The soviets had a successful policy for minimizing traffic congestion: keep people too poor to drive. Environmentalists today want to use the same policy: tax the heck out of gasoline; prevent the development of Alberta tar sands (“keep the tar sands oil in the soil” says one group); stop the development of natural gas.
The policy seems to be working. Thanks to the recession, Inrix says traffic congestion has declined in most U.S. urban areas. The worst congestion now is in Honolulu, followed closely by Los Angeles.
Inrix scores are based on actual measurements of traffic. A score of 10 means it takes an average of 10 percent more time to get anywhere in an urban area than it would take without congestion. Since that’s a 24-hour average, a score of 10 probably equals a score of 30 or 40 during rush hour–that is, rush-hour travel takes 30 or 40 percent more time than if there were no congestion. Honolulu’s 2011 score of 24 must represent a score of 50 or more during rush hour.
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Not surprisingly, the pro-rail people in Honolulu claim that the city’s $6 billion rail line will somehow solve the congestion problem. “Rail transit is the only thing can save our transportation system from a complete meltdown,” they claim. Not likely. Rail will serve too few destinations and carry too few riders to do anything about Oahu’s traffic congestion.
Despite spending billions on a rail network far more extensive than the planned Honolulu rail line, transit’s share of Portland commuting has remained flat. When counting the Portland area as a whole, it has fallen from 9.8 percent before rail was built to 7.1 percent in 2010. Honolulu buses currently have some of the highest market shares of major cities; a falling share is not going to relieve congestion.
The dream of a compact Portland served by transit and bicycles has turned into a nightmare that Portland business leaders are rejecting. It doesn’t do much good to be the nation’s number one bicycle city is bicycling still represents only about 5 or 6 percent of travel. It is worth noting that the most congested cities, according to Inrix, also tend to be the most compact, i.e., have the highest population densities.
Randal, this is absolutely correct.
If we look at images of the streets of Moscow or East Berlin prior to 1989, those streets are remarkably free of traffic – because of coercive Communist transportation policies, and because the former Soviet Union and East Germany were poor nations.
The dream of a compact Portland served by transit and bicycles has turned into a nightmare that Portland business leaders are rejecting. It doesn’t do much good to be the nation’s number one bicycle city is bicycling still represents only about 5 or 6 percent of travel.
Speaking of bikes, bikesharing has gotten a lot of attention recently and in my opinion, it is a good thing overall for those that can use a bike – but criminals can also use such services, as reported by the Washington Post: Bikeshare bicycle used in iPhone robbery, police say.
I’m not sure I get your point. Criminals can get around using any mean of transportation, public or personal. So what?
The point (which might have been lost on persons not in an urban area with a bikeshare system) is that this is sold as the perfect transportation solution (with no negative aspects at all), perhaps like advocates of mass transit on steel wheels on steel rails “market” their preferred solution to elected and appointed government officials.
Well, anybody selling “perfection,” should not be taken at their word. Everything that has ever existed anywhere, ever, has had negative aspects. My bet would be that cars are the preferred get-away vehicles, if we want to keep score.
CPZ you’re full of shit and you know it! People steal bikes, people steal cars, people steal boats, etc.
A couple of thoughts. Increasing gas taxes, increasing licensing fees, increasing registration fees, or, dare I say it… tolling roads/lanes or congestion pricing as tools to reduce congestion all use the same logic… Price people out of driving. One is a governmental solution and one is a market solution, but the outcome is the same… Increased mobility for the privileged few.
“The soviets had a successful policy for minimizing traffic congestion: keep people too poor to drive… Thanks to the recession, Inrix says traffic congestion has declined in most U.S. urban areas.”
So congestion is a sign of economic vitality? I actually think there is some truth to this. Not that measures can’t be taken to improve mobility options and decrease some travel times, but building a single train line or expanding freeway capacity into oblivion have never had a substantive impact on congestion for a meaningful period of time. These things work in theory only.
Here in Austin, the commuter train didn’t impact congestion one bit. Neither did the 3 high capacity express tollways we built (in fact the tollways made traffic significantly worse for those who can’t afford to use them). In Denver, light rail didn’t reduce congestion, and when I was there in April traffic during rush hour on I-25 was still backed up to kingdom come despite the T-Rex capacity increase.
So we can tax people out of driving, toll them out of driving, destroy our economy or we can accept congestion as a part of our life. But anytime you’re at a public meeting and a transit advocate gets up and says “This new train line will decrease congestion,” or a libertarian gets up and says “This tollway will reduce congestion,” feel free to stand up and shout “BULL SHIT!”
“So congestion is a sign of economic vitality? I actually think there is some truth to this.”
I’ve just come back from Karlsruhe, Germany. Lots of trams, lots of bicycles, not much congestion, lots of economic vitality.
Guess where else there isn’t a whole lot of congestion??? Laredo TX, Madison WI, Buffalo NY, Toledo OH, and Lincoln NE. They’re all about the same size as Karlsruhe. Sounds like a nice place though.
I remember distinctly way back when hearing the litany on the radio of der Stauen on all the autobahns – 8km stau, 12 km stau, etc. Especially outside of Frankfurt and Munich and Stuttgart, the very large cities then. Train and transit were fewer headaches (and no gas to buy at ~$8-9.00/gal). I had a buddy buy a 911 and he let me take it out and I had to shut her down at ~140 mph because of the standard traffic jam.
DS
Since we’re talking about “ecomonic vitality”, I think that just asking “Is congestion dropping with [X] transit effort” is an incomplete analysis. One data point is that congestion remains the same, but that doesn’t mean the city function is the same as a result. There could be more people coming in and out of the city via the train/tram/whatever while car traffic remains constant. The congestion data has to be paired with something like: what are the total amount of trips in and out? What are the total amount of dollars spent? What are the resulting property values?
If any or all of these things increase while congestion remains the same, then the transit measure could still be contributing positively.
*economic
Absolutely correct! And this is the argument that needs to be made, not “transit will reduce congestion.”
The reduction in traffic congestion comes from less driving due to higher fuel prices – nothing more. At a time of rising employment levels, congestion is still falling.
The record fuel prices are here despite intense development of every oil resource available.
Randall has figured out the right target – energy availability – but environmentalists have nothing to do with it. We are producing more oil and gas than any time in the past 15-20 years. But oil prices keep going up because of rising demand in the BRIC nations and in OPEC producers that are consuming as much oil as is available on the market despite every measure we have taken in the US, including the use of 1 million barrels per day of biofuels, increasing gasoline cracking ratios, and reduction in VMT.
“But oil prices keep going up because of rising demand in the BRIC nations and in OPEC producers that are consuming as much oil as is available on the market despite every measure we have taken in the US, including the use of 1 million barrels per day of biofuels, increasing gasoline cracking ratios, and reduction in VMT.”
Oil prices are increasing because futures traders don’t trust the Obama administration to open federal land to more drilling or to allow permits for deep-sea drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. Oil prices are increasing, also, because futures traders see the Obama administration’s war against coal and wonder when it might turn into a war against oil.
Oil prices are a combination of current supply and demand; and expected future supply and demand. It’s the Obama future that’s keeping oil prices higher than they might have been.
“Oil prices are increasing because [of] futures traders…” You should just stop there. The oil market has nothing to do with present demand??? How infuriating that speculators gambling with our future have so much power to distort the market. You can blame Obama, I’ll blame these a-holes.
It’s the Obama future that’s keeping oil prices higher than they might have been.
If that cr*ptastic drivel is the best they can come up with, they need new people to run oppo and disseminate it to the faithful echo chamber.
Nevertheless, everyone else knows that current refinery capacity is full what that means here in reality, there has been little domestic expansion, and we see no plans for drastic refinery expansion (except in TX where they are getting ready to refine and export you-know-whos tar sands oil products).
DS
Dan:
No wants to build new refineries for oil that doesn’t exist and won’t be pumped out of the ground. You can’t refine what you don’t have.
Instead, refineries are being permanently shut down on the east coast and in Europe that depend totally on the world export market, since that market has shrunk by over 10%, and the US is desperately propping up its market with biofuels and shifting end uses like chemicals and home heating to natural gas.
Anyone without oil addiction blinders and a basic sense of economics understands what is going on.
No wants to build new refineries for oil that doesn’t exist and won’t be pumped out of the ground. You can’t refine what you don’t have.
Yes of course. The assertion that the uppity Kenyan food stamp president is destroying Merka by not drilling is nincompoopery.
BTW, its getting almost to the point you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a new drill rig around here. The dark sky site for the Denver Astronomical Society is gone, all the drill rig lights ruined it.
DS
I believe there are more drilling rigs looking for oil today than at any time since the 1970’s.
Oil prices are set on the spot market, and the prices reflect the prices that refiners are willing to pay. Ask any small time producer or owner of a stripper well if they get to bring barrels to the refinery and demand a price.
The foolish notions that futures prices for delivery next year affect current spot prices are ridiculous.
Oil prices are set by the price refiners think they can pay and still make money selling refined products, not by speculators or producers. When refiners make the wrong offer, they go out of business. E.g. see what is happening to Sunoco. When refiners sell refined products for too high a price, demand collapses. When producers demand too much, no one buys their oil e.g. see the collapse in oil consumption post 1979 and currently.
Environmentalists today want to use the same policy [of keep[ing] people too poor to drive]:
Bullsh–. If the best you can do is make ludicrous stuff up, why bother pretending to construct an argument?
It is worth noting that the most congested cities, according to Inrix, also tend to be the most compact, i.e., have the highest population densities.
That is because people want to be there. That is how reality works; dense areas have always been busy and crowded. That is how reality works. When cheap energy is no longer available, the car problem will begin to lessen, then go away, then the market will demand transit.
DS
The Antiplanner wrote:
Environmentalists today want to use the same policy [of keep[ing] people too poor to drive]:
To which Dan responded:
Bullsh–. If the best you can do is make ludicrous stuff up, why bother pretending to construct an argument?
Dan, I must disagree with your assertion regarding making this up.
I’ve seen more than one instance where the obsession with increasing the modal share of transit over-rode other considerations, resulting in the creation of suburban slums just so elected officials and planners could then make boasts about high transit utilization.
The Antiplanner wrote:
It is worth noting that the most congested cities, according to Inrix, also tend to be the most compact, i.e., have the highest population densities.
To which Dan responded:
That is because people want to be there. That is how reality works; dense areas have always been busy and crowded. That is how reality works. When cheap energy is no longer available, the car problem will begin to lessen, then go away, then the market will demand transit.
To an extent, I agree with Dan. But the people that want to be there are frequently self-selected – they want to be in crowded (and frequently congested) urban areas, and a fair number of them do not own private motor vehicles. But that does not mean that the rest of the population of the United States wants to live in the same densities as those found in the five counties that make up New York City:
Bronx Co.(pers/square mile of land area) 31,709.3 (housing units/square mile) 11,674.8
Kings Co.(p/sq. m) 34,916.6 (du/sq. m) 13,183.9
New York Co.(p/sq. m) 66,940.1 (du/sq. m) 34,756.7
Queens Co.(p/sq. m) 20,409.0 (du/sq. m) 7,481.6
Richmond Co.(p/sq. m) 7,587.9 (du/sq. m) 2,804.3
But the people that want to be there are frequently self-selected – they want to be in crowded (and frequently congested) urban areas…that does not mean that the rest of the population of the United States wants to live in the same densities
Yes, that is my frequent assertion here, but in reverse: not everyone wants to live at suburban densities, and those who complain that something else other than a McSuburb gets built don’t understand real reality.
I’ve seen more than one instance where the obsession with increasing the modal share of transit over-rode other considerations, resulting in the creation of suburban slums just so elected officials and planners could then make boasts about high transit utilization.
The assertion is purportedly about what the dirty virnmintulists want. And just because affordable housing gets built in a dense area doesn’t make it a slum.
DS
One of the benefits of dense cities is that things tend to be closer together. So, a dense city with a congestion value of 10 would still see a lower overall per capita time lost due to congestion.
If it takes me one minute to drive/walk to the store with no congestion in a dense city, or 10 minutes in a less dense one. A congestion factor of 10 would have a much greater real impact on the less dense city.
Not surprisingly, the pro-rail people in Honolulu claim that the city’s $6 billion rail line will somehow solve the congestion problem.
Reminds me of the quote from Orwell’s 1984: “The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous.”
As long as congestion remains a problem, it will provide political cover for non-solutions like $6 billion rail links. And as long as these policies are ineffective at reducing congestion, they will assure that the problem will be there to justify more non-solutions in the future.
One of the benefits of dense cities is that things tend to be closer together. So, a dense city with a congestion value of 10 would still see a lower overall per capita time lost due to congestion.
Unless…
There are many conditions that would have to hold in order for that statement to be true. One would be that the increase in demand due to more dense collections of trip origins did not result in dramatically greater delays (congestion delays are nonlinear with respect to volume/capacity ratios). New York City still has the longest average commute in the US.
Is that for trip origins in the city (i.e. commutes within NYC) or does that include people coming from White Plains, NJ, etc?
Was trying to use the Census Bureau’s American Fact Finder to inform this discussion, but it’s too late at night, or the user interface for AFF is too user-hostile, or maybe both.
Statewide New York: 31.3 minutes
Bronx County: 42.1
Kings County (Brooklyn): 40.9
New York County (Manhattan): 30.1
Queens County: 42.1
Richmond County (Staten Island): 41.3
New York City (five counties above in aggregate): 39.1
Nassau County: 33.5
Westchester County: 32.1
Statewide New Jersey: 30.0 minutes
Bergen County: 29.9
Essex County: 31.5
Hudson County: 33.4
Passaic County: 26.9
Union County: 27.8
Statewide Connecticut: 24.7 minutes
Fairfield County: 28.0
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2008-2010 American Community Survey
Thanks C.P. On a side note, the House passed legislation last week that would eliminate the American Community Survey. I suppose for the GOP leadership ignorance is the best policy, that way our elected representatives needn’t fear anybody with facts.
http://cfed.org/blog/inclusiveeconomy/budget_cuts_threaten_critical_source_of_data/
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/20/sunday-review/the-debate-over-the-american-community-survey.html?_r=1
bennett, more than a few members of the Republic Party majority of the U.S. House of Representatives have been smoking and inhaling something – or maybe they are just suffering collectively from “vacancy of the cranium.”
Getting rid of the ACS is penny-wise and pound-foolish.
“Environmentalists today want to use the same policy: tax the heck out of gasoline; prevent the development of Alberta tar sands (“keep the tar sands oil in the soil†says one group)”
This is like saying since littering is a cheap alternative to using up landfill space, those damn environmentalists are costing us more money by making us pick up our trash and recycle. Why would it be surprising that a more holistically responsible and cleaner method of producing and selling any product would be more expensive? There are plenty of things we could do (or not do) to make something cheaper, but holistic quality is more than just low cost.
There are many who don’t want polluter-pays legislation. They all make a profit off of polluting and their profits would be much reduced if they were made to pay.
DS
“The dream of a compact Portland served by transit and bicycles has turned into a nightmare that Portland business leaders are rejecting.”
Bicycles don’t require a compact city. Just that if someone on a bicycle wants to go further, they have some mechanised mode to move them to a different area. For example, a trailer on a bus which picks them up at one bus station, and then drops them off at another bus station. The trailer means that their bicycles come with them, and so they can easily reach their final destination.
In a similar way, the mixture of bicycles and transit extends the reach of the transit, and massively improves modal shares for transit.
It is interesting to watch how liberals and conservatives talk past each other. We really should try to learn more about each other’s views of the world, because they are mostly not all that different.
The way to convince conservative-minded people that the American Community Survey is worthwhile is not to say that it is used to distribute social spending. It is more persuasive to say that lots of government agencies will be making assumptions about the public, and it is much better that: (1) they use real data instead of relying on various likely biased academic projections; (2) the survey is done only once and not separately by hundreds of state and federal agencies; (3) the survey is much more anonymous when done by a number crunching agency far removed from the action agencies; and (4) the data is very widely used by private businesses so the accuracy of the data helps make the whole economy much more efficient.