#inducedtraffic — Public Fediverse posts

@crazyeddie @aworkinglibrary
It is probably about car dependency, car-centered areas. Like in the US where in many towns without a car one would struggle to do anything: getting to the grocery store, getting back from the store, reaching the other river bank as many bridges are motor vehicles only.

People can’t live without cars in such places. Even food banks have huge lines of cars, four "lanes". Some homeless people drive cars as well. Imagine the closest grocery store being 1 hour walking distance away, and the weather may be extremely hot/cold.

Many such areas don’t even have sidewalks or anything for walking at all. At the same time so called "jay-walking" is prohibited by law. The term "jaywalking" actually was invented by the cars lobby in the early 20th century. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaywalking
Moving around by walking is extremely inconvenient, dangerous, taking ridiculous amounts of time, basically incompatible with everyday activities.

Also the parking lots, roads, intersections take up huge chunks of the city. Consider how much longer it takes to walk somewhere compared to what it could be without all these. Urban areas could look very different if they were human-centered and Points Of Interest were packed tightly.

And the bigger the city, the more space car infrastructure takes up. More lanes, wider intersections, parking lots can have up to many thousands spots, highways, freeways, interchanges of ridiculous sizes and shapes.

The topic is huge, what I mentioned is just the tip. Think of what you see around every day. Also all the noise. And danger it brings to everyone, not just drivers. The number of so called "accidents", another convenient term for the horrible things that happen everyday.

The areas which are pedestrian-friendly, bicycle friendly, have public transportation tend to have happier residents, more attraction points, more small businesses, more street life, way better air quality, less noise among other benefits.
Also social connections and interaction happen there and not on a 4-lane highway.

#Cars #Car #City #Urban #Streets
#Cities #CarFree #Roads #CarDependancy #StreetLife #Safety #Bycicles #Walking #UrbanSprawl #OneMoreLane #InducedTraffic #PublicTransport #PublicTransit #Access #PublicTransportation #Accessibility #Accessible #PublicSpaces #Socialization #Capitalism #Subsidies #Lobbying #WordsMatter #History #CarsAreDangerous #FuckCars

This week and next are school holiday.
* On Monday, I literally cruised to work. Streets were not far from being emptied of the usual traffic jams that I have to filter through every single day on my bike
* 2 days later (Wednesday) and I cannot really make the difference with a normal Wednesday. School run traffic has been replaced with other traffic.

It will be like that until April 13 when school resume which will cause 3 days or carmagedon.

#InducedTraffic #BikeTooter #SchoolRun

“The phenomenon is known as induced demand. The result is an endless cycle in which congestion leads to highway expansion, which invites more trips, which brings back traffic…The pattern is so inevitable that economists have dubbed it the iron law of congestion.” #InducedTraffic

It’s an American Obsession. It...

#SunkCostFallacy
https://bsky.brid.gy/r/https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:ny5w2k6brb2kdubxnevke6li/post/3lfgzzpw3qk2x
[email protected] - Attention cities & states — remember this as you reconsider EVERY single massively expensive freeway and road widening project you’ve been working on for years, but very likely need to cancel in light of the #CimateEmergency, and the fact that they don’t actually work. #inducedTraffic #ClimateCrisis

Attention cities & states — remember this as you reconsider EVERY single massively expensive freeway and road widening project you’ve been working on for years, but very likely need to cancel in light of the #CimateEmergency, and the fact that they don’t actually work. #inducedTraffic #ClimateCrisis

Got a letter published in The Province today. "Why spend billions to make traffic congestion worse, and make it more likely that more towns like Jasper will burn?" https://theprovince.com/opinion/letters/letters-to-the-province-more-car-lanes-on-highway-1-mean-more-greenhouse-gases #bcpoli #InducedTraffic #publictransit #climateemergency

"Rozelle Interchange woes to continue for months."

Basically they're betting on enough drivers giving up on the $3.7 billion road and taking other transport.

https://archive.is/b4i3t

#CarsRuinCities #inducedTraffic #JustOneMoreLane #sydney

Sydney's #WestConnex road tunnel project opened this morning.

"My commute will take me an hour-and-a-half and normally it takes me 30 minutes."

$21Billion well spent...I guess.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-27/nsw-rozelle-interchange-signage-change-open/103153714

#CarsRuinCities #JustOneMoreLane #inducedTraffic #Sydney

In the current Local Transport Today and (free to view) in the Tapas Network. Lisa Hopkinson and my piece on #inducedtraffic, summarising historic and new research findings since the 1920s and explaining why it is disingenuous to describe this very substantial body of evidence as 'limited'. https://tapas.network/35/hopkinsongoodwin.php

Attention cities & states — remember this as you reconsider EVERY single freeway and road widening project that you’ve been working on for years and even decades, but very likely need to cancel in light of the #ClimateEmergency, and the fact that they cost hundreds of millions or even billions, don’t actually work, and will actually induce more driving.

#InducedTraffic #ClimateCrisis #cities #cars #freeways #roads #streets #urbanism #congestion

“The concept of #InducedTraffic has been around since the 1960s, but in a 2009 study, researchers confirmed what transportation experts had observed for years: In a metropolitan area, when road capacity increases by 1%, the number of cars on the road after a few years also increases by 1%.”

Widening Highways Doesn’t Fix #Traffic. So Why Do We Keep Doing It? In the New York Times.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/06/us/widen-highways-traffic.html

#cities #urbanism #congestion #cars #streets

This is one of the most depressing pictures I've ever seen from my city.

Everybody from both inside the city and the surrounding area has to throw themselves into this tiny choke (I say tiny but this is a 4 lane #stroad) in order to make their way to the only strip of shopping centres.

How many of these cars are carrying more than one or two people? Why can't we have a bus that runs this route? Why not some more smaller stores closer to where people live?

#AntiCar #InducedTraffic #Sprawl

“It's well-demonstrated that you can't build your way out of traffic congestion by building roads — the more you build, the more people drive. As the saying goes, building more lanes to address congestion is like loosening your belt to address obesity.”

The Law of Traffic Congestion, according to “The Flash!” My Planetizen article.

https://www.planetizen.com/node/53659

#InducedDemand #cities #cars #urbanism #transportation #traffic #congestion #city #car #InducedTraffic #JevonsParadox #Flash

If you’re trying to “solve” traffic congestion, road widenings are very expensive exercises in futility - unless your ACTUAL intention is more people driving more often and longer in the same or worse congestion, and a lot more suburban sprawl.
#cities #suburbs #suburbia #urbanplanning #urbanism #sprawl #suburbansprawl #induceddemand #transportation #inducedtraffic