A couple of the Antiplanner’s faithful allies have presented recent research that is worth noting. First, Alan Pisarski, perhaps the nation’s leading expert on commuting trends, takes a look at highway use and the induced demand myth.
His first conclusion is that the recent halt in the growth of driving is due to the economy. Inflation-adjusted per capita incomes today are still below what they were in 2007, so it is natural to expect that driving would be lower. In 2013, however, auto purchases grew and he anticipates that miles of driving will soon start growing at least in pace with the population.
Second, Pisarski points out that new highways may result in more driving, but this is a positive benefit, not an argument for not building more roads. Highway “expansion improves and expands choice for both previous and new users,” he says. “Wouldn’t it be nice if transportation did not impede people from acting on their economic and social interests?”
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The second presentation is by transit expert Tom Rubin to the Fullerton, California city council about a proposed streetcar. He notes that the city’s own analysis found that ridership would be so low as to make the streetcar pointless. Beyond this, the city’s analysis underestimated operating costs and probably underestimated capital costs as well.
Of course, streetcar proponents claim that, no matter how low the ridership, the streetcar will be justified by the economic development that it brings. Rubin points out that the level of projected development is something like $2.4 million for every daily round-trip rider. Naturally, he is skeptical, to put it mildly, that one person could justify this much development.
Pisarski’s “logic” regarding his claim that “induced demand” doesn’t exist in the case of roads is a rather brain dead analogy.
Imagine the “induced demand” that movie theaters would experience if their product was offered at $2.00 admission on Friday and Saturday nights, with nothing like Fandango or other ticket pre-purchase services. When you get a very popular movie, the lines will be quite long and many people will never get in, just like rush hour freeways.
Well, no, because in a world not overrun with statist planners trying to modify behavior they don’t approve of, new theatres would be built, and existing ones enlarged, to handle demand for their products.
Of course, what msetty is really trying to imply is that road users maybe pay 20% of the cost of driving, with the rest of the money paid by users of rail transit (no doubt) (I must point out that there are those who actually believe this sort of absurd hyperbole and think rail transit is a “victim” of rapacious road building ). We know this to be a hoary old lie, and msetty to be a liar. For example, he lied when he promised to stop posting his gibberish on this blog and entertain his stalinist planner buddies on his private, no criticism allowed blog.
Alan Pisarski is correct in his assertion that there is no such thing as ‘induced travel’. It is a result of a reduction in journey cost, which then results in an increase in traffic flows. You make something cheaper, people want more of it.
Alan Pisarski is incorrect in his assertion that it would be a good thing to have more roads. All of the extra traffic that he is generating must go somewhere, and a lot of people are fed up with it going past their bedroom window. Also, in a built-up area, there is limit to the extra space required for roads, and all too often it ends up with neighbourhoods being bulldozed.
The opposite is also true. If roads are closed, some of traffic goes elsewhere, and some of it disappears.
Induced demand has always struck me as akin to peak oil. The more defined it becomes, the less it’s something to worry about. And both terms both usually get thrown around in ridiculously loosey goosey ways. It’s not uncommon to find people using the term induced demand to argue that it literally causes more traffic and at that will do so ad infinitum. i’m pretty sure they’ve never driven through North Dakota.
Speaking of movies, it’s a holiday and I wanted to see Interstellar. Since I rarely drive due to congestion, I was surprised to see gas has fallen to as low as $2.55 at a nearby Arco. Wow! When gas was over $4, my reluctance to drive to the movies was largely based on the cost of gas. Now it’s based on the headache of getting to the movie theater (with free parking); it’s a 40-minute trek to go eight miles in current traffic, although I suspect Google Maps is wrong on that as a few stretches are under seemingly permanent construction.
Gas and movie ticket prices played no rule in my decision. If road capacity were increased and traffic reduced, I’d be on my way to the movies.
So I’ll stay home. I’m sure that’s what Seattle’s planners want anyway.
So I’ll stay home. I’m sure that’s what Seattle’s planners want anyway.
Not quite, Frank. The planners want you to sit in traffic and seethe, because they love human suffering. It’s your fellow drivers that want you to stay home.
If government planners didn’t want people to suffer, they wouldn’t have orchestrated the torture and murder of hundreds of millions just in the last century, alone.
Yes, let’s take moment on this day to worship the state-sanctioned murderers known as soldiers…
Frank, don’t you know that when murder, raping, and pillaging is done in a government issued costume and wearing a government badge, it oddly becomes a foreign policy objective, a police action, or just plain old boys being boys.
Due to the magical transmutation at the hands of government alchemists, normally vile and foul acts are carefully transmorgified into legitimate policy actions backed up by that most difficult to understand of powers, “government authority”.
Let’s not forget that Veteran’s Day started out being Armistice Day, as it still is in most places, meant as a reminder of the stupidity of wars. In the U.S. however, it’s practically morphed into a celebration of state sponsored warfare.
Speaking of sadistic planners:
“Making transit 25-30 minutes faster would cost 2-3 minutes for drivers.”
That’s the kind of state-sponsored evil we’re faced with today.
Poor poor gilfoil can only offer propaganda. Perhaps you can offer some reliable source besides peninsulatransportation.org? Or not. Poor poor sock puppet gilfoil.
Perhaps this comment on the about page says it all: “Why is there no information about your organization. Non-profits should have a list of board members, contact info for hte group (e-mail, snail mail, Corporate ID number) on their websites.”
People don’t drive just to drive. They are going to relatives, friends or places they want to go to.
It is the planner class, that make up false reasons why freeways and added capacity trick people into driving.
Planners are hypocrites and sociopaths. They don’t care how people want to get around. They only care that people get around the way planners want them to get around. If any light rail line in the country was as heavily used as a typical urban freeway, planners would be besides themselves with excuses to expand the system. However, if a freeway is heavily used, planners reverse course, decry the usage, gin up reasons to destroy the freeway, and try to get people to shift to another modality, regardless of the cost or inconvenience.
Regarding the topic at hand (and avoiding the troll trap), there’s an important, yet semantic, difference between “induced” and “latent.” I didn’t read the links above but I’m not really a believer in induced demand. There’s some truth to the idea, but there are so many factors to why increases in highway capacity often fail to reduce congestion. Latent demand is one. Geography is another. The rest of the transportation network is another.
The latter is the biggest issue here in Austin. We have highway and toll road capacity coming out of our ear holes, yet some of the worse traffic congestion per capita in the country. It’s because there is no forgiveness in our surface transportation system. The highways are packed because there is no viable alternative, particularly in the event of a traffic blockage. We have a ton of highway capacity, but the neglect to thoughtfully organize our neighborhood streets and arterials, coupled with rapid population growth, have resulted in a traffic nightmare.
Geography also plays it’s part. It’s a lot easier to plan surface transportation without hills and water (see: KC, though you do have to cross the Missouri). The cities where I’ve noticed the least traffic congestion are generally flat and have a functional grid. KC, Denver, Phoenix, OKC, Indy… Not that residents of these cities don’t complain about traffic, but compared to cities like Seattle, Washington, Austin, San Francisco, that have hills, water or both to contend with and as a result can’t really have a functional street grid, traffic seems to be a much bigger problem.
I suppose my point is that highway capacity is overvalued when it comes to looking at congestion, as it is often the only issue (particularly on this blog) that is addressed. I would argue that it is an important part of a larger whole. Increasing highway capacity to kingdom come may not make a difference if all other roads in the network are ignored (see: signal timing and street connectivity).
Bennet, What you probably don’t realize is, the more you drive, the happier you are. That’s why in street scenes in big cities, everyone looks so miserable.
I personally enjoy driving (on uncongested roadways).
The CA city underestimated capital costs?
That’s nothing. In NY, the MTA won’t offer an updated estimate for phase two of the second avenue subway before asking for 1.5 billion dollars for it. Given the overruns on phase one and all other big projects since the YOE 3.4 billion estimate 10+ years ago an update would be nice. Especially since they are hinting that they won’t be using the tunnel sections dug for it a few decades ago that they had originally planned on using i.e. the project is changing at least somewhat. They won’t release any cost estimate or even a serious project description before asking for 750 million to maybe upgrade some tracks, upgrade power systems, replace a short bridge – who knows, they aren’t talking – to bring metro north new haven line trains to penn station. Amtrak already runs trains on these tracks.
http://newyorkyimby.com/2014/09/the-mta-wants-second-avenue-subway-downpayment-but-cant-tell-us-how-much-itll-cost.html
http://newyorkyimby.com/2014/11/the-mta-refuses-to-put-a-price-tag-on-yet-another-capital-project.html
Not a transit agency issue so much as a NY/Cuomo anti-transparency issue. The governor has been withholding documents on the new tolls for the TZB too.
http://www.lohud.com/story/news/local/tappan-zee-bridge/2014/11/01/tz-toll-documents-redacted/18271849/