For critics of widening projects, the prime example of induced demand is the Katy Freeway in Houston, one of the widest highways in the world with 26 lanes.
Immediately after Katy’s last expansion, in 2008, the project was hailed as a success. But within five years, peak hour travel times on the freeway were longer than before the expansion.
Matt Turner, an economics professor at Brown University and co-author of the 2009 study on congestion, said adding lanes is a fine solution if the goal is to get more cars on the road. But most highway expansion projects, including those in progress in Texas, cite reducing traffic as a primary goal.
“If you keep adding lanes because you want to reduce traffic congestion, you have to be really determined not to learn from history,” Dr. Turner said.
All? No. Public transit is very useful. But there’s a lot of people who can’t afford rent in the city and must live outside the reach of a good public transit network. Or who keep working hours which don’t allow them to use the network. Or who needs to travel between two locations which would be an extreme journey for public transit.
That’s why you do both. Because not all people are going to be served well by any one solution.
I’m sorry but you don’t seem to understand how public transport works. Public transport usually does extend quite far outside the inner city, with efficient links into the city. That’s an incredibly common pattern for public transport.
Look at a city like London. Absurd rental prices. The working class lives well outside the city. Few people have cars.
The only situations where having a car tends to be preferable is if you live outside the city AND also work outside the city. And even then, bus routes usually alleviate the problem of getting between suburbs. And those routes usually aren’t as congested anyway.
My wife worked a job in a city 20 minutes by car from her location in another city, in a major metro area. Transit would have taken two hours because the focus was on bringing people to different locations, not between where she was going and where she needed to go. No matter how well planned the network, you can’t massively cover every route and every time of day. You cover the primary commutes of most people.
So invest in public transport to add more routes.
It’s like you are saying that we shouldn’t improve anything, because things are bad now. Circular and just nonsensical.
Yes. And in doing so you remove the vast majority of the cars from the road. So you have fewer, narrower roads. Which makes the living conditions of everyone more pleasant. And it enables more transportation options like bicycles, which covers many of the short-to-medium distance commutes which public transport might not be practical for, which even further reduces the demand for cars. It also incentivises, for the people who do actually need cars, the purchase of smaller vehicles, which even further increases pedestrian and bicycle safety. Which even further incentivises biking and walking…
And so on and so on…
The more we invest in car-centric infrastructure, the more people need cars to navigate the world, and the worse the world gets overall.
Again, how did you read everything I’ve written and act like the conversation is about one or the other? Did you even read what I wrote?
Not to mention you very clearly don’t understand how public transportation works based on where you think it goes between.
Alright, you’ve been a jackass from comment one, and I’m ending this. GFY and have a nice day.
You finally responded to something I actually said! Congrats on clutching your pearls instead of admitting you were misrepresenting what I was saying.
Also funny that I’ve never engaged in ad hominem but I’ve offended you so much that I’m a “jackass” and should “go fuck [myself]”.
Self awareness really isn’t your strong suit.