Will the tanker truck accident that destroyed a key part of the San Francisco Bay Area freeway network cost commuters millions of dollars a day? Will those commuters respond by switching to public transit? So far, the answers seem to be “no” and “maybe.”
The closure of a freeway interchange that normally sees 80,000 vehicles a day did not result in huge traffic jams yesterday or this morning. Many people may have used the free public transit offered by the state, but so far no reliable reports have said how many. (Transit was free yesterday only; today it should be back to normal fares.)
Other people may have remained home Monday or found alternate routes. One nice thing about a highway network is that it usually has plenty of different alternatives. Traffic reports indicate some slowdowns this morning, but no worse than normal.
CalTrans hopes to replace the fallen structure in as little as six weeks. The main obstacle is the worldwide steel shortage. This is the same shortage that led to a huge increase in projected costs for Denver’s rail projects. I am surprised no one is getting hysterical about “peak iron.”
I guess the takeaway lesson here if the traffic situation continues to not be horrible is: there’s not a capacity problem, there’s a mode choice problem.
That is: SOVs clog the lanes, non-discretionary trips during peak periods clog the lanes…and so on.
DS