"Building Bigger Roads Actually Makes Traffic Worse" Wired Article

[bing101]

http://www.wired.com/2014/06/wuwt-traffic-induced-demand/?mbid=social_fb

This is talked about in the context of induced demand according to the author.
Also Public Transit, Make toll lanes on certain freeways been mentioned as solutions.

Solutions may vary by area.

[Brandon]

Yet, while it may make traffic worse on the road that was widened, traffic is better on roads that parallel it.  Induced demand my ass.  All the demand did was move from smaller roads to the newer bigger one.

[seicer]

If that was true, I would have had an easy commuting experience both by bike and car in Cincinnati. There are some times when new roads can lessen the burden on the old routes. My commute to and from Lexington and Frankfort, KY is by Interstate 64. Before it was completed in the 1970's (last segment to open), the alternative was US 421 (two-lane), US 60 (four-lane) or Old Frankfort Pike (very slow two-lane). Now, thanks to the easy accessibility between the two cities, US 60 is woefully congested for half of its length and Interstate 64 is nearing or at LOS C-D for a route that has little to no development between the two cities. US 421 is a bit emptier, but it's also much slower.

[Revive 755]

http://www.wired.com/2014/06/wuwt-traffic-induced-demand/?mbid=social_fb

I wonder about the methodology for that study cited in the fourth paragraph - such as an apparent lack of accounting for population changes in the cities studied.

[vdeane]

Or the fact that the number of cars per household more than doubled.  There was a lot less traffic when only Dad needed a car.

[Duke87]

When it comes to cities, the issue isn't induced demand so much as it is latent demand.

What latent demand effectively means is that there is a shortage of transportation infrastructure and people are avoiding travel because of it. As with anything that you have a shortage of, you first have to increase supply by enough to eliminate the shortage before you can start to have a surplus.

The problem, then, with "building your way out of congestion" is that in densely populated areas it is anywhere from impractical to impossible to build enough to not have a shortage. Widening an n lane freeway into an n+2 lane freeway may not solve any problems, but there is a value of x for which an n+x lane freeway would be free of congestion. The problem is that maybe x = 20. Theoretically possible to build? Absolutely. Possible to engineer? Also absolutely. But possible politically and economically? Hell no.

Living in a city means living with congestion. It's just a fact of life. So the article is correct in its assertion that managing congestion is a better plan for cities than attempting in vain to eliminate it.

However I would caution against the argument that "take the road away and the traffic will just go away, therefore why not take the road away?". This may be more or less true, but "the traffic going away" is not without consequences. A lack of mobility (inability of trips to be taken) is both a drag on the economy and a blow to personal freedom. These things can be addressed both short term (build other infrastructure elsewhere to divert the traffic) and long term (real demand for travel goes down if people live closer to where they work), but they must be addressed, not ignored.

[flowmotion]

I would like to see one of these induced demand studies controlled for development. My gut instinct is that widening highways in fully developed areas does not induce much new demand.

And, the fact is many highway projects are specifically designed to induce demand by opening up new developable real estate. We have all seen roads built/widened in the middle of farm fields that are surrounded by houses a few years later. 100% induced demand.