this post was submitted on 09 May 2024
1228 points (97.4% liked)
Memes
45680 readers
2188 users here now
Rules:
- Be civil and nice.
- Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I heard a city planner talk about why adding a new lane doesn't help, and the term they use is "induced demand."
Basically, people are going to take the route that they consider the most convenient, and that usually comes down to time and effort. Traffic hurts both by taking more time and being more stressful to deal with. When you add a new lane to a road, people think that the traffic will be easier there, so they take that route instead of their normal one. So you're just adding more cars to the traffic that match or exceed the throughput of your new lane, basically putting you back at square one but a few billion dollars more poor.
You've essentially added a single lane one-way road to help ease traffic across the entire city.
If you make driving easier than transit, more people will drive who previously took transit. The reverse is also true. One of these situations is more desirable for myriad reasons.
As well, additional demand can be created by convenience. People will make trips they otherwise never would have if it's easier to make them.
Communist transportation will never ever ever ever ever ever ever be easier than driving.
Because driving is "get in the car, go directly to destination"
Public transport adds walk to transport rally point, wait, follow a compromise route to accomodate other travellers with many stop, consider all the strangers gazing and judging you, arrive at not your destination, walk 5 to 20 mins to your actual destination. Plus you must carry any object on your person while navigating the terrain (good luck hauling 50lbs of groceries).
I am simply not interested in this nightmare, find a solution that isn't horrible.
And NOoo I don't want Musks robot taxis from the "you will own nothing" dystopia.
It already is, finding a parking spot and then walking through a parking lot is a lot less convenient than walking from the tram stop to the store and it's roughly the same distance. I sold my car after moving to the city because public transit is so much more convenient.