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Comment on Congestion pricing = accessible transit in ~transport
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Comment on Report shows bike lane initiative positively impacting traffic in Boston in ~transport
scroll_lock Link ParentComment box Scope: comment response, information Tone: neutral Opinion: not really Sarcasm/humor: none Bicycle lanes are usually constructed by removing a travel lane allocated to motor vehicles....Comment box
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Bicycle lanes are usually constructed by removing a travel lane allocated to motor vehicles. Intuitively, one would think this would cause traffic congestion.
The article's case study in Boston shows that performing road diets (lane reductions) to build a network of bicycle lanes does not create more traffic. This is because bike lanes allows trips otherwise taken by car to be taken by bicycle instead, which is more space-efficient. Counter-intuitively, removing space on the road for cars makes traffic better.
This is necessary to point out because all movements opposing bicycle lanes cite traffic congestion as a reason not to do it. They are incorrect.
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Report shows bike lane initiative positively impacting traffic in Boston
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Comment on Congestion pricing = accessible transit in ~transport
scroll_lock LinkComment box Scope: summary, information Tone: neutral Opinion: none of my own Sarcasm/humor: none Archive ……. https://archive.is/ULSwP Observations about how timed road tolls (congestion pricing)...Comment box
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Archive ……. https://archive.is/ULSwP
Observations about how timed road tolls (congestion pricing) improve safety/accessibility for people in New York City.
This is written by an advocate for people with disabilities.
That’s why so many disability justice advocates have fought for the city’s congestion relief program, even as it stood against tough odds and public disapproval for years before finally becoming a reality. With the potential to reduce dangerous car traffic, speed up our paratransit and bus systems, improve air quality, and fund critical investments in long-overdue accessibility improvements, the program is a clear solution to various of our transportation system’s historic shortcomings.
Traffic injuries are down 15% and pedestrian fatalities are at historic lows. Meanwhile, New Yorkers are breathing easier from decreased levels of fine particulate matter and better air quality. All of this means safer streets, faster commutes, and cleaner air.
And the impact is felt especially among people with disabilities. Those safer streets and fewer fatalities are particularly important, as a disproportionately high percentage of car-pedestrian deaths happen to people using wheelchairs. And congestion relief’s cleaner air helps people with respiratory and cardiac disabilities who are disproportionately impacted by air pollution.
We’ve also seen critical improvements to Access-A-Ride, the MTA’s paratransit system for people with disabilities who are unable to take subways and buses. The system has been historically slow and unreliable. It’s also costly to operate — in part due to overreliance on paratransit because the subway system is only 30% accessible. Now, Access-A-Ride is moving faster within the congestion relief zone, which is critical because its riders cannot wait for lengthy subway improvements.
And let’s not forget: when we make the city more accessible for people with disabilities, we make it better for everyone. Elevators also benefit parents with strollers; curb cuts assist delivery workers with dollies; wayfinding features help tourists move around our city with ease; protective barriers make stations safer for kids; and everyone benefits from the comfort of wider doors and gates as well as the safety of smaller gaps between platforms and trains.
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Congestion pricing = accessible transit
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Comment on Kansas City Streetcar's Riverfront extension is on track to open next spring in ~transport
scroll_lock (edited )LinkComment box Scope: summary, information Tone: neutral Opinion: none except last few paragraphs Sarcasm/humor: none The KC streetcar opened in October from UMKC to almost the river, stopping at...Comment box
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The KC streetcar opened in October from UMKC to almost the river, stopping at Union Station (Amtrak) in between. This extension takes it along Grand Blvd to the CPKC stadium.
Transit connections to universities and sports arenas have potentially high ridership. Transit connections in dense, downtown areas do too. This streetcar hits all three.
Streetcars are more energy-efficient than buses because rails have less friction than tires. They are also more space-efficient because they can theoretically be longer than buses and hold more passengers.
Streetcars get stuck in traffic caused by personal automobiles. But at-grade tracks are much cheaper to install than a grade-separated tunnel or elevated line, and often politically easier.
Streetcar tracks are hazardous for bikes unless they are installed with pressure covers that allow heavy trains through but not lightweight bikes.
But it’s better to have any streetcar than no streetcar. This is a good project because it goes to useful destinations and through the city center. Kansas City would benefit from more streetcars or heavy rail:
- Extension to the downtown airport. Requires a bridge. Can potentially use the existing freight right-of-way? (Might be impractical)
- New east-west line from Kauffman/Arrowhead stadiums (along I-70) to Union Station, and northwest across the river to Kansas. Could also maybe use existing rail bridges to get there.
- Some extension from Union southwest to Overland Park, which has relatively high population density. Maybe routing along I-35 (existing railroad tracks) or Shawnee Mission Parkway (would need new tracks).
- Eventually a rail connection to MCI (international airport) would be valuable, as it’s bigger than the downtown airport (along I-29 maybe). That would be very expensive.
I imagine the city is doing ridership studies to identify good expansion opportunities.
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Kansas City Streetcar's Riverfront extension is on track to open next spring
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Comment on Toll roads are spreading in America in ~transport
scroll_lock (edited )Link ParentComment box Scope: comment response, information, advice Tone: neutral Opinion: I suppose Sarcasm/humor: none I hope you are able to get your sidewalk built. Your Rural [Transportation] Planning...Comment box
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I hope you are able to get your sidewalk built.
Your Rural [Transportation] Planning Organization (R[T]PO) (or similar; might be called a Regional Council or something) or Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) probably maintains a detailed sidewalk inventory and probably has someone whose job it is to coordinate pedestrian infrastructure. (In my region is this DVRPC……) If you haven’t already communicated with yours, they would be a useful contact. These are the federal or state organizations that develop plans and write/acquire grants for capital infrastructure. State Departments of Transportation and local councils often rely on their recommendations to prioritize infrastructure funding allocations. There are differences state-to-state though. Ideally , the sidewalk you want built would get put into a “regional sidewalk plan” of some sort, as a result of pressure from constituents.
There is strength in numbers. A neighborly coalition is more effective than individual requests. Politicians acknowledge voting blocs and can pressure planners to prioritize projects that engaged constituents want.
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Comment on Toll roads are spreading in America in ~transport
scroll_lock Link ParentComment box Scope: comment response, personal reaction Tone: neutral, understanding Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: none Yeah I see how that is exorbitantly expensive. Rant taken, you are right to...Comment box
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Yeah I see how that is exorbitantly expensive.
Rant taken, you are right to express frustration at me.
Helping disabled people helps everyone so I agree it's important to implement. In the context of tolls, I would probably want to exempt disabled users, which should be relatively easy to technically implement. From a traffic volume perspective such an exemption is insignificant, but the benefit to disabled people is meaningful.
Response to going on a bit about anti-car crusades
And when people talk about how pedestrians are getting screwed by the streets and such, sidewalks, even "nice" ones, suck for wheelchair users.
Oh , well , this is a topic of regular conversation in my circles. The tree roots in the sidewalks are probably the most egregious issue, as well as cracked bricks and other blatant ADA violations. My city has at least installed curb cuts in most places.
In my opinion the big problem here is that sidewalks are legally considered the property of the landowner, even though they are a public Right of Way. Property owners have zero incentive to maintain sidewalks to an ADA standard unless they are old or disabled or happen to be very altruistic. Other than fining people for not maintaining their sidewalks -- and people HATE fines and HOA-esque fees even more than they hate road tolls -- I do not know what the solution is to this except for the government to seize control of all sidewalks. This is surely extremely unpopular among libertarians and also unpopular among government (who don't want to pay for all these sidewalks). In some cities this has already been accomplished, such as Boston and DC, but not in New York and San Francisco. There is a lot of state-by-state difference in the laws. Rectifying that one issue of sidewalk responsibility universally in all 50 states, by itself, would be an extremely worthy but lifelong/multi-generational campaign for a dedicated organization.
I've never considered negative impacts of tactile bumps. I am not sure how to resolve that from a strictly engineering/materials/design perspective. If the surface has to be bumpy enough for blind people to feel it through thick soles, I don't know how it could also be designed to be gentle for wheelchairs.
I advocate for "raised crosswalks" where the crosswalk is at sidewalk level and basically part OF the sidewalk. Cars are forced to slow because of the built-in speed cushion. Perhaps this eliminates the need for tactile bumps - or they could have them at the edges of the raised crosswalk to either side to stop people from veering into the street, but not directly ahead as you cross the street. Or perhaps not because cars are still what kill Vulnerable Road Users at intersections, even if they're going slower, maybe they're still necessary.
In my city, bike advocates have started calling bike lanes "mobility lanes" in disability context, and trying to explicitly include disability access as a reason to install more bike lanes. We see a lot of wheelchair users choosing to use asphalt bike lanes for the reasons you describe. Riding a bike over bumpy surfaces is also unpleasant, so it's a natural alliance. So far there aren't any complaints from bikers. As long as they have a way to pass wheelchair users, it's ok. So maybe the best solution is more and wider protected bike lanes with mid-block curb cuts (without tactile markers?). Or maybe just 1 tactile marker is ok if you can avoid the rest of them while traveling along streets in a bike/mobility lane?
I'm guessing you live outside a city because it's cheaper? We should be building enough urban housing for everyone to afford an apartment with an elevator or accessible townhome if they need it. My city is OK about this but there is just so much NIMBY obstruction to increasing the housing supply. Zoning is like a war.
Unfortunately I have seen that some opponents to housing, and opponents to safety improvements for wheelchair users/bike users, use "accessibility impacts" as a reason to block obviously beneficial infrastructure, such as physical separation of mobility lanes from car traffic. In a recent case in my city these opponents also fought against loading zones to improve accessibility for drivers (including disabled passengers) because it was part of a 'bike lane' project. It is dishonest and cruel in my opinion.
And the snow and ice? Most people don't fully clear their sidewalks even if they try.
In principle I do not believe individuals should be responsible for this. I think the government should just do it. They plow roads, they can clear sidewalks.
In practice this is an unresolved question. Personally I think there are a few necessary steps:
- {1} implementing '15-minute cities' so that the absolute longest distance a disabled person must travel by rolling is quite small.
- {2} government clears all sidewalks, just like it already does for car lanes. (Also, bike/mobility lanes can be cleared with specialized vehicles pretty easily). As you say, investment by government is necessary.
- {3} if {2} is impossible, enacting higher fines on able-bodied people who do not clear their sidewalks. This is obviously not ideal because maybe someone has to work a long shift and isn't physically at home. Or whatever.
- {4} so since {3} is at best incomplete, government pays for heated sidewalks for disabled people or something like that. Seems hard to implement and maintain. I am not sure.
- {5} salting is the immediate solution to ice remaining despite good intentions of neighbors clearing snow. It is effective, it works. Environmental impact is real and I do not know what the solution to that is. Heated sidewalks everywhere is probably not feasible.
In Minnesota they have skywalks between many downtown buildings to allow for access in snow conditions. In Buffalo they have many tunnels. I am doubtful that tunnels and skywalks are a realistic solution outside of urban centers and university campuses.
If a disabled person lived in a home with some sort of covering for the walkway to access the curb, a transit or paratransit vehicle could support them. For example an urban apartment. Or if they live on a street with a bike lane, they can use the bike lane, because the municipal vehicles would have cleared it just as well as the roads. In theory. Still need mid-block curb cuts and stuff like that to work.
I don't think any urbanists object to paratransit, especially for this purpose, even if they object to "cars." In practice the issue is volume of cars, not existence per se, even if people wax about cars as a class of vehicles. There is often talk of retractable bollards and so forth to allow for emergency vehicle access on appropriate corridors, and I think in any situation where "cars are banned" in some hypothetical, almost anyone seriously interested in urbanism would consider paratransit part of that exception matrix.
expanding door to door accessible transit service
Anything in particular that a good accessible transit service has/offers in your opinion? Or avoids doing? I am wondering if there are ways my city could do this better. We have a paratransit service which goes anywhere the buses/trains go. So not door-to-door technically, unless you live by a bus stop, but the network is relatively extensive at least.
The big problem in my city is that we can't even fund our regular transit system. I think if we asked anyone in my advocacy group they would be willing to put out CTAs for paratransit expansion specifically, but it would be basically the same as the existing CTA for transit funding. In this case the legislators who are blocking transit care even less about paratransit so the political approach is not clear to me. In my experience urbanists who are actually involved in political lobbying are receptive to disability needs more so than random people on the internet, but we can still do better. I recently connected with a particularly vocal disability advocate on "Linked - In" social media and seeing his posts every day is very helpful to me.
addressing rural/semi-rural residents who cannot reasonably move
I don't think there is any consensus among urbanists about how to "help" disabled people in rural areas beyond solutions that also apply to cities. We all know that unfortunately that disability happens "in place" as well as by birth, which means anyone can become disabled at any time and be stuck where they are. So I don't think "addressing" this problem can be accomplished by anything less than a whole-scale societal revamp of land use and taxation to ensure that fewer people live in places that are (structurally) functionally impossible to serve with accessible resources.
The only other, or additional, solution I see is a deep rejection of societal individuality and instead adopting a grassroots community support mechanism whereby local communities go out of their way to help disabled neighbors thrive. I participate in this personally but I cannot change a culture and neither can the urbanist bloc. What I can advocate for is a built environment where people live close enough together to incentivize communal support systems and make them more practical. In my opinion this does not require everyone to live in a city, but does require almost everyone to live in or quite near a town. Culturally many people object to that and will never accept it, so I am at a loss.
The only approach anyone agrees on is to build enough accessible housing in cities and towns to house everyone if they want to live there. But some/many people simply dislike being near other people, categorically. They do not like cities, and they do not like towns, and they do not like being 'supported' by government systems, and so I do not know what to do about those people as they age and become disabled 'in-place'. Regarding transportation I am inclined to ignore them, because if a person is socially conditioned to dislike society, no solution I can possibly present will be acceptable to them.
Universal healthcare would help a lot. Among urbanists, probably every single one supports it wholeheartedly. That particular problem is beyond my lobbying knowledge or abilities. It is personally my #1 or #2 criterion when I vote but I am not capable of helping the movement otherwise.
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Comment on Toll roads are spreading in America in ~transport
scroll_lock Link ParentComment box Scope: comment response, information, opinion Tone: neutral Opinion: not really Sarcasm/humor: none In theory, one of the ways to incentivize alternatives to driving at a systemic,...Comment box
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In theory, one of the ways to incentivize alternatives to driving at a systemic, societal level is to increase the cost of living in car-dependent places, relative to places with transit/walkability. A carbon tax or a road toll (which is partially a specialized carbon tax), is one such method. Revenue can even be used to fund multimodal capital projects or services, which is a positive incentive (pull factor) to take alternatives.
Negative incentives (push factors) are unpopular because they're perceived as punitive or regressive (truly or falsely). However, they are effective. A road toll is unlikely to cause anyone to move (moving has higher costs), but it is a disincentive for more people to move to a place without multimodal transportation options. This is more important. Paired with other small negative incentives, the total cost becomes high enough to register as a decision when choosing housing, such as living in a townhome nearer work instead of in a home in a disconnected neighborhood which requires daily highway use.
Planners avoid explicitly talking about negative incentives because doing so is political suicide. Individualist libertarians object to the principle of taxation and collectivist social progressives object to the image of dislocating or inconveniencing people (whether that image is real or imagined). But at least some small negative incentives are functionally necessary to overcome cultural inertia: meta-analyses demonstrate that both push and pull factors are necessary to reduce car dependency.
It's much more politically palatable to talk about Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) than any disincentive to drive a car. This means rezoning land surrounding public transit stops (train or bus). This encourages transit ridership and reduces car-dependency by focusing population density along corridors with transportation alternatives. TOD is a great solution and something I advocate for regularly. It's useful for all trips, but especially medium and long-distance ones. There is also such thing as Trail-Oriented Development (TrOD), which is important for walkability/riding bikes for shorter distances.
If you build enough transit-adjacent housing with enough variety to suit cultural expectations, negative incentives are less important to inducing a mode shift away from driving. In practice, it is politically challenging to enact TOD even in progressive places because NIMBY attitudes go beyond any particular political ideology. People irrationally object to change. Progressives find imaginary environmental or gentrification reasons to kill housing projects, conservatives harp on aesthetics or perceived demographic disruption, everyone worries (unscientifically) about traffic. Zoning is also bureaucratic and complex, so citizens rarely participate even if it's important. So, in practice, and per research, it's important to try multiple things.
toll lane on highways for which there is a pretty good public transport alternative right next to the highway
In this case your neighboring city has implemented the "pull factor" (transit) and is now implementing the "push factor" (highway tolls) as they expand transit services. This is extremely slow -- like, a "beyond your children's lifetimes to fully implement" type of slow. However, it is politically feasible. Ultimately, implementing good projects is more important than designing them to be perfect and then failing to build them.
An ideal mode shift plan would strategically implement positive and negative incentives in an alternating fashion such that it's not an "all or nothing" decision. Ideally people will not notice the negatives so much, or will appreciate the positives at the same time. As an area becomes more multimodal, it becomes more politically feasible to accelerate implementation with bolder visions and more aggressive timelines.
There's a point when the collective incentive to design walkable, transit-connected places gains enough momentum to maintain a relatively dominant political force. This status is a spectrum. In the United States, this is best exemplified in New York City in every borough except Staten Island. It's also becoming true in Los Angeles. This is not strictly a "city thing" -- it's possible to have great connectivity in smaller towns -- but is easier to accomplish in dense areas. Statewide legislation, such as a recent zoning law in California and state funding for capital projects in New York, come with this.
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Comment on Toll roads are spreading in America in ~transport
scroll_lock Link ParentComment box Scope: comment response, information, question Tone: neutral Opinion: a little Sarcasm/humor: none Greyhound is alright but I would rather take the train for trips above 2-3 hours. I...Comment box
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Greyhound is alright but I would rather take the train for trips above 2-3 hours.
I guess you already know this but you can reduce carsickness by sitting at the front of the bus. Greyhound lets you purchase a specific seat ticket for like $2 extra. I recommend sitting in a location where you can see out of the front of the bus (aisle seat), but the windows near the front are ok. This reduces your brain's overemphasis on lateral motion. Source: I used to get carsick. I don't anymore but that was a big help when I did.
Are there not electric vans that would suit your accessibility needs? Or are they just too expensive?
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Comment on Toll roads are spreading in America in ~transport
scroll_lock (edited )Link ParentComment box Scope: comment response, information Tone: neutral,encyclopedic Opinion: not really Sarcasm/humor: none The PA turnpike toll, or prospect of a long drive through Cumberland, probably...Comment box
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So in my case the toll is purely detrimental to the environment: all it does is incentivize me to use more gas.
The PA turnpike toll, or prospect of a long drive through Cumberland, probably subconsciously shapes the number of times you travel from DC to Ohio by car. The choice feels slightly onerous either way, so you will not do it particularly often. If the toll were free, it would feel "easier" to go to Ohio by car, and you might be incentivize to do it more often.
On the net, an increased quantity of trips would probably result in more gas emissions than fewer, but slower trips through Cumberland.
In traffic engineering this is called ''''induced demand'''', meaning changing the parameters of the system to artificially create demand where there was none before. More specifically, all transportation trips have a fungible mode. There may be only one obvious choice but the choice always still exists. The likelihood of switching between modes relates to a trip's elasticity. In general, traffic is highly elastic (dynamic). While there are morning and evening commute peaks in many urbanized areas, most drivers can be easily incentivized to drive at different times and along different routes to smooth out demand, especially because many trips that happen to take place during rush hour are not actually commuting trips (work patterns increasingly do not follow 9-5 schedules). And most long-distance highway driving is almost completely elastic, as you have pointed out. This means that it's feasible to induce a shift from car to other modes for the majority of trips. It also goes the other way, and our current society has induced substantial auto demand mostly at the expense of train demand.
Demand can be altered by:
Expand Box - Demand induction factors/criteria
- Travel time
- Any factor that reduces the start-end distance of a trip reduces travel time and is therefore an incentive to drive, and the opposite disincentives. This includes intentional or accidental road closures (reduce demand) as well as building more highway bypasses (induce demand). Likewise, for a train, a straighter track induces ridership (environmentally good) because it reduces mileage. For an airplane, direct flights reduce travel distance.
- Any factor that allows for higher speeds also reduces travel time. Higher speed limits are an incentive to drive, as well as being extremely environmentally unfriendly (engines are less efficient at higher speeds; all cars, including EVs, also face more wind friction at high speeds). Anything like "traffic calming" reduces "Level of Service" { LOS }, which is the limited-access highway terminology that traffic engineers incorrectly extrapolate on local streets. Lower speed limits on highways would reduce demand for driving by making alternatives, like the currently slow train, relatively faster. For a bus, a dedicated bus lane (Bus Rapid Transit) eliminates traffic bottlenecks and maintains high speeds. For a train, straighter track curves on the single-digit mile level allow for higher operating speeds. Grade separation and other grade crossing improvements also allow for higher legal operating speeds; these all increase ridership. Planes will never get any faster over land routes because of sonic booms.
- Connection time is a factor in travel time. We usually pretend this doesn't exist for driving, but it does: rest stops. The longer one drives, the more one must stop, get out of the vehicle, and get back in; it's just coincidentally the same vehicle, which has no mathematical significance. (Some individuals may destroy their bodies by not stopping for 8+ hours at a time, but they are statistically minor and canceled out in a roughly normal distribution by people who stop frequently.) We have incentivized shorter driving connection times by building highway rest stops, but it is impossible to reduce this further in a socially acceptable/non-gross way. Refueling is also a connection which increases travel time. These particular connection times do not exist for trains/planes; the vehicle continues moving even when passengers use the toilet, and they do not typically refuel mid-journey (ignoring layover complexity).
- Congestion increases travel time. This is an incentive not to drive. Ironically, eliminating congestion by raising supply (more road lanes) induces demand in all urban/suburban areas and most rural areas, so ironically some congestion can keep traffic from getting worse, in aggregate. (PA's new auto-toll system reduces toll queueing-related congestion emissions slightly, but the higher LOS induces enough demand to cancel that out.) Train congestion (being stuck behind another train) obviously also increases travel time, so eliminating the issue with a third or fourth track solves the problem; and for planes, taxiing efficiency. Physically expanding train and plane infrastructure induces demand for those modes.
- Financial cost
- Tolls are a psychologically significant cost - less so with auto-tolling, but it's still there. It feels worse to be tolled than to wear down your car driving longer distances, or statistically increase your chance of crash (see: insurance) by driving longer distances. Now, if tolls are applied to state highways as well as interstate highways, drivers have no incentive to take longer routes; they will merely be incentivized to drive less. This requires coordination between governments.
- Fuel is a psychologically significant cost, perhaps more than tolls. This is a reason EVs are often desirable, if home charging is available. Currently it is impossible not to spend any money on fuel, even though it's usually possible to avoid some tolls. A fuel tax reduces demand for longer drives and makes tolling less relatively effective, and higher tolls make the fuel tax less relatively effective; both, whether alone or combined, make driving less competitive against other modes and reduce demand for driving.
- Cost of ownership and maintenance: purchase price/auto loan, depreciation, repairs, registration, insurance. Drivers in auto-centric societies are not cognitively aware that these costs are fungible, ie it is possible for them not to pay them by not owning a vehicle, but the choice still exists, even if it appears uncomfortable or involves moving to a different location or other lifestyle changes.
- The above is all rolled into ticket costs for buses, planes, and trains. This reduces the psychological impact of repeatedly paying for fuel or tolls, but the impact of paying for tickets somewhat diminishes that effect, depending on how people buy tickets.
- Subjective comfort induces demand. Engineers might call this an "irrational" factor, as in, it is not explained by travel time or financial cost (real resources) because it is strictly experiential and preferential. It is still relevant, but it is much less important than travel time. Transportation modes are fungible
- Physical comfort induces demand. This is a big reason trains are attractive over planes, all else equal; they are spacious. This includes the comfort (or lack) of driving vs flying with a group such as a family. Plus many other factors.
- Confusion/fear reduces demand. Cultural incentives are an "irrational" reason to drive, such as a fear of being lost in a train station (fear of unknown) or an irrational fear of a train/plane crash despite their comparative safety per-passenger-mile. Inversely, education/familiarity usually induces demand. This is why it's important for children to have experience on multiple modes from a young age.
And other things. But all of those factors can be influenced. The "rational" factors are much easier to influence and have much more uniform & predictable effects than the "irrational" factors. It is necessary to think beyond any particular trip, and rather consider classes of trips, and classes of drivers, when trying to induce a modal shift.
Environmentally, the question to ask is "after setting the toll, to disincentivize driving, how can we apply demand induction factors to incentivize other, more efficient forms of transportation?" Using rough online calculators, we can see that driving is meaningfully cleaner than flying (in other calculators, it is the opposite; I believe carbon offset credit companies like ST inflate flight footprints to encourage you to pay for more carbon offset credits, but let's just go with this). The difference between a car and a train is an order of magnitude, but the difference between a car and plane is, either way, within the same order of magnitude and in fact probably overlapping. Environmentally the best solution is almost always a train, even if it's a diesel train compared to an electric car.
The train is "viable" insofar as it exists, but yes it is terribly slow. This is a result of poor infrastructure funding allocations toward highways instead of railroads. It is physically possible to fix within a decade if funding is provided. In DC, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Ohio, areas of focus would be:
- Track improvements. Realignment (straightening sharp curves) improves speeds. At-grade crossing improvements improve safety and allow for higher legal speeds. Full grade separations have high capital cost but massively improve safety and operating speeds, as well as operational efficiency (including for other modes). Max speed is important, but so is average speed, which is influenced by acceleration/deceleration. Removing "slow zones" within faster zones (ie. remove bottlenecks) by prioritizing track straightening and other improvements there is critical, because it avoids the need to brake.
- Station improvements. Level boarding platforms significantly reduce "dwell time" at stations. Stairs cause delays; level platforms are seamless. Routing improvements on platforms can also reduce on-board queues and allow for faster embarking and disembarking. Operational efficiency at stations is also relevant, especially the larger Union Station.
- Rolling stock. Some old Amtrak rolling stock is inherently inefficient for passenger alighting, like the two-level western cars. Stairs are slow. And newer rolling stock can attain higher max speeds in general, as well as along curves (tilting technology), such as the new Acelas whose max speed increased from 150 mph to 160 mph due to better tilting around curves. In general, catenary electrification allows for lighter trains and higher speeds, but has high capital costs. Battery electrification avoids these capital costs but batteries are heavy and this is not a great solution on many routes; catenary is better. Diesel can still hit 110 mph or so though.
- Timetabling. Many travel time issues with trains can be improved by better timetabling. This is very obvious on the Northeast Corridor (NEC), see Alon Levy and Devin Wilkins's excellent report in 2025. This is mostly an issue when coordinating with local transit agencies in big cities, as well as freight trains.
- NEC congestion. The NEC does not through-run to Chicago, but some trains from New York go directly to Chicago via Virginia/West Virginia (Cardinal). Also the timeliness of connecting trains (service reliability) impacts ridership. The same also applies to connecting trains around Chicago, which also affect trains in Ohio. This includes mainline Amtrak trains as well as local metro services.
Improving these factors will improve the time-competitiveness of trains. In theory, this can also improve cost-competitiveness by allowing Amtrak to scale service more effectively. For example, longer train cars can fit more passengers for a given trip, improving profitability and reducing ticket prices. Trains can technically be arbitrarily long to suit passenger demand.
Additional negative incentives to reduce air travel demand may be:
- Consumer carbon taxes and other taxes (effective and direct)
- Higher corporate taxes for air travel (seems less effective to me than a per-mile carbon tax)
- Reduce investment in airport rebuilds and halt expansion projects (very effective but less direct)
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Comment on Toll roads are spreading in America in ~transport
scroll_lock Link ParentComment box Scope: comment response, question Tone: curious Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: none Interesting idea, I had not considered that. But isn't it pretty easy to hack into odometers and change...Comment box
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Interesting idea, I had not considered that. But isn't it pretty easy to hack into odometers and change them? Would alot of people do that to evade taxes? I'm not sure how hard it would be to enforce that, compared to, enforcing that people have real/non-covered-up license plates (how people avoid tolls).
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Comment on Toll roads are spreading in America in ~transport
scroll_lock (edited )LinkComment box Scope: personal reaction, information, opinion Tone: neutral Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: none This is a huge benefit for society. People are blissfully unaware of the immense financial...- Exemplary
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- Sarcasm/humor: none
This is a huge benefit for society. People are blissfully unaware of the immense financial and social cost of maintaining hundreds of thousands of miles of highway infrastructure. Having a small toll reduces the incentive to drive very slightly, just enough to make someone consider taking alternatives.
Tolls induce a slight mode shift toward other forms of travel, like walking, buses, trains, cycling, ebike, etc., or simply not taking unnecessary trips via car at all. Personal automobiles are a pretty inefficient method of transport, especially on long-distance highways, so a slight prod in the right direction is a good thing.
The poorest people in society do not drive personal vehicles and are the worst-affected by externalities of highways (pollution, traffic violence). Therefore, modest tolls on highways are more equitable than the current subsidy.
Highway tolls are:
- Better for the environment - fewer cars means less emissions in the air and less tire microplastics leaching into the ground // water. Plants will do better with fewer cars. And all that. And maybe this will cause some people to realize they don't need a car at all, so long-term there could be fewer production emissions. And less Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) means traffic engineers can build smaller roads, which means fewer paved surfaces, which means better rainwater management, which is good for environmental sustainability.
- Safer for all people - cars are the physical cause of death of tens of thousands of people in the USA annually, including many Vulnerable Road Users (VRUs) as well as drivers. No other mode is as deadly. The #1 solution in the hierarchy of controls is to physically remove the threat. Less VMT, less traffic deaths.
- Healthier for individuals - cars obviously emit toxic fumes which cause asthma and exacerbate other cardiovascular diseases. Fewer cars means fewer fumes. The microplastics remain an issue with EVs so it is helpful even then. Also less driving means less road rage, a consistent problem which is both physically and psychologically harmful. Also, maybe something like this would encourage people to take a bus and walk the remaining distance --- reducing the sedentary-ness of our lifestyles is definitely a health bonus. And long-term maybe it will just culturally reduce people's psychological dependence on the car, so they'll walk more even if they don't strictly need to.
- Better for traffic - tolls reduce the total number of vehicles on the road slightly, which reduces congestion. And if implemented on a peak/off-peak basis, they also spread out non-time-sensitive traffic throughout the day. This improves road capacity and functionally allows us to repurpose roads overbuilt for peak hours for better uses, like bicycle lanes, street cafes, trees and rainwater/permeable areas, art sculptures or whatever
- Fiscally responsible - there is no concept of farebox recovery for highways in our society, which means we are massively subsidizing highway use despite its worse efficiency vs. other modes and its various externalities. And economically speaking it is generally a good idea for people to 'pay for what you use' because markets contain more information than free services, so now the transportation system is at least comparing driving with other modes on a marginally more level field (in Indiana) ---- in an ideal world tolls would be completely demand-based, similar to most planes/trains, either based on time of day (as stated above) or more granularly, maybe time of year too.....
- Directly beneficial for transit systems - the biggest beneficiaries here are probably Amtrak,Greyhound etc which do long-distance public transportation. The tolls incentivize more Amtrak ridership. This improves Amtrak's profit margin and allows them to offer more and better train service. Better Amtrak ridership and profitability figures also encourages politicians to provide more capital funding for high-speed rail infrastructure, which is one of best ways (often the very best) to travel medium to long distances.
- Indiana has very slow trains (none above 60 mph with one exception which is really just an extension of Chicago). It is also a centrally located place which historically had very many trains. High Speed Rail (at least higher than right now) would be very useful for many Amtrak trips originating in or traveling through Chicago, Indianapolis, Cleveland, Cinncinnati, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Milwaukee, and even Washington DC and Minneapolis. If Indiana now has a slightly higher incentive to pay for infrastructure to enable even 79 mph trains, that would make a big difference throughout the Amtrak system, beyond just Indiana. 110-125 mph would be great.
- Encouraging for Transit-Oriented Development (TOD). Even a slight incentive not to drive makes housing options near train/bus stations more attractive to people. This drives demand for more such housing in walkable or transit-connected places, rather than disconnected exurbs off the highway. Municipal zoning boards do have to do some work to make this happen though.
- Better for personal finances - if you take a bigger view than the cost of the toll, the societal benefits of all the above definitely result in lower end-costs for regular people. Environmental destruction always has a financial cost (more roads = more flooding = more home damage), so does traffic safety and health (hospital visits are expensive), and land use (living near transit enables cheaper lifestyles). Obviously no one likes paying tolls, but that's the point.
Public transit almost always has a small fee. Regional trains almost always charge tickets based on distance traveled. Highway tolls ought to be at least the same, ideally higher. Just like public transit, it would be simple for governments to create a system to accommodate edge cases for people who actually '"need"' toll-free highway travel, but unlike public transit, the number of people this reasonably applies to is probably quite small.
governor of Indiana
Not necessarily where I would have expected this, but I think this lends credibility to my argument about necessity. This is an actual technical issue, not just an ideological one. Highways and personal vehicle use have so excessively dominated our lives, and municipal spending, that the problem has gotten out of control. Even very partisan-aligned entities are recognizing that something must be done.
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Comment on Do we really need all these long-duration energy storage (LDES) technologies to hit the net-zero target? in ~enviro
scroll_lock (edited )Link ParentComment box Scope: comment response, opinion Tone: neutral Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: none Well sure, I agree with the principle of long-term research. Barnes’ argument is that we just don’t need...Comment box
- Scope: comment response, opinion
- Tone: neutral
- Opinion: yes
- Sarcasm/humor: none
We're going to need Hoover Dam scale infrastructure projects to deploy things like pumped hydro storage......and those things can take decades to get live. If we project needing them by 2045, we should start picking sites and building them today.
Well sure, I agree with the principle of long-term research. Barnes’ argument is that we just don’t need to focus on LDES-that we can either:
- Deeply research LDES now, at the expense of what she thinks is more urgent research into decarbonizing industrial heat, net zero cement, grid improvements, etc. And then build a lot of LDES (for a lot of money).
- Deeply research technology that reduces emissions (urgent problem) and develop short-medium duration storage capacity. Then pivot to LDES, now with freed-up research resources because the easier problems have been solved. And then build LDES, but less of it, because our earlier tech reduced the requirements.
She’s not saying don’t research LDES at all, just not to frontload it as a central/urgent part of energy transition strategy,because there are more pressing issues.
My additional claim is that geothermal can cover enough base load generation capacity to handle New Jersey’s winter energy needs more directly than LDES, which is not generative. Every conversion into/out of storage has efficiency losses. So if we’re going to do the long-term research and infrastructure build-outs on anything, it should be geothermal. (And there are also side benefits to grid stability?) I think it’s better to have a lot of scalable base load generation capacity and little storage than the other way around.
As for civil infrastructure, I would say the decade-plus timelines of pumped hydro are an incentive to minimize reliance on those systems, from a resource allocation/planning perspective. Not to get into the negative environmental impacts of dams.
I can’t speak as much on the other solutions. If I were to focus on any of them, it would probably be the iron-air batteries, or other battery technology beyond Li-ion. I think this is easier to implement than pumped hydro.
The reason I’m okay with the “85% approach” is that the earth has a natural carbon sink which can handle some emissions. (While AI will increase electricity use overall, I believe it has a mostly flat pattern, so it doesn’t exacerbate residential peaks.) The urgency for the remaining 15% is comparatively low. I think this is a good strategy for most technical problems.
Adding capacity would help with my personal costs, other than laws about capacity limits.
That makes sense, there’s a clear use-case for energy storage.
I think this is illustrative of broader societal incentives regarding energy research though. People are drawn to solutions that resolve (or appear to resolve) immediate personal problems, but usually ignore carbon externalities, because…. How would you even budget for that? They’re still real, and big, but…. mysterious. And severity of personal problems might, or might not, align with severity of overall problems.
This means it’s hard to develop a planning framework that sequences development in a way that solves the underlying problem efficiently. It’s also really hard to predict how technologies will be economically competitive in the future, which is what Barnes says happened to a lot of LDES tech in the last decade—Li-ion batteries caught up, so a lot of the specialized market-fit engineering they did is for naught.
I think we can and should work on solving multiple problems simultaneously though.
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Comment on Do we really need all these long-duration energy storage (LDES) technologies to hit the net-zero target? in ~enviro
scroll_lock LinkComment box Scope: summary, information, opinion Tone: neutral Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: none Rosie Barnes discusses long-duration energy storage (LDES) systems to pair with variable renewable...Comment box
- Scope: summary, information, opinion
- Tone: neutral
- Opinion: yes
- Sarcasm/humor: none
Rosie Barnes discusses long-duration energy storage (LDES) systems to pair with variable renewable generation. She identifies the ones with the most economic potential.
Three takeaways:
- Existing lithium-ion battery storage largely covers daily energy shortfalls from variable renewable generation (nighttime troughs from solar/wind)
- Li-ion batteries will continue to improve in energy density and cost-effectiveness. Other battery chemistries will too. This expands the effectiveness of batteries and reduces future reliance on more expensive LDES.
- Very long-duration storage solutions (weeks/months) like pumped hydro will ultimately make up a relatively small portion of total storage needs in most climates.
Most of the global population and most energy generation occurs in regions that are naturally highly suitable for solar. This means global long-term storage needs are low. The exception is population centers in Northern Europe, but even these places probably won’t need as much LDES as people think.
I agree with Barnes’ hot take that we shouldn’t be directing significant scientific and financial resources toward LDES until we actually need to. It’s more efficient to focus on issues with greater urgency and ROI, like getting solar+wind to 85% of generating capacity to being with. Then LDES becomes more financially prudent to invest in. By that point, shorter-term systems will have improved and may capture market segments from longer-term ones; this means we avoid wasting investing into overbuilt infrastructure.
I recently shared an article about the EU’s grid permitting legislation. Grid operators failing to efficiently process new interconnections is the biggest bottleneck to the energy transition in many places. This can be resolved through legislation. Additional funding for grid upgrades is also necessary.
Barnes didn’t discuss one nascent technology that supersedes storage needs—next-generation geothermal. This is illegal in some places (like the UK) due to outdated regulations, but is safe and effective. It’s also continuous, unlike variable renewables.
In the next 25 years, next-gen geothermal could reach 15% of electricity generation capacity. If solar and wind cover most of the remaining 85%, there’s very little need for energy storage at all. Some will always be necessary, but I would personally say that investing into geothermal is likely to be one of the most cost-effective methods to accelerate the energy transition.
Perhaps solar + battery storage will become so ridiculously cheap that that it isn’t necessary, but I think it’ll have a place.
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Do we really need all these long-duration energy storage (LDES) technologies to hit the net-zero target?
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2025 update on LA Metro projects
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Comment on What are your predictions for 2026? in ~talk
scroll_lock Link ParentComment box Scope: comment response, personal perspective Tone: dryly humorous, borderline serious/unserious Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: sarcastic I was being facetious. Well, actually it was not...Comment box
- Scope: comment response, personal perspective
- Tone: dryly humorous, borderline serious/unserious
- Opinion: yes
- Sarcasm/humor: sarcastic
I was being facetious. Well, actually it was not that facetious. 3 acquaintances were killed this year from car crashes, this happens every year. It's people you know, bartenders and community leaders who deserve to live but die anyway because of this city's lame infrastructure. I could be next, it's impossible to predict.
Other than the willful disregard for human life exhibited by drivers on a daily basis, patronage and bribery in city council, the state government's crusade to destroy our transit system, and the downtrodden homeless opioid addicts lining the streets, there is nothing too objectionable about this place.
The nice neighborhoods are actually very, very nice. I just don't live in them. The city is perfectly charming to normal people, especially those not involved in politics. It's actually a much better place to live than most American cities. It's affordable and has good amenities. However It's stratified and culturally resigned.
I am not in a position to move to a different city. Frankly I do not mind the experience of living here so much, I would be nearly as grumpy anywhere else. My grumpiness comes from the intransigence of inexplicably stupid people who are somehow very powerful, the selfishness of privileged residents who sue the city whenever it tries to improve infrastructure and the entitlement of people in vehicles. And that exists everywhere. So whatever.
If I were to move somewhere else it would be to an uninhabited island (with no cars) where I could watch football with my dog (that i don't have) in peace.
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Comment on What are your predictions for 2026? in ~talk
scroll_lock LinkComment box Scope: predictions Tone: dryly humorous Opinion: yes Sarcasm/humor: present 2026 predictions: ENERGY: (9/10) Levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) for utility-scale solar PV will...Comment box
- Scope: predictions
- Tone: dryly humorous
- Opinion: yes
- Sarcasm/humor: present
2026 predictions:
ENERGY:
- (9/10) Levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) for utility-scale solar PV will globally decrease such that the most expensive PV will still be cheaper than the least expensive coal or gas plant: under ~$50/MWh. Going off public reports and private reports
- (8/10) Modern geothermal energy increases by 1-5% in market share but continues to make up a small portion of total generation share.
- (6/10) Chinese carbon emissions peak or decline, or if final data is unavailable, show stronger signs of that.
TRAIN/TRANSPORT:
- (9/10) Portal North Bridge first track is operational
- (8/10) Brightline West construction continues, but delivery is delayed another 6-12 months
- (8/10) Amtrak breaks Northeast Corridor ridership records again.
- (7/10) CAHSR loses the court case against the federal government and does not receive the $3 billion grants the admin has rescinded, but appeals the decision.
- (7/10) National traffic fatalities worsen or stay flat
- (6/10) Waymo begins proper driverless operations in New York City and at least 1 other midsize or major city
MISC
- (6/10) US recession declared in some way
- (6/10) Substantial white-collar layoffs from AI, especially programming as the AIs get much better
- (5/10) Seahawks win superbowl
- (1/25000) Discover alien life
PERSONAL:
- (9/10) Pay off credit card debt completely. And (10/10) Have other debt still but get it down
- (8/10) Retain job through the year
- (6/10) Remain in this godforsaken city
- (5/10) Foot injury, eye problems
Last year, I correctly predicted that I would lose my income/employment, receive a lower back injury, continue to live in this godforsaken city, and still not have a pet. I suspect I was also correct in predicting the decline of the northern rockhopper penguin, but was unable to confirm this scientifically.
I was incorrect about getting hit by a car. It is unclear whether my predictions about electric vehicles were correct because the federal government stopped tracking EV trends. However, I think I was right.
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All newly built trains/subways in the USA have good accessibility (ADA 1990), but NYC's system goes back to the 1800s when that wasn't a law. Retrofitting elevators into existing subways is unfortunately expensive. NYC MTA is investing several billion dollars into accessibility.
95% is good. 2055 is a glacial pace. However, they're generally prioritizing busier stations, which means on average, most of the system will be accessible before then. So that's good.
The calculus is more than just people in wheelchairs though. For example, MTA has some incentive to rebuild regional heavy rail platforms lacking level boarding because doing so reduces dwell time in addition to providing accessibility. This improves travel time and the efficiency of the system. This doesn't apply to subways, which already have level boarding, even if the stations lack elevators. LIRR has high accessibility coverage (wiki says 89% as of November 2024). Metro-North has much worse coverage (wiki says 64% as of January 2018). I don't know about NJ Transit. However, regional rail ridership is way lower than subway ridership. So MTA deprioritizes a lot of them. Just another reason why it sucks to be disabled in the suburbs. It's the same in my city, Philadelphia, which has much better subway accessibility than regional rail.
The primary internal incentive to make subways accessible is inducing more ridership from people using wheelchairs, bikes, strollers and dollies, and at a high level to reduce auto traffic. This means just building elevators and ramps. This is expensive because of how deep many subway stations are. Passageways might have to navigate around each other. This means that you can't always use cut-and-cover excavation for underground features (the cheapest option). MTA also has to be careful to drill/dig without destabilizing other tunnels or structures, or who knows what. It's technically perfectly possible but is very hard to do cost-effectively.
In general, NYC's subway's excessive reverse branching means that the entire system is extremely fragile, so delays in one place propagate elsewhere. This means it's a high priority to make infrastructure upgrades that reduce the chance of delays. Subway accessibility upgrades don't really help with that. They do meaningfully increase ridership from both disabled and able-bodied people, but this is sort of hard to predict and it's just not as politically persuasive as "build a new track on this line to stop delays" or "rebuild the junctions on this busy line" or "build a new line to relieve pressure from this existing line". This means building accessible infrastructure requires a ton of advocacy effort. Politicians respond to voting blocs. Wheelchair-disabled people are a relatively small minority (in NYC, ~11% disabled * 25% of those with ambulatory problems = ~2.75% of NYC population), and maybe not the most politically organized. This is one reason why the accessibility goal is 2055 and not 2035.
But because accessibility improvements also help bikes, a group made up of extremely vocal advocates, and a group whose numbers are growing (and hypothetically could one day become 97.25% of NYC's population), I think that alliance is very important. Symbiosis. Mutual benefit.
I can't comment much on maintenance, but in general, simple designs are good and complicated designs are bad. The Hudson Yards station has possibly the weirdest ADA accessibility design, which is a diagonal elevator lift ("inclined funicular elevator"). It moves slowly to discourage able-bodied people from taking it, which I guess works, but is also weird. In my opinion this is a bad design because it's custom. This single elevator delayed the construction of this station by multiple years. MTA would be able to build more infrastructure, including ADA-accessible elevators, if they standardized their designs. Alon Levy discusses this at length in Pedestrian Observations.
American planners characteristically eschew global best practices. They prefer to look only take inspiration from elsewhere in the Anglosphere, within which no city is a global leader in transit except London. This results in high costs. The Transit Costs Project is devoted to solving this problem.
One of the big benefits of congestion pricing is that much (all?) of the revenue specifically goes toward the transit system. This makes it more realistic to perform accessibility upgrades on a faster timeline. I was disappointed when the originally planned congestion toll decreased to what it currently is, but it's still helpful.