A recent survey found that 93 percent of planning students oppose highway expansion because they believe that it won’t relieve congestion due to induced demand. However, the survey found, only 24 percent of the general public agrees. Similarly, 83 percent of planning students believe the government should try to reduce the amount of driving Americans do, but only 31 percent of the general public agrees.
When was the last time an urban planner lied to you? Photo from Seattle Municipal Archives.
It never occurs to planners that results like these might indicate that they are wrong. After all, they are the experts and the general public is not, so the public should let them do what they want.
Admittedly, this was a survey of planning students, not professional planners. Working planners may get some doses of reality that could change their beliefs. But, if the plans being published by various state, regional, and city transportation agencies are any indication, most planners still seem to oppose highway expansions and favor policies aimed at reducing driving.
Most infuriating is the whole induced-demand argument, which (according to Governing magazine) has planners actively wondering why they can’t sell this idea to the public. The answer, of course, is that it is stupid. Economically it is stupid because there is no conceivable product that will generate more demand simply by making more of it: building a road in a desert will not induce more driving. Politically it is stupid because it argues that more roads generate more economic activity, and most urban politicians say they want more economic activity in their cities.
Also disappointing is the fact that (according to the survey) 95 percent of planning students believe in expanding transit and 85 percent of the general public agrees. The public supports transit only because planners have lied to them by saying that expanding transit will reduce congestion even though transit expansions throughout the nation have not led to a significant increase in transit ridership, much less a significant decrease in driving.
It may seem hypocritical to criticize planners who go against the public in seeking to reduce driving when I disagree with the public preference for transit expansions. But this is a matter of factual issues: transit expansions don’t relieve congestion, while highway expansions do lead to more economic activity, which is a good thing. Planners lie about both issues, but so far have only convinced the public about one of them.
The big question is why a profession that is wrong about so many things is still allowed to have so much influence over American cities. I blame this on the Supreme Court, which has issued several rulings allowing cities to ignore the takings clause of the Fifth Amendment if they have written an urban plan. Cities that hire planners can take property rights through regulation without compensation and can take private property for private purposes with compensation, both of which were once considered unconstitutional.
Any city that hires urban planners is thus allowed to ignore the constitutional protection for property rights. It appears that the Supreme Court has more faith in government planners than the public at large.
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“Induced demand” is merely a pejorative rebranding of “pent-up demand” to further an agenda.
Most people understand that satisfying such demand is a good thing, not something undesirable that is to be avoided, and fortunately most politicians as well.
“The big question is why a profession that is wrong about so many things is still allowed to have so much influence over American cities.”
Possibly because peoples’ only experience in a planned city is Disney’s Magic Kingdom.
JUST ONE MORE LANE…just one.”
https://preview.redd.it/yg48ek5usld11.png?auto=webp&s=6c4974cbeaea3a588c60fe99c5b68d57a3189431
The issue of traffic and convenience is spacing and design. Cities built before the 20th century….. accommodated the automobile but physical constraints mitigated heavy auto use and fed up residents made biking, walking and alternatives options.
Cities built post-war…cars were not just easily adopted….but widely segregated that walking, bikes were deemed unsafe or in the realm of Loser-dom. My coworker was just hit by a car. Whilst biking…..Post World War II the US adopted the “Dead Worm” neighborhood concept, that relegates neighborhoods to move via only one road. A dead end, begins on a feed road which feeds the highway. With only one way out, you have only one way to get anywhere
The pinnacle of US urban design….my neighborhood… separated by a major roadway across from businesses.
https://imgur.com/a/0NE3Lvs
But fear life in limb if I want a Dr. Pepper…..
The solution to traffic and safety is actually quite simple. Segregate the parking from the strip mall….. put majority of parking on opposite side separated by crosswalk…
Some may complain but it’s more aesthetic… more practical and less dangerous in long run. Because more pedestrians means more watchful eyes to enforce safety.
2nd solution is have architecture planners make the businesses comply with the layout of the surrounding built environment or better.
3rd.. build sidewalks… bikelanes make sense in cities but smaller towns…it’s best the bike lane either be painted or marked by flexible bollards… let wider sidewalks accommodate cyclists and walkers… collisions between the two are rarely detrimental let alone lethal. In lieu of gas prices….. at this stage it makes little sense to expend a gallon of gas for a gallon of milk……
Adding lanes to congested freeways, move cars out of neighborhoods, making it safer to walk and ride a bike.
How do you add lanes in urban areas without doing eminent domain and taking people’s property?
https://reason.org/transportation-news/anti-highway-rhetoric-electricity-on-highways-and-more/
My go-to resource on induced demand is transportation researcher Steven Polzin, formerly at the University of South Florida’s Center for Urban Transportation Research and more recently a senior advisor for research and technology at the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT). Polzin, now a research professor at Arizona State University, circulated a brief commentary on the Marohn article to transportation colleagues, where he made the following points:
“Yes, there is induced demand, but a whole bunch, and in many cases the vast majority, of the demand is not induced and can necessitate new capacity in some locations.
“Induced demand isn’t what it used to be. Lessened diversion from other modes, the option of communication substituting for travel, near-saturation in vehicle availability (and the plateauing of VMT per capita), and environmental sensitivities all dampen the propensity for induced travel to a greater extent than when the majority of induced demand measures were developed.
“Induced demand isn’t necessarily bad or wasted VMT. Being able to get to a better job or access venues that offer better choices and lower costs isn’t bad. Businesses having access to a bigger labor pool and potential customer and supplier bases isn’t bad. Making those supply chains work better isn’t bad. Getting emergency vehicles where they need to go, faster, isn’t bad. Pulling cut-through traffic out of neighborhoods isn’t bad. Using infrastructure to shape development or improve economic competitiveness of given geographies isn’t bad.
“Finally, the way too broad-brush characterization of planners as road-building zealots indifferent to the public will is as repulsive as the too-often characterization of planners as insensitive racists steering bulldozers through minority neighborhoods.”
Polzin’s longer and more comprehensive discussion of induced demand is available in a recent policy paper from Reason Foundation: “Induced Demand’s Effect on Freeway Expansion”
Have you seen the course work in Urban Planning programs? Princeton doesn’t have a course in economics. Harvard has 1 introductory Urban Economics course. These programs are more about government policy. They necessarily attracts a certain type of student who would likely lean left.
“Getting emergency vehicles where they need to go, faster, isn’t bad.”
We need wider roads so emergency vehicles can go faster to respond to the additional accidents caused by widening the roads so cars go faster.
sketter,
Elevate the new lanes above the old ones. The Lee Roy Selmon Expressway showed that a six-foot median strip is wide enough for pillars that can support three or four new lanes.
Two points here:
1. The problem with 5th amendment takings and economic regulation, in general, is the doctrine used to enforce it. Specifically “Rational Basis” which is definitely not rational in any practical sense of the word says that so long as an economic regulation has a “articulatable, rational basis” it is constitutional. What this means is that so long as there is a “logic” to a policy regardless of whether is actually works or what the costs are the regulation is constitutional. What needs to occur is that for economic regulations, especially related to private property rights, the court should mandate a cost benefit analysis that opts for the least costly path or at least one that contemplates alternatives. This would effectively shut down the fantasy planning that you see being currently pushed.
2. From what I have seen of the planning profession it strikes me as being more of a cult than a social science or objective profession. Certain types of people are attracted to become planners and then develop extensive rationalizations as to why their unrealistic and idealized view of the world is in fact the best course. Also, since there is very little diversity in who becomes a planner they all engage in group think and overwhelm and narrative with their agenda. I have had many interactions with planners and I have noticed that even when confronted with objective evidence they simply form a new rationalization to continue down their merry path. For example, recently I was talking to someone who thought it was a good idea to have a connect two towns or 5,000 and 30,000. I asked if this was economically viable and was immediately shot down with talk about how we have to plan for what the world will look like “a hundred or two hundred years in the future” and that “our grandchildren will judge us.” This is classic cult-like religious thinking. From the public’s perspective, planners use their authority to push their agenda. They also seem to attract people who are vulnerable to weak thinking, much like a cult or fundamentalist religion. Specifically, I have noticed that people who buy into the planning rhetoric tend to view it as a religious-like panacea. They view whatever new planning fad like smart growth, inclusionary zoning, light rail or whatever as being the fix to their otherwise unhappy lives. There is little objective evaluation as to the potential for rent-seeking and maliciousness and there is also little questioning as to whether these plans will actually improve things. Again, its a religion. . . .
”
“Getting emergency vehicles where they need to go, faster, isn’t bad.”
We need wider roads so emergency vehicles can go faster to respond to the additional accidents caused by widening the roads so cars go faster.
” ~jane
In a typical city of a half million people, there are going to be ~25K-40K 911 emergency calls per year.
Jane, care to tell us of those, how many are for car accidents?