
California's DOT Admits That More Roads Mean More Traffic - sampo
http://www.citylab.com/commute/2015/11/californias-dot-admits-that-more-roads-mean-more-traffic/415245/?utm_source=SFFB
======
andys627
Federal, state, and local governments have ignored "induced demand" for 50
years and the result has been endless highway building. This is an effective
subsidy for "sprawl" and is a huge driver of why the US built environment
looks the way it does. Most of the US is "car dependent" \- ie you must have a
car to reasonably participate in the city - yes there are buses but they are
not as convenient as having a car, yes there are bike lanes but they are
dangerous and sparse.

I think the thing that we have to get through our heads is that sprawl is the
result of many subsidies - NOT just peoples' preference to live that way. Take
a look at any place where zoning hasn't required such high parking or low
maximum densities; any place where government housing loan guarantees were
equally available to dense developments as new single family home
developments; or any place where governments have made reasonable attempt to
add the cost of negative externalities of driving to fuel taxes. You'll see a
lot less driving and a lot more walking, transit, and biking. For example -
Canada or Spain.

Every time one of these articles comes up on here there are lots of Bay Area
folks saying "but I like to drive my own car". That is fine, but don't make
everyone else subsidize it.

We've dug ourselves into a major hole with car dependence. Lots of cities are
digging out and building density especially in their abandoned downtowns -
this is doubly amazing considering how stacked the deck is against them.

~~~
hueving
>Every time one of these articles comes up on here there are lots of Bay Area
folks saying "but I like to drive my own car". That is fine, but don't make
everyone else subsidize it.

That cuts both ways. There are very few subway systems in the world that are
self-sustaining. You can't just say to not subsidize one way of life while
demanding people subsidize another.

~~~
mikeash
Sure, let's just bring public transit subsidies up to the same level as car
subsidies, then.

~~~
hueving
Fine with me as long as none if it comes out of fuel taxes, license revenue or
anything else specific to vehicles.

~~~
mikeash
That stuff doesn't even suffice to pay for the roads, so there wouldn't be any
surplus available to appropriate to other uses.

~~~
hueving
I didn't imply that it did. A shortcoming of tax revenue has never stopped
people from allocating money from it though.

------
dumbmatter
_Adding 10 percent more road capacity leads to 3-6 percent more vehicle miles
in the near term and 6-10 percent more over many years._

So... sounds like less traffic. Wonder why the title says "more traffic".

 _Some of the cars on a new highway lane have simply relocated from a slower
alternative route. But many are entirely new. They reflect leisure trips that
often go unmade in bad traffic, or drivers who once used transit or carpooled,
or shifting development patterns, and so on._

Those all sound like good things. The point of roads is to use them. So people
use them to have a shorter commute, or live a bit further away from work to
lower rent, etc etc etc.

What is the actual problem? Did anyone actually expect that building more
roads would lead to no increase in road usage?

~~~
lhopki01
The problem is you get into an endless cycle of adding more and more road
capacity and still ending up with the same amount of congestion. If you invest
that money in public transport or cycle infrastructure you end up lowering
congestion and speeding up everyone's movement including those that still want
to drive.

~~~
jessriedel
Yes, when you build useful things, people generally use them. Consider: "The
parks are too crowded. But if we build parks, this mostly just lowers the
density of park-goers in the short term. In the long term, people move to live
near the parks and use the parks more, so that the density of park-goers rises
again, and we loose most of the benefit!"

There's lots of constructive arguments to be had about the relative benefits
of investment in roads vs. rail vs. whatever, and tons of good criticism to
level against subsidies and un-taxed externalities (for all those options).
But arguments complaining about the "endless cycle" of building useful things
that subsequently get used are silly. This lowers the quality of the
conversation about public transit, making it more difficult to convince others
of the relative merits.

~~~
lhopki01
The use of roads is to get people and goods from A to B. If there's a way of
doing that that doesn't involve endlessly building roads then do that. Roads
are inherently inefficient for moving people around because use about 2 tons
of car that takes up a great deal of space to move one person. They're
slightly more efficient for goods but even then there are much more efficient
ways to move goods most places. Endless cycle of building an inefficient
solution to fix a problem caused by inefficient design is a perfectly valid
argument. And yes the inefficiency was implied by the contrast to public
transport investment.

------
klagermkii
I really dislike "induced demand" as a reason to maintain a terrible
experience of a desired product or service. Increase fuel taxes or even do
demand charging, but don't have this thing where you make a car trip take
three times longer because it discourages people from using their cars.

~~~
awjr
That's the point, "induced demand" is simply the fact of making it easier to
travel by car, encourages more people to choose to travel by car. It is not
that the trip takes three times as long, it's the fact, they built a wider
road and the journey took half as long, prior to the road being widened.

You cannot solve this by building more roads. You solve it by putting roads on
a "road diet"
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_diet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_diet)
enabling modal share
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_share](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_share)
. You create segregated space for walking, for cycling. You prioritise public
transport.

You want more people to choose any other option, other than the car. This,
however, is hard when traffic modelling still focuses on traffic flow
(maximising car throughput) over modal share.

In the UK, it estimated that the school run is 20%-25% of rush hour. Our road
design precludes kids cycling to school.

~~~
timthorn
> Our road design precludes kids cycling to school

No, there are plenty of children who cycle to school and in safety in the UK.
The bigger issue is parents' fears of abduction and/or traffic.

~~~
lhopki01
I cycle all over London and I don't feel safe a lot of the time. Big roads
have inconsistent cycle lanes that start and stop at random or are ignored by
drivers. Side roads have people who think 35mph is a reasonable speed to go on
a road that doesn't even have space for two cars to pass side by side. The UK
needs a lot more investment in cycle infrastructure before it could be
considered safe.

~~~
awjr
This is the streetview of London Road, Bath.
[https://goo.gl/maps/BF8dHyqetow](https://goo.gl/maps/BF8dHyqetow) Local
cycling groups campaigned for a 2 way protected track along here, but were
over-ruled by a council officer who chose a design, where you can be cycling
along with your child on a bike, be overtaken by a bus, that then pulls in
forcing you to pull out into 30mph traffic. They chose a design where dead
space in the middle of the road was more important than providing a design
that encouraged modal shift.

This road also breaks the EU legal limits on pollution. They knew this when
they put in this design.

I wrote about it here [http://cyclebath.org.uk/2015/05/23/london-road-an-
example-of...](http://cyclebath.org.uk/2015/05/23/london-road-an-example-of-
bad-banes-management/) however the real issue is that a lot of Highways
officers still consider cycling a joke.

"Why should we cater for the 2%" is a line I hear a lot. However, you do not
build a bridge because of the number of people swimming the river.

~~~
lhopki01
Yeah I see this a lot. The first "cycle superhighways" in London were along
these lines. Thankfully they've started building properly segregated cycle
lanes and are rebuilding quite a few junctions. I think it helps that now
cyclists are the majority of traffic over quite a few bridges in London. It'll
continue to be a very long fight but I think there is hope. That being said it
does seem like other UK cities are lagging behind London which in itself is
nowhere near where it needs to be. I think the true sign that cycling has
finally been acknowledged will be the implementation of green wave traffic
signalling for commuter routes into the city.

~~~
awjr
Honestly, the only way I see this ever being taken seriously is when the DfT
has to ringfence 10% of their budget to the development of high-quality cycle
infrastructure. When a road can be identified as a major "arterial route" and
councils have to prioritise cycling over the provision of on-street parking.
That one is an absolute killer for many schemes. As a resident, you can object
to the removal of an on-street parking space, creating a major weak link in a
good cycle transport corridor.

~~~
lhopki01
Yeah on street parking is the bane of cycling. So many roads have on street
parking on both sides and yet there's no space for two cars to pass each
other.

I don't know what will make the difference. I think in London it's taken years
of campaigning and highlighting to deaths to get a change. Having an elected
mayor controlling transport also helps a bit to because it gives a focus for
the campaigning. It'll remain to be seen if London continues it's improvements
or gives up on them. I hope we have now reached the tipping point where
cyclists start to outnumber other road users on so many roads that the 5%
argument can't be used anymore.

------
nashashmi
I have started taking every article of complaint from citylab with a grain of
salt. It always seems like there is an agenda with these articles.

In this case, they are trying to curb the building of roads. I do not know how
that helps. Alleviating traffic and bringing increased capacity to roads helps
spur economic activity.

The Big Dig Project on the Central Artery in Boston helped alleviate traffic
and resume economic growth in an area where it had stalled. The capacity of
the artery is expected to be fully realized by 2050.

In NJ, we are always stuck in traffic. And that is the main reason why NJ's
economy has stalled. No more room for growth.

The point of the article and citylab's purpose is probably to direct more use
of public transportation. But likewise, the more public transportation you
have, the more use you will have there too.

I really don't see the point of this article.

~~~
woah
Why should I pay for you to drive?

~~~
Agustus
You do not. We all pay for our roads through gas taxes. The real question
becomes then: Why should I pay for you to ride the bus?

~~~
trgn
Gas taxes only cover about half of road construction and maintenance costs.

Each person riding the bus, is one less car on the road.

------
xemdetia
Being someone who is familiar the Connecticut segments of the highways
mentioned it seems much like a false comparision. I-95 in that segment is the
major artery from the US west of New Jersey and New York to Boston and most of
the northeast, and I-84 is much the same (except it goes through Hartford and
is consistently a disaster).

Most of the segments of I-95 and I-84 they will want to improve already are
2-lanes and are frequently stopped due to accidents. While I agree with the
article's claim that the increase in economic activity in those areas is
dubious it's something that is needed. If anything it's going to increase
tourism traffic to points north as well as Connecticut as there is already
plenty of traffic from NYC/NJ through to other coastal areas (RI, Cape Cod).
Also this includes traffic from points north to the Connecticut casinos that
are in the heart of the state which is another major inflow.

I just don't understand if the roads CalTrans are describing and the author is
trying to demonstrate are really equivalent, where 'thru' traffic is just as
vital as in-state to in-state traffic.

------
moron4hire
Should we be focused on traffic--i.e. the density of vehicles on the road--or
throughput of travelers? Because if you _don 't_ build roads, and let traffic
build _too_ high, there is a point where congestion becomes a major impediment
and throughput plummets.

------
vdnkh
I live in NJ, in the shadow of NYC, and commute to work every day on some of
the busiest roads in the state. The real problem I see are trucks. Big stupid
semi-trailers and dumptrucks, queued up by the dozens with shipments fresh
from the nearby *ports. Trucks, which exceed the lane space of a bus yet carry
a single person. Sitting comfy in the left lane doing 15 under while traffic
piles up behind them, another semi alongside blocking any traffic.

------
roflchoppa
Yeah not sure if I'm down for larger highway 84, where are they going to push
out into? Ardenwood Farms? The Fremont city board already has told residents
that it does not plan to slow down the building of new homes in the area.
Which is a big issue because current public schools cannot fit all these
students here... 1LTC says that y'all are being paid for by the same
development companies from SF to build housing here.

------
crystaln
The idea that induced demand entirely compensates for new road capacity is
ridiculous on its face. This would only be nearly the case if the road
infrastructure is vastly behind what's needed. Even then, much of the newly
accommodated traffic will be of economic benefit.

Consider that the theory states that traffic is unchanged because people will
be incentivized to drive more because of less traffic. This is self
contradictory - there can't be both less traffic and the same traffic.

~~~
revelation
Nobody is saying that. The problem with _induced demand_ for roads is induced
demand _for personal cars_. Transport is a zero-sum game, someone who takes
the personal car to work is someone not taking the train. As countless studies
attest, this is _not_ of economic (or personal) benefit. It locks people into
a life-long dependency on cars with the terrible health outcomes for them
personally and the humongous cost of human life in traffic deaths every year.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
"the terrible health outcomes for them personally"

Cite this, I dare you.

edit: the part I'm not buying is the combination of "terrible" and "personal"

It matters little whether you're sitting on your but for 45min in a car or on
a bus, you're still not getting exercise. That's not really "terrible" as it's
something that can easily be counteracted unlike (for example) working in a
loud environment for 45min twice per day without hearing protection.

The "terrible" stuff (accidents) isn't really personal because it only comes
into play on a statistical level (seeing as most people will never be
seriously injured in a vehicle accident)

~~~
mikerichards
It's funny how people will make things up to satisfy the HN anti-car hive
mind.

Sorry people, you're living in a bubble. The vast, vast, VAST majority of
people don't hate cars like the HN collective does.

~~~
audunw
*The vast, vast, VAST majority of people _in the US_ don't hate cars

People generally don't hate their own culture. But it's obvious from a
european perspective that the US has an unhealthy obsession about cars. Not
that we hate cars, but we don't worship them either.

And I don't think HN hates cars. All I've seen is people pointing out real
issues. Maybe some exaggeration here and there, but everyone is guilty of
that.

------
mattheusser
Jevon's Law. Google it.

