Honestly the thing that I have found most annoying about the public's grasp about induced demand is the exact opposite; There are a bunch of people who know that induced demand is a thing but...
Honestly the thing that I have found most annoying about the public's grasp about induced demand is the exact opposite; There are a bunch of people who know that induced demand is a thing but don't understand enough about it to realize that sometimes highway expansion actually is the best choice.
If you're living in a relatively flat area where it's easy to get to any two arbitrary points, then yes, induced demand is going to be a big factor to keep in mind. But one of the things to keep in mind when it comes to roads is their overall usage. It doesn't matter if your A-to-B trip takes you an hour by one particular route, but it does matter if that same trip takes a long time no matter what route you take. That means there are also cases where induced demand itself is a good thing. If everyone's using the highway, you have tons of individual streets that will see less usage and less wear as a result.
Here's an example I think illustrates my point. Imagine that you live on one side of a small mountain range and you work somewhere on the opposite side of the mountain. There are highways that circumnavigate the particular mountain you live by, but they are constantly congested, particularly during rush hours when most people are going to/from work. While there is a side street alternative, either direction has you going on a single-lane road that, if the highways are congested, traffic there is likely to be even worse!
So how do you fix this situation? Do you do what this article suggests and turn the highways into toll roads? That's not a great solution; for one it's an extremely regressive form of taxation that targets the people who actively need the highway the most. That would also ensure that the sidestreets are going to be constantly congested by people who are unwilling and unable to pay the tolls. It might alleviate the highway congestion, but the actual problems are just being pushed off into individual hardships.
But of course we've been ignoring the elephant in the room who has been yelling that we wouldn't even be having this conversation if we had half-decent public transportation options which could be massively more efficient.
Exactly! We should take that funding and put it somewhere else like bike infrastructure or public transit. I think we often fixate on roads because it's the system we currently have. However as...
But of course we've been ignoring the elephant in the room who has been yelling that we wouldn't even be having this conversation if we had half-decent public transportation options which could be massively more efficient.
Exactly! We should take that funding and put it somewhere else like bike infrastructure or public transit.
I think we often fixate on roads because it's the system we currently have. However as we're rethinking housing development to favor high density housing I think we also need to shift to high density transportation.
The problem with my hypothetical scenario is that it's a real scenario; the whole reason why the house is on the other side of the mountains for the business is because of good old fashioned...
The problem with my hypothetical scenario is that it's a real scenario; the whole reason why the house is on the other side of the mountains for the business is because of good old fashioned suburban sprawl. So that's yet another large scale difficult problem to solve before public transit would even become a vaguely realistic option.
In California some carpool lanes are being turned into carpool / toll lanes. I think this works well because when you really are in a hurry (and only you know if it's worth it) you have an...
In California some carpool lanes are being turned into carpool / toll lanes. I think this works well because when you really are in a hurry (and only you know if it's worth it) you have an alternative. This alternative wouldn't exist if they didn't charge for it - it would be just be another backed-up lane. (Though admittedly it's not so great that some rich people will just pay for it all the time.)
Congestion and tolls both cause people to take alternate routes, so I don't see that as an argument for choosing one over the other.
Building more capacity can be good, but it's not a substitute for congestion control; they go together. Congestion control is what keeps adding more capacity from being pointless.
Honestly the thing that I have found most annoying about the public's grasp about induced demand is the exact opposite; There are a bunch of people who know that induced demand is a thing but don't understand enough about it to realize that sometimes highway expansion actually is the best choice.
If you're living in a relatively flat area where it's easy to get to any two arbitrary points, then yes, induced demand is going to be a big factor to keep in mind. But one of the things to keep in mind when it comes to roads is their overall usage. It doesn't matter if your A-to-B trip takes you an hour by one particular route, but it does matter if that same trip takes a long time no matter what route you take. That means there are also cases where induced demand itself is a good thing. If everyone's using the highway, you have tons of individual streets that will see less usage and less wear as a result.
Here's an example I think illustrates my point. Imagine that you live on one side of a small mountain range and you work somewhere on the opposite side of the mountain. There are highways that circumnavigate the particular mountain you live by, but they are constantly congested, particularly during rush hours when most people are going to/from work. While there is a side street alternative, either direction has you going on a single-lane road that, if the highways are congested, traffic there is likely to be even worse!
So how do you fix this situation? Do you do what this article suggests and turn the highways into toll roads? That's not a great solution; for one it's an extremely regressive form of taxation that targets the people who actively need the highway the most. That would also ensure that the sidestreets are going to be constantly congested by people who are unwilling and unable to pay the tolls. It might alleviate the highway congestion, but the actual problems are just being pushed off into individual hardships.
But of course we've been ignoring the elephant in the room who has been yelling that we wouldn't even be having this conversation if we had half-decent public transportation options which could be massively more efficient.
Exactly! We should take that funding and put it somewhere else like bike infrastructure or public transit.
I think we often fixate on roads because it's the system we currently have. However as we're rethinking housing development to favor high density housing I think we also need to shift to high density transportation.
The problem with my hypothetical scenario is that it's a real scenario; the whole reason why the house is on the other side of the mountains for the business is because of good old fashioned suburban sprawl. So that's yet another large scale difficult problem to solve before public transit would even become a vaguely realistic option.
It's a bit of a catch 22 isn't it? Without a decent transportation alternative, there's no reason to do anything but make sprawl worse.
In California some carpool lanes are being turned into carpool / toll lanes. I think this works well because when you really are in a hurry (and only you know if it's worth it) you have an alternative. This alternative wouldn't exist if they didn't charge for it - it would be just be another backed-up lane. (Though admittedly it's not so great that some rich people will just pay for it all the time.)
Congestion and tolls both cause people to take alternate routes, so I don't see that as an argument for choosing one over the other.
Building more capacity can be good, but it's not a substitute for congestion control; they go together. Congestion control is what keeps adding more capacity from being pointless.