"When you tear down freeways, all the traffic just disappears"

[cl94]

This is really relevant in New York right now. Study after study reports that the NY 198 expressway should remain, yet politicians are forcing NYSDOT to remove it. I didn't mention this, but another study saying the same thing was being finalized when the incident occurred.

[cpzilliacus]

He uses Machiavellian tactics and creates the most biased traffic models possible to support the removal of the freeway.  He uses the lowest defensible baseline traffic volumes (IE. post Katrina traffic volumes), 50/50 directional splits (even though 60/40 splits are more common), and assumes long cycle lengths and long left turn bays to maximize capacity (even though in the real world shorter cycles will be used and short queue space is available).

IMO, the only model that should be used in such discussions is the current models set approved and adopted for use by the New Orleans MPO, otherwise called the RPC.  That's the only model that should everyone in the region has some agreement on. 

[Mrt90]

I agree with Pete, I've never heard anyone claim that all the traffic just disappears.  Reasonable discussion is not served by misstating someone else's position.

Why Toronto Should Tear Down Its Urban Expressway
Removing an elevated city highway doesn't always make traffic worse–some cars just disappear.

http://www.citylab.com/commute/2015/06/why-toronto-should-tear-down-its-urban-expressway/395474/

From the link:
"...what happens to traffic when a major roadway gets removed or altered. Some people change their routes. Some shift their travel times to hit the road earlier or later. Some switch from cars onto public transit or another mode. And some–typically the case for non-work travel–just don't make the trip at all."

[cpzilliacus]

"Tear down the freeway" in isolation does not work, but rarely is that the case. Usually, it's advocated as part of a more comprehensive package that involves changing land use, offering other modes, and diverting traffic somewhere else.

But where is that somewhere else?

Part of what needs to be understood is that a lot of these freeway teardowns are brought about by changes in land use or desired changes in land use. In the sort of classic "tear down the waterfront freeway" scenario, you're usually looking at a waterfront that over a period of time has evolved from being an industrial-heavy port to one that exists primarily to serve tourists and provide supporting services for that.

Correct.  But what are the systemwide impacts?  Is there transit that can really handle the amount of patronage that a freeway tear-down might divert?

The latter land use just isn't as traffic intensive and doesn't involve large trucks that can't navigate city streets easily.

Unless there are annoying retail stores in the area that annoyingly depend on trucks for delivery of their inventory.

In other cases, like, say, those that want to tear down I-5 through Portland - there doesn't need to be as much traffic as there is. If through traffic can be diverted to a decent bypass, like I-205, there's no reason to keep a major freeway in an area that only serves local traffic.

I have been in Portland, and I got the impression that a lot of through traffic (cars and trucks) uses I-5.  And what about network redundancy?  Take away I-5, what happens when something goes wrong on (what is now) I-205?

If done comprehensively and correctly, yeah, the traffic can "go away" - it either no longer needs to exist because of changes in land use, is diverted to proper bypasses, switches to other modes of transportation, and, yeah, some of it will go to the surrounding surface streets.

My observation is that it tries to go some other way, but ends of severely congesting some other highway or set of highways.  it is usually wishful thinking to assume that transit can handle the added demand.

In the end, it's a local decision. If done properly and depending on the situation, there can good arguments for tearing out freeways and there can be good arguments for not tearing out freeways. There's no one size fits all solution. Every city has different needs and priorities in terms of how it manages traffic and movement within its boundaries. There are certainly urban freeways that shouldn't be torn out, and there are probably urban freeways that don't really need to exist. It's not my place to advocate for a city that I don't live in to do something just because I agree or disagree with it, and I have just as much right to argue that I have a "right" to get somewhere by freeway as I have to argue that I have a "right" to get somewhere by dogsled. There's nothing "anti-choice" about tearing out a freeway- if anything, it opens an area up to more possible modes of transportation, so I'm not forced into the choice of a car, but could also cycle, take a train, or whatever else.

Not entirely a local decision, not if there are state dollars and federal dollars tied-up in the project. 

There's also the matter of "be careful what you ask for, because you just might get it."

In most urban areas around the U.S., public transit is profoundly dependent on subsidies from highway users in the form of diverted motor fuel tax revenues and in many states, diverted toll revenues, in addition to revenues associated with on-street parking and taxes associated with off-street parking. 

If a freeway tear-down really has the advertised results, where will the transit capital and operating subsidies come from?

[froggie]

If a freeway tear-down really has the advertised results, where will the transit capital and operating subsidies come from?

Which can be countered by the question of, if you tear down city space to build or expand a city, where will the property taxes to finish paying for the roads come from?  Since the gas tax doesn't fully pay for the roads (even if you were to eliminate the transit diversion you're arguing about), how do you make up the difference with a reduced tax base?

[froggie]

Regarding the original premise of this thread, there are a number of things involved...many of them also happen with major construction projects that involve significant and/or long-term closures.

In short, traffic does all sorts of bunches of things.  Some of the traffic diverts to other routes.  Some people switch to a different mode (if alternative modes are available).  Some traffic switches their travel to a different, likely less congested timeframe.  And yes, some traffic simply goes away as some trips just don't happen.  These last two concepts are possible because a large chunk (perhaps up to 80%) of vehicle trips are discretionary in nature and not "required".  This is borne by FHWA data that shows that only about 20% of trips are commutes or work-related.

[corco]

"Tear down the freeway" in isolation does not work, but rarely is that the case. Usually, it's advocated as part of a more comprehensive package that involves changing land use, offering other modes, and diverting traffic somewhere else.

But where is that somewhere else?

That's a case by case situation, but unless you are dealing with something as large and dense as, say, New York City, there's typically room somewhere. To address your point below about Portland - I agree that network redundancy is important, and in the case of Portland you would probably want to complete a proper westerly bypass, perhaps upgrading the US 30 corridor up to the Kelso bridge. Really - a lot of this is a case-by-case situation, and I wouldn't advocate for tearing down EVERY urban freeway, only those where it makes sense.

You pose interesting hypotheticals, and they'd definitely need to be considered, but that's why there is no possible blanket approach.

As far as retail trucks- there are already thousands of retail businesses not near freeways in downtown areas. These areas aren't served by full-size semitrucks, but by local delivery trucks. In a dense-city situation, there certainly exists the resources to continue to operate in this manner.

If a freeway tear-down really has the advertised results, where will the transit capital and operating subsidies come from?

What are the "advertised results?" Certainly transit advocates think that tearing down the freeway will allow everybody to use trains/buses as they always wanted to, but not everybody that advocates a freeway teardown is a transit advocate. As somebody who does land use planning for a living, my first instinct on freeway teardowns is the site-specific revitalization benefits, and to me that would be the "advertised result"- if it happens to have negative effects on portions of the remaining system, it's worth evaluating whether that is worth the tradeoff, but that's where I end. My concern isn't getting people out of their cars - I frankly don't give a shit how people get where there are going, so long as people are able to get where they need to go in a reasonably timely and equitable fashion, and in a way that (where possible) maximizes efficiency beyond just the transportation network.

On the subject of funding (and without getting into a long conversation about infrastructure funding sources on a Saturday night) - we are both in agreement that the current funding system for transportation generally is broken. I'm not opposed to transit subsidies, just as I am not opposed to subsidies for freeways. If a massive freeway network is needed to transport manufactured goods and a subsidy is warranted on that front, a transit network that transports people to locations where they can purchase goods and services also warrants subsidy. Funding transit through taxable "transit districts" in areas where people most use/benefit from the presence of transit would be one possible funding solution. Tax increment financing is another possible option for initial costs - if you tear down a freeway and expand transit service, use the property value climb to fund those improvements.

[SidS1045]

what is a good argument to debunk their lies?

Ask them questions in return:  The jobs all those people using the freeways are traveling to and from...all the commerce that traffic helps the region engage in...does all that go away if the freeways are torn down?  Or would you rather the region's drivers just sit in 24-hour traffic jams on roads that are already overcrowded now?

You might then point out that if they don't like freeways, they can choose not to live near one and they can choose not to use them.  They can also choose not to forced their dislikes upon the rest of us.

[cpzilliacus]

If a freeway tear-down really has the advertised results, where will the transit capital and operating subsidies come from?

Which can be countered by the question of, if you tear down city space to build or expand a city, where will the property taxes to finish paying for the roads come from?  Since the gas tax doesn't fully pay for the roads (even if you were to eliminate the transit diversion you're arguing about), how do you make up the difference with a reduced tax base?

In general, property taxes do not fund public transportation operating deficits or capital subsidies.  Highway user fees pay for both.

But beyond that, a freeway tear-down does not free-up that much real estate, because urban area freeway corridors tend to be pretty constrained. Having said that, a freeway removal might return some land to the tax roles, but maybe not as much as you might expect. 

How much land that was taken-up by the old Central Artery in Boston has been put back in private (taxable) hands? 

[corco]

If a freeway tear-down really has the advertised results, where will the transit capital and operating subsidies come from?

Which can be countered by the question of, if you tear down city space to build or expand a city, where will the property taxes to finish paying for the roads come from?  Since the gas tax doesn't fully pay for the roads (even if you were to eliminate the transit diversion you're arguing about), how do you make up the difference with a reduced tax base?

In general, property taxes do not fund public transportation operating deficits or capital subsidies.  Highway user fees pay for both.

But beyond that, a freeway tear-down does not free-up that much real estate, because urban area freeway corridors tend to be pretty constrained. Having said that, a freeway removal might return some land to the tax roles, but maybe not as much as you might expect. 

How much land that was taken-up by the old Central Artery in Boston has been put back in private (taxable) hands? 

Very little, but surrounding property values have more than doubled since the freeway was demolished, so the taxable value of the area has increased greatly.

[kkt]

Why Toronto Should Tear Down Its Urban Expressway
Removing an elevated city highway doesn't always make traffic worse–some cars just disappear.

http://www.citylab.com/commute/2015/06/why-toronto-should-tear-down-its-urban-expressway/395474/

From the link:
"...what happens to traffic when a major roadway gets removed or altered. Some people change their routes. Some shift their travel times to hit the road earlier or later. Some switch from cars onto public transit or another mode. And some–typically the case for non-work travel–just don't make the trip at all."

Key word highlighted for you.

I don't know enough about Toronto to say whether that particular expressway should be removed, but in other cities some expressway removals have had exactly the effects outlined.

[Pete from Boston]

A lot of tl;dr here, but I will say that the idea for a lot if folks is that if where you live gets hard to drive, you move out to where it's easier to drive, and your place is filled by folks that drive less or not at all.

[kkt]

they complain about the ugliness of freeways but it's ok to have railyards and huge bus depots and the like. and do these anti-freeway people drive cars? I bet they do.

Railroads use a much smaller ROW than a freeway to carry the same number of people, so railroads can be built in tunnels much, much more easily through cores of central cities than a freeway.  Rail yards do need to exist, but they can be built in the outskirts of cities instead of the cores.  (Or in extreme cases under a street network, see Park Avenue-Grand Central Terminal.)

[cpzilliacus]

they complain about the ugliness of freeways but it's ok to have railyards and huge bus depots and the like. and do these anti-freeway people drive cars? I bet they do.

Railroads use a much smaller ROW than a freeway to carry the same number of people, so railroads can be built in tunnels much, much more easily through cores of central cities than a freeway.  Rail yards do need to exist, but they can be built in the outskirts of cities instead of the cores.  (Or in extreme cases under a street network, see Park Avenue-Grand Central Terminal.)

A railroad that shares its tracks between a lot of freight traffic and passenger trains can often not accommodate that many (added) passenger trains without congestion raising it ugly head. 

Yes, railroads can also be badly congested, just like highways.

[Zmapper]

Yes, traffic tends to "disappear," but do we as a society want that traffic to disappear?

When travel is cheap, people travel more; when travel is expensive, people travel less - this is a basic demand curve. Highway-to-Boulevard conversions reduce the "supply" of roads and thus can be presumed to make travel more expensive, which leads to substitutions or no-go decisions; if I recall correctly, the West Side Highway boulevard conversion had a roughly even three-way split between increased car traffic, alternative modes or times, and forgoing the trip altogether.

The problem is that people travel with a purpose; very few trips are truly frivolous that it is pointless to take them into consideration. In reality, people forgoing travel translates into a family not visiting grandma or a $9/hour fast food worker not being able to take a $15/hour job in their field due to the increased trip cost, in terms of increased time or monetary costs. Conversely, when freeways are improved (ie: a supply increase) the cost decreases, which causes people to travel more - now it is feasible to eat at a restaurant or take a job in the next town over, or even move (this is the induced demand theory, when an increase in supply causes a long-run increase in demand such that the market returns to its former price level).

In theory, a congested 8-lane highway is better than an equally congested 8-lane highway; twice as many vehicles benefit from the 8-lane highway. The same applies in reverse, an 8-lane highway deconstructed to a 4-lane highway or a Boulevard may be equally congested, but fewer trips are being made. The question is if the non-highway advantages to a Boulevard conversion economically outweigh the losses from reduced road capacity (supply).

[PHLBOS]

but a lot of teardown/tunnelization projects (including the Big Dig and Embarcadero) have been a means to provide cities with much needed open-space, as opposed to developing the land directly. In that case, I'd argue that aesthetics, while almost certainly not the entire cause, is certainly a significant factor, especially if you wrap noise and pollution into a broader type of category of "aesthetics."  The Big Dig is probably the best example - property values increased, but the highway and transit capacities are still there. Basically the only thing that changed was the removal of a bigass viaduct and replacement with park space, and that caused property values to more than double.

With regards to the Big Dig; it should be noted that something had to be done in terms of highway construction.  The old Central Artery was carrying traffic loads well beyond what it was originally designed/intended to carry (killing off the I-695/Inner Belt in the early 70s did the Central Artery no favors).

Long story short; traffic issues (6+ hours of LOS F per day) was the driving force behind moving the Big Dig forward.  Had such been just a beautification project alone; the initial Federal funding for such wouldn't have survived then-President Reagan's veto.  The latter was the primary reason why it took so long (roughly 15 years) to get Federal funding for the Big Dig; not everybody in Congress believed that tunnelling I-93 was the only highway-based solution out there.

With regards to the Embarcadero: IMHO, had there not been an earthquake in 1989; that highway would likely still be standing to this day.

Wiki Account of CA 480

On November 5, 1985, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted to tear down the Embarcadero Freeway.  The proposal was put to the voters in 1987, and soundly defeated.  The October 17, 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake significantly damaged the structure, causing it to be closed to traffic. Caltrans planned to retrofit and retain the double-decker freeway.  Various groups in and outside the City supported the Caltrans plan, but there was a significant opinion within the City in favor of removing the freeway structure. Then-Mayor Art Agnos proposed demolishing the freeway in favor of a boulevard with an underpass at the Ferry Building to allow for a large plaza.

Opposition to demolishing the freeway mounted again, with over 20,000 signatures gathered to again create a ballot measure.  Prior to the earthquake, the Embarcadero Freeway carried approximately 70,000 vehicles daily in the vicinity of the Ferry Building. Another 40,000 vehicles/day used associated ramps at Main and Beale Streets. The strongest opposition came from Chinatown and other neighborhoods north of downtown.  Merchants in Chinatown had suffered a dramatic decline in business in the months immediately following the earthquake and feared that if the freeway was not reopened they would not recover.

Agnos continued to negotiate with federal and state officials to win enough funding to make the demolition practical, and the opposition relented.  Agnos argued that the city would squander "the opportunity of a lifetime" if it allowed the freeway to remain.  After months of debate, the Board of Supervisors narrowly voted in favor of demolition by a 6-5 margin. Demolition began on February 27, 1991.  That year Agnos was defeated for re-election as Chinatown switched its support away from him.

they complain about the ugliness of freeways but it's ok to have railyards and huge bus depots and the like. and do these anti-freeway people drive cars? I bet they do.

There's a words that describes such attitudes... hypocrites!

[bandit957]

You'd think this statement wouldn't be true. But there's a lot more traffic around here than there was before our freeways were done, even though the population around here hasn't grown that much.

I think it's because there was a better system in place before. Too many freeways caused the commercial centers to be moved further and further out, which creates more traffic.

[Brandon]

You'd think this statement wouldn't be true. But there's a lot more traffic around here than there was before our freeways were done, even though the population around here hasn't grown that much.

I think it's because there was a better system in place before. Too many freeways caused the commercial centers to be moved further and further out, which creates more traffic.

One must also remember that when the freeways were first conceived, we had only about 150 million people.  Now, about 70 years on, we now have about 320 million people.  That's an increase of 170 million people, or more than double what it was before the freeways.  So of course, there will be more traffic.  There's 113% more people here than there was 70 years ago!  These people need a way to get around, and more commercial centers to serve them adequately.

[Pete from Boston]

You'd think this statement wouldn't be true. But there's a lot more traffic around here than there was before our freeways were done, even though the population around here hasn't grown that much.

I think it's because there was a better system in place before. Too many freeways caused the commercial centers to be moved further and further out, which creates more traffic.

One must also remember that when the freeways were first conceived, we had only about 150 million people.  Now, about 70 years on, we now have about 320 million people.  That's an increase of 170 million people, or more than double what it was before the freeways.  So of course, there will be more traffic.  There's 113% more people here than there was 70 years ago!  These people need a way to get around, and more commercial centers to serve them adequately.

There is not a consensus that the Interstate highway system is infinitely scalable, nor that such scaling is how we should address all future needs.

You do point out that the country was a very different place 70 years ago when this groundwork was being laid.  Part of the difference is that we know a lot more now having lived through several generations of the freeway-based transportation paradigm.

In other words, while nobody doubts that transportation investment is a critical part of current and future economic growth, it is debatable whether 1940s-1950s logic is what we should be using to address that need.

The worst thing we can do is to take a dogmatic commitment to a single mode as our salvation in all cases.

[kkt]

they complain about the ugliness of freeways but it's ok to have railyards and huge bus depots and the like. and do these anti-freeway people drive cars? I bet they do.

There's a words that describes such attitudes... hypocrites!

Not at all.  It's a matter of where.  Build an ugly viaduct in industrial suburbs, like where rail yards and bus storage lots are, and I won't complain at all.  Build them in the urban core, such as between a major city and its waterfront like the Alaskan Way Viaduct or the Embarcadero, and I'll complain vigorously.

Most major cities that have downtown train stations have the through railroad tracks in tunnels through the urban core.  Seattle, NYC, Philly, Washington DC, ...

[PHLBOS]

Most major cities that have downtown train stations have the through railroad tracks in tunnels through the urban core.  Seattle, NYC, Philly, Washington DC, ...

Most of those (not sure about Seattle but definitely NYC, Philly & DC) were built years if not decades before any highway systems were planned and the NIMBY mindset didn't exist as much then as it did in later years as well as today.

[kkt]

Most major cities that have downtown train stations have the through railroad tracks in tunnels through the urban core.  Seattle, NYC, Philly, Washington DC, ...

Most of those (not sure about Seattle but definitely NYC, Philly & DC) were built years if not decades before any highway systems were planned and the NIMBY mindset didn't exist then as it did in later years as well as today.

Sure it did.  You think the railroads built those tunnels just because they were sweethearts?  At the time people used phrases like "City Beautiful Movement" instead of NIMBY but the sentiment was there.  Beauty and grandeur are important to cities, and their downtowns shouldn't be ripped up for unattractive infrastructure that's out of scale with a downtown.  Money should be spent to make cities look good.

[Pete from Boston]

The depression and electrification of the New York Central in Manhattan seems to have come at least in part as a reaction to public outcry, and that was a hundred years ago.

[cl94]

Somewhat ironically, public outcry is why the Miller Highway (West Side Elevated Highway) and High Line, both in Manhattan, were built

[Revive 755]

they complain about the ugliness of freeways but it's ok to have railyards and huge bus depots and the like.

In certain places, it is not okay to have flyovers for rail systems - the fighting over a proposed CTA flyover in Chicagoland is an example of this.