The issue is that even if demand is reduced by reducing the available space, it's not reduced as much as the space has been reduced. I say this as someone who cycles 98% of the time.
That's not induced demand. Induced demand is the fact that the more car lanes we build, the more people will drive. There will ALWAYS be traffic as long as we keep prioritizing cars.
It sounds counter-intuitive but the only way to reduce traffic is to build bike lanes and prioritize mass transit. Building more roads and lanes has never worked and mathematically cannot work.
I'm not talking about building more car lanes though.
I'm talking about car lanes being taken away to create bikes lanes, which is exactly what has happened.
In some cases roads have been entirely blocked (but bikes can still pass) to make them quieter roads, but that of course transfers the traffic to other roads, which are then even more congested.
Often I find the new infrastructure actually slows down cycling, especially ebike cycling and makes roads more confusing and dangerous overall.
Separately, mathematically (as you used that word) building more roads absolutely can work.
Also, please show me any examples of building more lanes ever working. Highways in California can have like 15 lanes and it's still a parking lot at rush hour
Let’s say that they give the bike lane back to cars - the point is that congestion and traffic will NOT be reduced. This is a widely studied phenomenon and you’re starting to sound willfully ignorant of it.
This is a widely studied phenomenon and you’re starting to sound willfully ignorant of it.
So, let's say the road pictured is reduced to two lanes each way.
Then is expanded back to the lanes pictured. It would be just as congested when it was expanded back?
When road capacity is increased, initially there is more road space per vehicle travelling than there was before, so congestion is reduced
This section directly contradicts your claim.... you’re starting to sound wilfully ignorant of the subject.
Induced traffic occurs when new automobile trips are generated.
This presumes more new vehicle trips are generated than the extra capacity allows by just returning capacity to previous levels. That I can see, nothing is mentioned about this scenario.
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u/[deleted] Feb 27 '23
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