it's slow going. West Seattle is planned for
2030, and Ballard for 2035. You don't build a rail system overnight,
especially when you've got hills and oceans and lakes and existing development
to contend with.

We're the fastest growing large city in America -- population is up 20% this
decade. (500K to 600K took 50 years. 600K to 700K took only 7.) That's a _lot_
of extra bodies to transport. Any city would struggle a bit with that.

~~~
guitarbill
It doesn't help that public transport is okay by American standards, i.e.
appalling. And that because of congestion, walking and cycling are so
dangerous. Police have even stopped ticketing people blocking crossings
because it happens too frequently (which is the wrong thing to do). Which
means the alternatives are even less appealing, which means more people drive,
etc.

Of course, nothing will change as the rich people still want to drive, no
matter how much they pretend to support public/alternative transport in a bid
to look progressive.

~~~
MrMorden
The situation is worse than that; public transport in Seattle is excellent by
American standards. Which is still crap.

------
hellllllllooo
> If Seattle can survive for a couple of weeks without a major chunk of its
> freeway system, that’s a powerful indication that more modest steps to alter
> road capacity don’t really mean the end of the world.

It's a little bit of a stretch. The problems people are facing due to road
closures are not measured by images of Google maps. Just because complete
gridlock doesn't happen doesn't mean that people aren't having significant
problems because of it. People adapt but this article provides no real way to
measure the cost.

~~~
ip26
The point of this article is that people say "complete gridlock will happen",
and it doesn't. (Not even close)

~~~
grogenaut
The only things I've seen that causes complete gridlock in Seattle were a
freak snowstorm/ice at 3pm, a butane truck closing i5 and major arteries
downtown and Obama. And Obama wasn't that bad most of the time. But those were
literally no one can move anywhere nor can people reparj and stop. This is
know and plannable.

Seattle has a remarkable amount of work hour flexibility in the short term.
They closed 90 a few years back for a week, asked 50k to stay home and iirc
got around 110k who did.

~~~
Aloha
Obama made me late to work twice in a two month time period, I found this
amusing at the time, and still do.

------
jnellis
Seattle is a bad example because it's always had peak congestion since 1978.
It's just been bumping along for forty years at peak congestion.

~~~
maxsilver
Yeah, a more accurate description would be "Seattle won't notice the freeway
destruction, because they've been living in constant Carmaggedon for the past
20+ years anyway"

Seattle folks are so anti-infrastructure, the commutes people have to endure
there insane. Especially given how short a distance they cover.

------
RIMR
I wonder if the panic helps prevent the congestion. They said people avoid the
closed areas, but they wouldn't avoid them if they didn't already know about
them.

Panic would cause awareness to skyrocket, motivating people to prevent the
thing they were panicking about.

Perhaps the system is working exactly as it should.

------
jaggederest
I don't think we should underestimate the lost value these transportation
arteries normally provide, but we also shouldn't overestimate it.

I often wonder why new highways / lanes of highway don't get assessed in
economic terms, but I suspect much of the day-to-day work would not be
justifiable in such terms.

~~~
wharnal
> I often wonder why new highways / lanes of highway don't get assessed in
> economic terms, but I suspect much of the day-to-day work would not be
> justifiable in such terms.

This is so frustrating. It feels like debate around a mile of bus lanes or
rail can drag on forever, but spending billions of dollars on highways just
_happens_.

------
grogenaut
If you look at the only expected traffic problem area, i5 at 90, it's much
worse the gridlock is a black and deep red and stretches red a good 3/4 of a
mile north and south in the right hand picture. The evening one looks horiffic
knowing those maps well like I expect a major pile up to cause a map like
that. I was out of town this week but looking at that chart I'm figuring out
how I want to time shift Monday given how bad it looks.

------
bassman9000
Came for news of a delayed version of a cherished classic game. Severely
disappointed.

------
Afforess
Traffic is induced demand. Traffic is induced demand. Traffic is induced
demand.

~~~
throwawaysea
This whole notion of "induced demand" seems like a suspicious artificial label
used to position roads as a negative. The reality is that roads provide
something people want - the ability to get around quickly, on one's own terms,
without dealing with waiting times or trip planning, and without some of the
unsavory experiences that can sour public transit (e.g.
[https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/BART-takeover-
robbery-5...](https://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/BART-takeover-
robbery-50-to-60-teens-swarm-11094745.php)).

Building roads doesn't "induce" demand. Rather, it _fulfills_ demand. There is
a limit to that demand - it's not like supplying infinitely more of something
would infinitely scale the associated behavior. There are only so many humans
and only so many trips they are willing to make in a day. And an area that is
100% roads obviously would not have any destinations worth traveling to
(leaving aside edge cases like race tracks).

~~~
oasisbob
It sounds like you're caught up on the terminology, do you disagree with the
underlying concept?

[https://www.ibtta.org/sites/default/files/Generated%20Traffi...](https://www.ibtta.org/sites/default/files/Generated%20Traffic%20and%20Induced%20Travel.pdf)

Coming from a chemistry background, the idea of traffic and travel choices
being an equilibrium process is a very natural and easy concept to grok.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Equilibrium is traffic jams. What we want is for roads to be underutilized,
because 100% utilization is a synonym for gridlock. A saturated solution, in
chemical terms.

I like the term "latent demand" more, because "induced" sounds like demand was
suddenly created, whereas "latent" implies it's already there, but can't be
fulfilled just yet. A saturated solution with more soluble material waiting at
the bottom of the flask. If you add a drop of solvent, a little bit of
material from the bottom will dissolve - just like if you add another road,
you'd only eat into the latent demand.

But the fix to this problem isn't "don't build new roads because induced
demand". It's "build _even more_ roads", up until you eat up all that demand,
in the same way you could add more and more solvent until you dissolve all the
remaining material, and then some more, to keep the solution unsaturated.

------
baybal2
Well, make people live not too far from their workplaces, schools, shopping,
and recreational facilities.

That's this stupid simple. I'd guess 80% of American gridlock is due to that
not being done.

~~~
tomcam
So, ah, who decides how to "make people live not too far from their
workplaces, schools, shopping, and recreational facilities.", who enforces the
law, and does anyone get grandfathered in?

~~~
baybal2
Normally, urban development follows common sense without much aid from central
planning.

What you see in US cities, is that central planning itself stands in way of
common sense; that car centric lifestyle in USA was pretty much enforced from
above.

Take a look on city plans from sixties, or watch some documentaries about that
time

