Reason Foundation Suggesting More Lanes Will Solve Congestion
Via StreetsBlog comes a story of faulty reasoning: more traffic lanes to ease congestion. From the Reason Foundation:
Missouri has one city that currently suffers from severe congestion, which this study identifies as those areas with Travel Time Indices (TTIs) of 1.18 or higher. The St. Louis area on the eastern edge of the state is tied with three other cities (Memphis, San Antonio and Cincinnati) as the 35th most congested region in the United States, with a Travel Time Index (TTI) of 1.22. This means that driving times during peak traffic hours are 22 percent longer than during off-peak times.
Unless major steps are taken to relieve congestion, drivers in St. Louis can expect to see a TTI of 1.42 by 2030. For an idea of how severe that level of congestion would be, note that this projection is worse than the traffic delays experienced today in all but five cities in the United States: Atlanta, Washington, DC, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Sorry, but I reject the notion that adding additional lanes eases traffic congestion. This may be a short-term solution but it inevitably leads to simply more cars on the road which brings us back to more congestion. This is a cycle that must be broken, not continued.
The researchers have done a cost analysis to show the savings by reducing congestion. I will look into the full report to see if they have calculated additional costs such as health issues with driving vs. walking, costs of parking garages, etc… I’m guessing they have not taken so many interrelated factors into account.
– Steve
The Reason Foundation is a libertarian “think tank” that regular bashes transit investments — particularly rail — with faulty reports. They often fund so-called transit experts such as Wendell Cox and Tom Rubin to issue reports such as this.
I halfway disagree and halfway agree. JUST adding more lanes is NOT the answer; fixing points of congestion IS (and this MAY include adding more lanes).
Local example – much has been made of needing to add another bridge downtown. The big problem with the Poplar Street Bridge is not its having “only” 4 lanes. Its problem is having confusing ramps (pick one, “All Lanes”) on the Illinois side and having a major off-ramp serving two interstates with a 20 mph speed limit on the Missouri side. I’m not sure I’d like that solution any better than a new bridge (building a new interchange just south of Busch Stadium and wiping out multiple city blocks in the process), but it would “solve the problem” without “adding lanes”. (I-64/Highway 40 needs to rebuilt simply because it’s falling apart, and it makes a lot more sense to just do it right than to repeat past mistakes.)
You’re right, there never is one, easy answer. Still, just saying “no more lanes” isn”t a valid answer, either. One needs to learn to use a scalpel, not a chain saw . . .
[UP Yes, we have some highway issues to correct, as you indicate. I don’t have any problems with that as long as it is part of a balanced approach to solving real or perceived problems. The issue here is they are advocating many new lane-miles, nearly $5 billion worth, to solve problems. In reality, I believe that $5 billion later we would have created far more problems than we solved.
Yes, fix some on/off ramps, improve intersections, add a lane in places but also make the area around the Hanley/Eager MetroLink station a highly walkable TOD area. Reduce congestion by actually reducing the cause of the congestion — cars. – SLP]
Adding more lanes is like loosening a belt. You feel skinnier, but you’re actually probably fatter than were before. It solves nothing, and just pushes the problem aside and lets it get worse.
Well I agree that adding lanes is not always the answer, neither is saying no more lanes either.
The 170 /40 interchange is not so much from bad planning as it is from bad forcasting. Who was to have guessed that 15 years ago the Galleria was going to start all the shopping that is at that corner now? Is that MODOT’s problem? Not totally, much of it is Clayton’s, Rich. H’s and Brentwoods in the need/want to grab more and more sales dollars.
Perhaps one day readers will realize that not everyone wants to walk everywhere. Cars serve a purpose and like it or not, there will be places where it’s car-oriented versus pedestrian oriented.
[UR One day you will realize that places can actually work for both people and cars. – SLP]
The simple solution is to tax cars and use the money for mass transit. Possibly tax fuel costs as well.
Problem solved.
Less fuel usage along with less pollution and more money for other programs such as education.
A good chunk of the federal gas tax is already being spent on transit . . . and the price of gas seems to have little impact on the amount of driving people do, but it sure does impact the amount of whining about gas prices . . .
If only “people”, oh not you or me or your friends and family, but those “others” would just do as you say and walk or bike instead of drive their evil SUV’s. Man, if only you were King.
Reason is a quasi-libertarian magazine. They are compromised in their principles and thus support what in essence could be called transportation socialism. The government holds a monopoly on the building and maintaining of the roads, railways, and public transportation in this country.
Many economists, such as Loyola University of New Orleans economist Walter Block, advocate that private firms could build and maintain the roads. I know that the idea of this has never entered the heads of 99% of the people reading this, but Block has written extensively on this and any objections or questions that you would have he has probably already answered. Here is one such article:
http://www.mises.org/journals/jls/3_2/3_2_7.pdf
(Free Market Transportation: Denationalizing the Roads)
You can read other similar articles at his website: http://www.walterblock.com/
In addition to opposing the taxpayer subsidization of sprawl, many libertarians also point out that the great public transportation systems such as the NYC subways were built by private companies. Here is an article about the conversion of the NY subway from private to public.
http://www.mises.org/freemarket_detail.asp?control=69%5B/url%5D
As a libertarian, I see the traditional, dense, vibrant urban core as the natural outcome of the market. We get ugliness of sprawl when groups are allowed to force others foot the bill for their lifestyle. The answer is not more government intervention(subsidized rail), but the repeal of previous intervention (subsidized highways).
Andres Duany has long pointed this out, that there are smarter ways out of congestion than the brute force of adding construction. (A short section of Suburban Nation is available at the website http://www.bicycleuniverse.com – transportation, planning tab).
As a person who has the ability to see first hand the congestion on 40 – I see no need to widen it – the congestion is minimal – it probably impacts me perhaps 4 days out of 20 a month – and perhaps for only a difference of 5-10 minutes per occurrence. When people sit in traffic they loose their perspective and overweight the delay. They forget that they have a minimum 40 minute commute anyway and thus attribute the entire commute to the delay. In reality their choice to have a job/school/shopping locations far apart is what creates the commute time, not the delay in it.
If the bridges or intersections need rebuilding – do it, but we do not need more capacity. As the Compton overpass demonstrated, this can be done very effectively when there is a high premium on quick completion – Fred Weber earned 500,000 dollar bonus by completing it in 3 months.
You have to wonder, of the 5-6 hundred million dollars, and large economic impact of the highway 40 debacle – what could we achieve with that money? What are our priorities as a society?
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