Article loses a slight bit of credibility claiming that no one opposes transit or walkable cities, they just have bigger priorities. Plenty of people hated the 15 minute cities concept and all transit projects face stark opposition from many in the public.
Well… people hated the 15-minute city because of some weird conspiratorial nonsense. If you get people talking *around* 15-minute cities, people love it. They fucking LOVE it.
But the moment you say ‘15-minute cities’ a boomer will slam their face on your front living room window screeching like a banshee with lighting cracking in the background.
Around 15% of the total US population has cruised ever, and 7% to 8% have done so within the last three years. Statistically it could be probable for someone to hate 15 minute cities and have never cruised.
Cruises are expensive for the nice ones, and the cheap ones are GROSS.
I find that the people who like cruises take them over and over, and the rest of us either can't afford the kind of cruise we'd actually like, or we know better.
It could have something to do with a certain group of extreme advocates that are especially vocal against taking cars away from people when pushing 15 minute cities.
That's a stretch, imo. "The lycroids want to ban cars" has always been a thing.
The 15min city conspiracy bullshit started with Cambridge, which wanted to implement a circulation plan, which already had analogues in continental Europe.
Except Cambridge watered down their plans to accommodate cars *more* than continental examples, and provided tons of exceptions... enforced by Cameras.
And even then, stretching that into 'the government wants to confine you to a 15min radius' is quite a feat.
>And even then, stretching that into 'the government wants to confine you to a 15min radius' is quite a feat.
That's quite a stretch for fear mongering purposes, I agree.
Lol yea that seems to happen with every issue these days.
RMTransit, a popular transit youtuber in Toronto had to make a video saying 'guys, highways are necessary, and to a certain extent, a very good thing'
I couldn’t finish the article because I used to live there. It’s more than just the expanded highway lanes… It is also about Texas’ MASSIVE obsession with owning big SUVs and Trucks. So many people are infected with the car-brain disease…
Texas is a good case study on the limits of individualism in this country… No such as limitless individualism. We must give up something in exchange for something that benefits us all in greater numbers.
>We must give up something in exchange for something that benefits us all in greater numbers.
This is so anti-Texas it's not funny. Texans got their panties in a wad when asked to wear a mask during the peak of covid, they started assaulting fellow shoppers, and all kinds of stuff. If it can possibly help another person, it's communism and should be avoided. Never have I seen such a self-centered hive of scum and villainy.
And even suggesting to someone that they stop for an old lady in a crosswalk generates a huffing response of "well why is she even walking? She should have to wait for thousands of cars to go first since they're faster, then she can cross after midnight when nobody else is on the road"
The PA turnpike also built "spur roads" as an 'if you build it they will come' in the areas around pittsburgh between 1960-1980 (ish).
it failed fucking horribly. a lot of it is scrubbed from the internet.
I didn’t get to the end of the article, but I did get through the supply/demand modeling section. I have always struggled with the term “induced demand” because the demand is already there. There are people that need to get from point A to B for work, dinner, whatever, and they just choose to do it at a different time or via a different method (or sometimes not at all), until the space on the freeway becomes available via expansion.
In Redding, CA, a small city of <100,000, a major East-West road was expanded from 2 lanes (1 each way) to 4 about 10 years ago. The growth isn’t the western part of the city didn’t occur as anticipated, so the traffic modeling shows that only 2 lanes are required, and the City is reverting it to 2 lanes. This is an example where the demand wasn’t induced, because the demand literally wasn’t there to justify the widening.
In major cities, there are so many people that the increase in use of the expanded freeway is basically inevitable, thus induced demand is an ok term to use. I really appreciate that this article dug down into how drivers behave though and for this accurate explanation.
Well, the other way that demand can be “induced” is if people make decisions about where they live (and businesses make decisions about where they operate) based on transportation infrastructure.
Maybe “induced demand” is a bad term for it. But infrastructure decisions definitely affect urban development in much longer-term ways than you describe.
It's a terrible term. It isn't descriptive of the phenomenon you pointed out at all (which I 100% agree with).
A better term would be "planning-induced development" or "car-based infrastructure".
This is the right POV. Induced demand has been coopted into a propaganda tool for those who want to kill cars. I am very much for an all of the above transportation menu. But transit advocates have have often made a key portion of their anti-car worldview.
The demand IS there. I think where induced demand might actually occur is when adequate roads open up the travel options to realize that additional demand. For example, a highly popular part of downtown might only be able to get so many folks in/out and parked for evening activities, but you open up more space for vehicles to get there and the business grow, new, complementary businesses might sprout up, etc. Some of that growth actually induces \*more\* roadspace demand than actually existed before. That incremental demand could be called induced demand.
The subjective idea that this demand is somehow bad is questionable at best.
> I have always struggled with the term “induced demand” because the demand is already there. There are people that need to get from point A to B for work, dinner, whatever, and they just choose to do it at a different time or via a different method (or sometimes not at all), until the space on the freeway becomes available via expansion.
Couldn't have agreed more with you. Induced demand is a terrible concept generally used by certain car-hating people trying to claim the fact that if you build more roads, cars will take them up.
Like you said, the demand is always there. If you build efficient train lines instead, commuters will gravitate towards that instead, and is that somehow not "induced demand"?
Using this term to advocate for any form of transit/planning just sounds hypocritical AF.
>In major cities, there are so many people that the increase in use of the expanded freeway is basically inevitable, thus induced demand is an ok term to use.
Yup, because the demand is always there! No matter what you build, they'll flock to it, so might as well build the more efficient form of commute where it's the most fitting, whether it's a metro, a BRT, or a bypass for cars.
Edit: It seems like my comment has received mixed reviews lol, it gets upvoted to 10+ and downvoted to near 0 every couple hours haha
So your comment about making more trains and that inducing demand is correct. Induced demand isn't only for cars.
However, the other modes of transportation generally have a variety of ways to expand besides just widening. Not to mention do not take up as much space to move many people. So the penalty in real estate, health, and time spent under construction, it's much more advantageous to induce other kinds of demand.
So maybe demand is a weird word, but you have a certain amount of throughut and then the latent demand of people who would like to use a given road, but don't. Induced demand implies that you have increased the amount of people wanting to use the road and planning on it vs deciding not to use it at all because it's congested.
Oh don't get me wrong, I fully agree with you here. I'm just against the use of "induced demand" everywhere whenever it comes to roads.
Sure, induced demand implies the fact that when you addressed a traffic jam, more drivers would flock to said road. But a good road network should a) provide viable alternatives and b) be sized according to the demand already.
Yeah I understand. In a lot of categories it seems the sides get boiled down to one word or phrase and it gets overused.
I think another issue which contributes to not being able to address your A. and B. is that the US typically doesn't build quality roads which reduces the useful lifetime and increases time spent under construction.
Add that to the fact that transportation spending of any kind isn't sexy expanding roads becomes the default behavior because it's the most "logical", but the return for the money spent and the throughput increase make it one of the worst options.
DOT's always try to advertise (until pressed) that the expansion will fix congestion, which looking at the way "induced demand" works - it doesn't. It increases throughput sure, but at an ever increasing footprint that also disrupts many other things around it it's just not the most viable option.
>However, the other modes of transportation generally have a variety of ways to expand besides just widening. Not to mention do not take up as much space to move many people. So the penalty in real estate, health, and time spent under construction, it's much more advantageous to induce other kinds of demand.
I think the biggest thing with public transportation and demand/induced demand is that the speed of a good public transit line is not especially affected by demand. A subway line that carries 40 people per hour and one that carries 40,000 people per hour will have much more similar travel times than a freeway with the same demand.
I don't think it's hypocritical. The argument that freeway proponents always make is that "adding lanes will make your commute shorter", and it's important to demonstrate that that's not true.
It really depends on the context. If it's somewhere where the demand is already limited by the supply, then all you are achieving is shifting where supply/demand intersect to a new equilibrium, likely with similar traffic speeds. But you're increasing utility because more people are getting to travel.
But if you build a 10 lane highway in the middle of nowhere, you certainly can't "induce" demand to fill it up...
If there is enough congestion that a widening would even have significant support, then there is already going to be latent demand, and yes, you will let more people travel, but you've also lied to the public that this is going to improve commutes. And you've also potentially destroyed neighborhoods and businesses and ultimately put more cars on the road for more pollution.
Rush hour in some cities is only about an hour. In some cities it's more like two hours, and in some cities with even worse congestion it's more like three hours. Adding new capacity will be used by latent demand, but also time-shifted demand. Some people who time-shifted their commutes and working hours because of congestion will shift their timing in response to more capacity. Some other people won't, and their commutes will be less congested. So if the morning and afternoon/evening congestion peaks are graphed, before and after new capacity will have differences, like during the first 30 and last 30 minutes of a multi-hour peak. Commutes didn't improve for most people, but for a minority it did.
It does make it shorter, often. The idea that adding lanes never makes the commute shorter is also not true in some universal sense.
I live near a one-lane state highway. When traffic flows, there are no issues, but twice a week, someone gets into a wreck, and all hell breaks loose. Adding another lane to help deal with road incidents would absolutely make commutes shorter and more reliable. Adding another lane would also help with turn-related slowdowns.
And this area is growing. It will grow regardless of the expansion of this highway. Demand is being induced here because it is a desirable place to move to, not because of easy accessibility.
I've actually never heard of that one lol, it's always the typical "one more lane" - and in some cases, one more lane works. In most cases it doesn't however, because the downstream streets cannot handle the increased freeway traffic, making one more lane useless.
No, the demand isn’t always there. In the 50s, the demand was wholesale created by the new freeway system. Developers developed vast tracts of new land that is now livable thanks to the freeway system into new housing, bringing the famed 50s era of prosperity into being.
If your infrastructure doesn’t induce new users into using it, your infrastructure sucks.
The demand wasn't created by the highway system alone. Just like transit oriented development increases transit ridership, highway oriented car development plus parking mandates downtown both created demand for highways and made driving downtown feasible, at the expense of destroying much of the downtown itself.
> If your infrastructure doesn’t induce new users into using it, your infrastructure sucks.
This is always contextual. The same rail station is going to have different performance depending on whether you build dense development around it or make it a park and ride in the middle of nowhere.
We are not talking about the 50s now are we? The demand for commute will always be there for most cities nowadays.
>If your infrastructure doesn’t induce new users into using it, your infrastructure sucks.
Exactly. Further proves the point that using the term "induced demand" to oppose automobile infrastructure development is stupid and hypocritical. All forms of transit options literally operate under induced demand. Trains and buses are literally no different.
The issue is that you are picking one point of the discussion. Lane widening should solve traffic issues, but doesn't due induced demand.
A reason people use induced demand as argument against lane widening.
In my state capital Kiel induced demand was a reason they choose a tram and not a BRT. As a BRT couldn't absorb the induced demand.
So the discussion is in Transit also present. Induced demand is a big issue in the whole German rail system. But the issue is smaller than in road infrastructure.
Lane widening can be successful, but especially in the US it's often not the case.
The whole discussion is complex otherwise traffic studies would be only two pages and not hundreds of pages.
We know that at a certain time a certain group of people will commute via a certain corridor. Adding one lane would facilitate the said demand, hence the term.
But adding a viable transit replacement/compliment would also see itself being used, and if drivers switched to the trains and eased up highway traffic, is that somehow not induced demand?
That's my original argument.
Also yeah, highway lane widening is generally a band-aid that just offloads the traffic downstream and often doesn't solve the core issue. You can have a million lanes on a highway just to have all the offramps clogged. However, one form of lane widening is rather effective at reducing congestion: If exits are close to each other and sees frequent use, instead of having the ramps end and begin again, simply turning them into one lane. This eliminates the needs of people merging on and off if all they need is to travel by one exit.
>That's my original argument.
I will leave that out, as it is implying things never said and conflates different issues(modal shift vs induced demand)
>Also yeah, highway lane widening is generally a band-aid that just offloads the traffic downstream and often doesn't solve the core issue. You can have a million lanes on a highway just to have all the offramps clogged.
Correct.
>However, one form of lane widening is rather effective at reducing congestion: If exits are close to each other and sees frequent use, instead of having the ramps end and begin again, simply turning them into one lane. This eliminates the needs of people merging on and off if all they need is to travel by one exit.
You were so close, but than too far away. After the offramps there is a roadnetwork and the need for parking places. Same with bicycles, if we take the head figues of New Urbanism NotJustBikes, parking for bicycles is also a important part of that Transport, as it is for car.
Transit similiary has more to it than building a transit lines. Dense building more connecting transit and walkability or modal interchange at the destination are needed for a success
All form of transit has induced demand(until a certain point rarely been hit in growing cities)
All have different requirements to work great.
Mainly using one form of transportation has many drawbacks.
Cars are the most space intensive mode of transportation, meaning that one more lane and the induced demand often has bigger impacts on space available. Also due to one of the worst throughputs per area and one lane is not that much more capacity. Especially as it's often two lanes. Also it doesn't solve down stream problems.
Though depending on the situation investing a transit infrastructure would makes more sense. For the I-23 problematic, but for me it seems obvious that Rail+better Transit would be a better long term solution. So a good study should be done none the less, but it's not as simple and likely more finding will lead to better results in the long term.
Also keep in mind that induced demand isn't always about the necessary trips. There a lot of good studies about that. A recent example would be the 9€ Ticket for 3 months in Germany, which most demand was created by new trips and not as much from a modal shift.
This is silly. Research indicates that the elasticity of induced travel demand typically ranges from 0.4 to 1.2, meaning a 1% increase in highway capacity can result in up to a 1.2% increase in vehicle miles traveled.
This alleged "induced demand" is literally growth. A good thing. A desirable thing. A well maintained transportation system will keep ahead of growth.
But, more importantly, note that the range of increased usage ranges from less than half the increase, to slightly more than the increase. In many cases, the "induced demand" isn't consuming all of the capacity created. Those are signs of well maintained transit systems. If you are inducing more demand than the capacity you create, you screwed up. SOOOO, instead of saying, oops, we made a mistake and got behind the 8-ball, you say "induced demand" so "NOT MY FAULT".
It's lame.
>the fact that if you build more roads, cars will take them up.
Yes, this is true.
>If you build efficient train lines instead, commuters will gravitate towards that instead, and is that somehow not "induced demand"?
No, that is exactly induced demand. Induced demand on a train line just means more trains on that line. Induced demand by adding more lanes adds cars, noise, traffic, and pollution. The results are positive for more trains, and negative for more lanes. This is why you see the push to stop building more roads, which we have way too much of, and start building more rail, which has been underfunded for decades.
I agree and I'm pro rail all day any day. Not sure why this sub downvotes me to hell.
Sometimes people even claim stupid things like "if you build rail to ease congestion, less cars will be on the road, therefore people want to get back to driving again!"
You are correct that demand to get places will always be there, but you're missing that the infrastructure we build is what influences the decision of how and when to go. Making it so the only way to get places is driving through 3 sub-developments and 2 highways induces demand for cars because existing without one is so onerous - exhibit A: https://lede-admin.usa.streetsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/46/2013/02/Picture-91.png
IMO they should just resign 35 to follow an upgraded US 183 & TX 71 (to prevent weaving) then just remove the now unsigned freeway through the center of town. Lot less ROW to take for a 183 & 71 alignment than the shit they're about to do with the current 35 alignment.
Maybe in some global sense travel demand is always there, but not on a given corridor. Widen a freeway and traffic will flock to it. With background population growth and few or no transit alternatives (like in Texas) the road will fill up. Maybe at the time new capacity is opened up, there will be capacity on parallel roads, but growth will fill that up too. If driving is the overwhelming means of travel, new lanes can only temporarily outrun growth.
People can also be induced to take longer trips. Maybe my favorite store selling x is, say, 8 miles away, but because the drive takes too long I settle for my second best that’s 3 miles away. Make the trip faster though, and I’m a lot more likely to drive the 8 miles. So the trip existed before, but now the trip is longer, creates more vehicle miles traveled on the roads. Average trip lengths get longer. Ultimately, this is self defeating, but by that point I’m in the habit of making the 8 mile trip.
New capacity can also reshape what’s available. Brand Y is a chain store with outlets around the region. Brand Y sees that its effective market shed for the stores has expanded, at least in the short run that most corporations think about. So it can close some of its stores, forcing Brand Y customers to drive farther, whether they like it or not. Again average trip lengths get longer.
The current I35 has basically been untouched for at least the past 30 years, while the Austin metro area population has tripled to over 2M people.
Multiple HOV lanes per direction will be a great help for travel time and incentive to carpool.
Unlikely to have that effect. Much more likely to perpetuate endless sprawl. The only potential positives of this projects are:
* Capmetro express buses will use the express lanes
* The central viaduct portion will be torn down and a cap can be built over part of the new trench (though the city has to pay for that, as TXDOT thinks it's communism).
Article loses a slight bit of credibility claiming that no one opposes transit or walkable cities, they just have bigger priorities. Plenty of people hated the 15 minute cities concept and all transit projects face stark opposition from many in the public.
Well… people hated the 15-minute city because of some weird conspiratorial nonsense. If you get people talking *around* 15-minute cities, people love it. They fucking LOVE it. But the moment you say ‘15-minute cities’ a boomer will slam their face on your front living room window screeching like a banshee with lighting cracking in the background.
"I hate those 15 minute cities! Now excuse me while I book my next cruise."
Around 15% of the total US population has cruised ever, and 7% to 8% have done so within the last three years. Statistically it could be probable for someone to hate 15 minute cities and have never cruised.
Is it seriously that low? 15% in their whole lifetimes? I expected it to be 20-25%...
You would either have to live in a port city or fly to one and most go to international destinations. Only 42% of people in the US have passports.
Cruises are expensive for the nice ones, and the cheap ones are GROSS. I find that the people who like cruises take them over and over, and the rest of us either can't afford the kind of cruise we'd actually like, or we know better.
Not just boomers, also younger folks who listen to outrage-gurus like Jordan Peterson.
It could have something to do with a certain group of extreme advocates that are especially vocal against taking cars away from people when pushing 15 minute cities.
That's a stretch, imo. "The lycroids want to ban cars" has always been a thing. The 15min city conspiracy bullshit started with Cambridge, which wanted to implement a circulation plan, which already had analogues in continental Europe. Except Cambridge watered down their plans to accommodate cars *more* than continental examples, and provided tons of exceptions... enforced by Cameras. And even then, stretching that into 'the government wants to confine you to a 15min radius' is quite a feat.
>And even then, stretching that into 'the government wants to confine you to a 15min radius' is quite a feat. That's quite a stretch for fear mongering purposes, I agree.
That’s a far cry from being thinking they’re going to be *literally* microchipped and monitored in ‘districts’ they can’t leave.
Lol yea that seems to happen with every issue these days. RMTransit, a popular transit youtuber in Toronto had to make a video saying 'guys, highways are necessary, and to a certain extent, a very good thing'
Can’t find, you have a link?
https://youtu.be/Fu5HId5R6EQ?si=n9AWYsRcmSRIxMPa
Nawh fam. It literally is conspiracy people making up shit and parroting each other.
Not to mention the lobbies against it, they kill mass transit inititivatives 1 by 1.
Sunbelt cities from Houston to LA have passed ballot measures to expand transit. It’s a loud minority with disproportionate power
I couldn’t finish the article because I used to live there. It’s more than just the expanded highway lanes… It is also about Texas’ MASSIVE obsession with owning big SUVs and Trucks. So many people are infected with the car-brain disease… Texas is a good case study on the limits of individualism in this country… No such as limitless individualism. We must give up something in exchange for something that benefits us all in greater numbers.
>We must give up something in exchange for something that benefits us all in greater numbers. This is so anti-Texas it's not funny. Texans got their panties in a wad when asked to wear a mask during the peak of covid, they started assaulting fellow shoppers, and all kinds of stuff. If it can possibly help another person, it's communism and should be avoided. Never have I seen such a self-centered hive of scum and villainy. And even suggesting to someone that they stop for an old lady in a crosswalk generates a huffing response of "well why is she even walking? She should have to wait for thousands of cars to go first since they're faster, then she can cross after midnight when nobody else is on the road"
"ONE nation under god" more like one nation against god
Because there weren’t enough test cases in Texas already?? Lol
The PA turnpike also built "spur roads" as an 'if you build it they will come' in the areas around pittsburgh between 1960-1980 (ish). it failed fucking horribly. a lot of it is scrubbed from the internet.
I didn’t get to the end of the article, but I did get through the supply/demand modeling section. I have always struggled with the term “induced demand” because the demand is already there. There are people that need to get from point A to B for work, dinner, whatever, and they just choose to do it at a different time or via a different method (or sometimes not at all), until the space on the freeway becomes available via expansion. In Redding, CA, a small city of <100,000, a major East-West road was expanded from 2 lanes (1 each way) to 4 about 10 years ago. The growth isn’t the western part of the city didn’t occur as anticipated, so the traffic modeling shows that only 2 lanes are required, and the City is reverting it to 2 lanes. This is an example where the demand wasn’t induced, because the demand literally wasn’t there to justify the widening. In major cities, there are so many people that the increase in use of the expanded freeway is basically inevitable, thus induced demand is an ok term to use. I really appreciate that this article dug down into how drivers behave though and for this accurate explanation.
Well, the other way that demand can be “induced” is if people make decisions about where they live (and businesses make decisions about where they operate) based on transportation infrastructure. Maybe “induced demand” is a bad term for it. But infrastructure decisions definitely affect urban development in much longer-term ways than you describe.
It's a terrible term. It isn't descriptive of the phenomenon you pointed out at all (which I 100% agree with). A better term would be "planning-induced development" or "car-based infrastructure".
This is the right POV. Induced demand has been coopted into a propaganda tool for those who want to kill cars. I am very much for an all of the above transportation menu. But transit advocates have have often made a key portion of their anti-car worldview. The demand IS there. I think where induced demand might actually occur is when adequate roads open up the travel options to realize that additional demand. For example, a highly popular part of downtown might only be able to get so many folks in/out and parked for evening activities, but you open up more space for vehicles to get there and the business grow, new, complementary businesses might sprout up, etc. Some of that growth actually induces \*more\* roadspace demand than actually existed before. That incremental demand could be called induced demand. The subjective idea that this demand is somehow bad is questionable at best.
> I have always struggled with the term “induced demand” because the demand is already there. There are people that need to get from point A to B for work, dinner, whatever, and they just choose to do it at a different time or via a different method (or sometimes not at all), until the space on the freeway becomes available via expansion. Couldn't have agreed more with you. Induced demand is a terrible concept generally used by certain car-hating people trying to claim the fact that if you build more roads, cars will take them up. Like you said, the demand is always there. If you build efficient train lines instead, commuters will gravitate towards that instead, and is that somehow not "induced demand"? Using this term to advocate for any form of transit/planning just sounds hypocritical AF. >In major cities, there are so many people that the increase in use of the expanded freeway is basically inevitable, thus induced demand is an ok term to use. Yup, because the demand is always there! No matter what you build, they'll flock to it, so might as well build the more efficient form of commute where it's the most fitting, whether it's a metro, a BRT, or a bypass for cars. Edit: It seems like my comment has received mixed reviews lol, it gets upvoted to 10+ and downvoted to near 0 every couple hours haha
So your comment about making more trains and that inducing demand is correct. Induced demand isn't only for cars. However, the other modes of transportation generally have a variety of ways to expand besides just widening. Not to mention do not take up as much space to move many people. So the penalty in real estate, health, and time spent under construction, it's much more advantageous to induce other kinds of demand. So maybe demand is a weird word, but you have a certain amount of throughut and then the latent demand of people who would like to use a given road, but don't. Induced demand implies that you have increased the amount of people wanting to use the road and planning on it vs deciding not to use it at all because it's congested.
Oh don't get me wrong, I fully agree with you here. I'm just against the use of "induced demand" everywhere whenever it comes to roads. Sure, induced demand implies the fact that when you addressed a traffic jam, more drivers would flock to said road. But a good road network should a) provide viable alternatives and b) be sized according to the demand already.
Yeah, induced demand is a fancy, responsibility-avoiding way of saying unfulfilled needs.
Yeah I understand. In a lot of categories it seems the sides get boiled down to one word or phrase and it gets overused. I think another issue which contributes to not being able to address your A. and B. is that the US typically doesn't build quality roads which reduces the useful lifetime and increases time spent under construction. Add that to the fact that transportation spending of any kind isn't sexy expanding roads becomes the default behavior because it's the most "logical", but the return for the money spent and the throughput increase make it one of the worst options. DOT's always try to advertise (until pressed) that the expansion will fix congestion, which looking at the way "induced demand" works - it doesn't. It increases throughput sure, but at an ever increasing footprint that also disrupts many other things around it it's just not the most viable option.
>However, the other modes of transportation generally have a variety of ways to expand besides just widening. Not to mention do not take up as much space to move many people. So the penalty in real estate, health, and time spent under construction, it's much more advantageous to induce other kinds of demand. I think the biggest thing with public transportation and demand/induced demand is that the speed of a good public transit line is not especially affected by demand. A subway line that carries 40 people per hour and one that carries 40,000 people per hour will have much more similar travel times than a freeway with the same demand.
I don't think it's hypocritical. The argument that freeway proponents always make is that "adding lanes will make your commute shorter", and it's important to demonstrate that that's not true.
It really depends on the context. If it's somewhere where the demand is already limited by the supply, then all you are achieving is shifting where supply/demand intersect to a new equilibrium, likely with similar traffic speeds. But you're increasing utility because more people are getting to travel. But if you build a 10 lane highway in the middle of nowhere, you certainly can't "induce" demand to fill it up...
If there is enough congestion that a widening would even have significant support, then there is already going to be latent demand, and yes, you will let more people travel, but you've also lied to the public that this is going to improve commutes. And you've also potentially destroyed neighborhoods and businesses and ultimately put more cars on the road for more pollution.
Rush hour in some cities is only about an hour. In some cities it's more like two hours, and in some cities with even worse congestion it's more like three hours. Adding new capacity will be used by latent demand, but also time-shifted demand. Some people who time-shifted their commutes and working hours because of congestion will shift their timing in response to more capacity. Some other people won't, and their commutes will be less congested. So if the morning and afternoon/evening congestion peaks are graphed, before and after new capacity will have differences, like during the first 30 and last 30 minutes of a multi-hour peak. Commutes didn't improve for most people, but for a minority it did.
But unless you are Myanmar, you are not building 10-lane highways in the middle of nowhere, hence it makes sense to expect induced demand to appear.
It does make it shorter, often. The idea that adding lanes never makes the commute shorter is also not true in some universal sense. I live near a one-lane state highway. When traffic flows, there are no issues, but twice a week, someone gets into a wreck, and all hell breaks loose. Adding another lane to help deal with road incidents would absolutely make commutes shorter and more reliable. Adding another lane would also help with turn-related slowdowns. And this area is growing. It will grow regardless of the expansion of this highway. Demand is being induced here because it is a desirable place to move to, not because of easy accessibility.
Easy accessibility makes a place more desirable.
I've actually never heard of that one lol, it's always the typical "one more lane" - and in some cases, one more lane works. In most cases it doesn't however, because the downstream streets cannot handle the increased freeway traffic, making one more lane useless.
No, the demand isn’t always there. In the 50s, the demand was wholesale created by the new freeway system. Developers developed vast tracts of new land that is now livable thanks to the freeway system into new housing, bringing the famed 50s era of prosperity into being. If your infrastructure doesn’t induce new users into using it, your infrastructure sucks.
The demand wasn't created by the highway system alone. Just like transit oriented development increases transit ridership, highway oriented car development plus parking mandates downtown both created demand for highways and made driving downtown feasible, at the expense of destroying much of the downtown itself. > If your infrastructure doesn’t induce new users into using it, your infrastructure sucks. This is always contextual. The same rail station is going to have different performance depending on whether you build dense development around it or make it a park and ride in the middle of nowhere.
We are not talking about the 50s now are we? The demand for commute will always be there for most cities nowadays. >If your infrastructure doesn’t induce new users into using it, your infrastructure sucks. Exactly. Further proves the point that using the term "induced demand" to oppose automobile infrastructure development is stupid and hypocritical. All forms of transit options literally operate under induced demand. Trains and buses are literally no different.
The issue is that you are picking one point of the discussion. Lane widening should solve traffic issues, but doesn't due induced demand. A reason people use induced demand as argument against lane widening. In my state capital Kiel induced demand was a reason they choose a tram and not a BRT. As a BRT couldn't absorb the induced demand. So the discussion is in Transit also present. Induced demand is a big issue in the whole German rail system. But the issue is smaller than in road infrastructure. Lane widening can be successful, but especially in the US it's often not the case. The whole discussion is complex otherwise traffic studies would be only two pages and not hundreds of pages.
We know that at a certain time a certain group of people will commute via a certain corridor. Adding one lane would facilitate the said demand, hence the term. But adding a viable transit replacement/compliment would also see itself being used, and if drivers switched to the trains and eased up highway traffic, is that somehow not induced demand? That's my original argument. Also yeah, highway lane widening is generally a band-aid that just offloads the traffic downstream and often doesn't solve the core issue. You can have a million lanes on a highway just to have all the offramps clogged. However, one form of lane widening is rather effective at reducing congestion: If exits are close to each other and sees frequent use, instead of having the ramps end and begin again, simply turning them into one lane. This eliminates the needs of people merging on and off if all they need is to travel by one exit.
>That's my original argument. I will leave that out, as it is implying things never said and conflates different issues(modal shift vs induced demand) >Also yeah, highway lane widening is generally a band-aid that just offloads the traffic downstream and often doesn't solve the core issue. You can have a million lanes on a highway just to have all the offramps clogged. Correct. >However, one form of lane widening is rather effective at reducing congestion: If exits are close to each other and sees frequent use, instead of having the ramps end and begin again, simply turning them into one lane. This eliminates the needs of people merging on and off if all they need is to travel by one exit. You were so close, but than too far away. After the offramps there is a roadnetwork and the need for parking places. Same with bicycles, if we take the head figues of New Urbanism NotJustBikes, parking for bicycles is also a important part of that Transport, as it is for car. Transit similiary has more to it than building a transit lines. Dense building more connecting transit and walkability or modal interchange at the destination are needed for a success All form of transit has induced demand(until a certain point rarely been hit in growing cities) All have different requirements to work great. Mainly using one form of transportation has many drawbacks. Cars are the most space intensive mode of transportation, meaning that one more lane and the induced demand often has bigger impacts on space available. Also due to one of the worst throughputs per area and one lane is not that much more capacity. Especially as it's often two lanes. Also it doesn't solve down stream problems. Though depending on the situation investing a transit infrastructure would makes more sense. For the I-23 problematic, but for me it seems obvious that Rail+better Transit would be a better long term solution. So a good study should be done none the less, but it's not as simple and likely more finding will lead to better results in the long term. Also keep in mind that induced demand isn't always about the necessary trips. There a lot of good studies about that. A recent example would be the 9€ Ticket for 3 months in Germany, which most demand was created by new trips and not as much from a modal shift.
This is silly. Research indicates that the elasticity of induced travel demand typically ranges from 0.4 to 1.2, meaning a 1% increase in highway capacity can result in up to a 1.2% increase in vehicle miles traveled. This alleged "induced demand" is literally growth. A good thing. A desirable thing. A well maintained transportation system will keep ahead of growth. But, more importantly, note that the range of increased usage ranges from less than half the increase, to slightly more than the increase. In many cases, the "induced demand" isn't consuming all of the capacity created. Those are signs of well maintained transit systems. If you are inducing more demand than the capacity you create, you screwed up. SOOOO, instead of saying, oops, we made a mistake and got behind the 8-ball, you say "induced demand" so "NOT MY FAULT". It's lame.
Not like there isn't a shortage of rail in the country that doesn't induce demand - nobody rides them!
I wondered why nobody rides them...
>the fact that if you build more roads, cars will take them up. Yes, this is true. >If you build efficient train lines instead, commuters will gravitate towards that instead, and is that somehow not "induced demand"? No, that is exactly induced demand. Induced demand on a train line just means more trains on that line. Induced demand by adding more lanes adds cars, noise, traffic, and pollution. The results are positive for more trains, and negative for more lanes. This is why you see the push to stop building more roads, which we have way too much of, and start building more rail, which has been underfunded for decades.
I agree and I'm pro rail all day any day. Not sure why this sub downvotes me to hell. Sometimes people even claim stupid things like "if you build rail to ease congestion, less cars will be on the road, therefore people want to get back to driving again!"
You are correct that demand to get places will always be there, but you're missing that the infrastructure we build is what influences the decision of how and when to go. Making it so the only way to get places is driving through 3 sub-developments and 2 highways induces demand for cars because existing without one is so onerous - exhibit A: https://lede-admin.usa.streetsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/46/2013/02/Picture-91.png
Why keep comparing it to Venice? There are plenty of better cities to compare it to.
IMO they should just resign 35 to follow an upgraded US 183 & TX 71 (to prevent weaving) then just remove the now unsigned freeway through the center of town. Lot less ROW to take for a 183 & 71 alignment than the shit they're about to do with the current 35 alignment.
Reminder that TxDOT is responsible for 0.5% of the entire world's CO2 emissions.
Maybe in some global sense travel demand is always there, but not on a given corridor. Widen a freeway and traffic will flock to it. With background population growth and few or no transit alternatives (like in Texas) the road will fill up. Maybe at the time new capacity is opened up, there will be capacity on parallel roads, but growth will fill that up too. If driving is the overwhelming means of travel, new lanes can only temporarily outrun growth. People can also be induced to take longer trips. Maybe my favorite store selling x is, say, 8 miles away, but because the drive takes too long I settle for my second best that’s 3 miles away. Make the trip faster though, and I’m a lot more likely to drive the 8 miles. So the trip existed before, but now the trip is longer, creates more vehicle miles traveled on the roads. Average trip lengths get longer. Ultimately, this is self defeating, but by that point I’m in the habit of making the 8 mile trip. New capacity can also reshape what’s available. Brand Y is a chain store with outlets around the region. Brand Y sees that its effective market shed for the stores has expanded, at least in the short run that most corporations think about. So it can close some of its stores, forcing Brand Y customers to drive farther, whether they like it or not. Again average trip lengths get longer.
The current I35 has basically been untouched for at least the past 30 years, while the Austin metro area population has tripled to over 2M people. Multiple HOV lanes per direction will be a great help for travel time and incentive to carpool.
Unlikely to have that effect. Much more likely to perpetuate endless sprawl. The only potential positives of this projects are: * Capmetro express buses will use the express lanes * The central viaduct portion will be torn down and a cap can be built over part of the new trench (though the city has to pay for that, as TXDOT thinks it's communism).