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"just one more lane bro" has never worked as a long-term solution in the history of ever. (lemmy.world)

submitted 4 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[-] [email protected] 55 points 4 days ago

I think there was at least one case where the city went broke maintaining roads and everyone left. That was a success.

[-] [email protected] 27 points 4 days ago

That was my every childhood game of SimCity.

[-] [email protected] 11 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

My back was to put in rail everywhere with zero roads. People constantly complained about wanting roads, but there was never any congestion. And the desire for roads never seemed to affect anything.

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[-] [email protected] 22 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Examples of the opposite. The Braess-Pardox Enjoy!

[-] [email protected] 14 points 4 days ago

90% of city planners quit one lane before fixing traffic forever: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWeFw0I-igI

[-] [email protected] 7 points 4 days ago

Robert Moses needs to be more (in)famous as the pioneer of this kind of bullshit. The Power Broker by Robert Caro is a must-read book for anybody that wants to know how the US got so fucked up.

[-] [email protected] 6 points 3 days ago

It works exactly as intended, to drive sales of cars.

[-] [email protected] 6 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Yup. They're just going to add tolls to some of the lanes and make you pay more to use what you already paid for anyway.

Congestion pricing, on the other hand: observably a good policy.

[-] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago

I call them bribery lanes.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago

Just one more study bro

[-] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago

Jevons paradox?

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[-] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

Well, they're adding one more lane right now here for busses only...

[+] [email protected] -20 points 4 days ago

Building roads does decrease congestion. Just don't place them randomly. Use simulations and modern traffic engineering. Do you think that inaction build the Netherlands?

[-] [email protected] 46 points 4 days ago

The netherlands did a lot more than just build roads. They built bike lanes, transit, walkability and made it legal for density to exist in their city, all things that north american cities resist as if it were the plague.

[-] [email protected] 28 points 4 days ago

resist like plague

Maybe bad example, given we're talking about americans.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago

Well the ones that are left will be resistant.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago

You're from .world so i can't assume this is a bit.

[-] [email protected] 15 points 4 days ago

Removing roads decreases congestion: Braess' paradox

Roads for private cars are generally overbuilt and run directly into Braess' paradox. E.g. Five years after Sepulveda Pass widening, travel times on the 405 keep getting worse.

[-] [email protected] 5 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

You notice it particularily when one road segment is built out, but the fewer lanes on other segments still keep the effective traffic flow rate constant (or lower due to all the merging and yielding that's now required). Min-cut max-flow theorem, my beloved.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago

Its almost as if roads have a low capacity due to how much space each car takes up, often for just 1 person. The solution to congestion is alternatives to driving. Everything else is just a band-aid unless you significantly restrict growth and through traffic.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago

This is ehy im overall neutral on adding lanes.

[-] [email protected] 11 points 4 days ago

This post is about the lack of scientific evidence for your theory. Care to supply some?

[-] [email protected] 6 points 4 days ago

Case studies are not scientific evidence, they're well-documented anecdotes that suggest the need for scientific study.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

Case studies are scientific evidence. They are just not strong scientific evidence.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

Assume the same conditions as of the famously quoted Braess' paradox (you do know the sources of what you are claiming, don't you?).

Consider then a subgraph consisting of three path-connected points A, B and C that is also a subtree of a larger more complicated graph representing the entire connected road network. Assume also for simplicity that the three points are equidistant and that A and C are connected through B only and that B is their only connection to the larger network.

Adding a road from A to C would now reduce congestion on the subtree, and cannot increase it on the larger graph due to the tree structure. The proof is left as an exercise to the reader, i.e. you.

TL;DR Wasted my time replying to a sea lion.

[-] [email protected] 8 points 4 days ago

Maybe, but now people will go "oh driving is easier so I'll drive" and now there are more cars in the system, and thus more traffic. If you instead also make rail easy, some of them will go "oh I'll just take the subway" and not drive.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Cars suck for many more reasons other than Braess' paradox, even as it indeed adds to the sucking where applied. Being anti-car should be about more than just misrepresenting facts though, especially when science is in our favor.

We cannot argue that the car brains deny facts and then do the same in return. That undermines the whole argument.

[-] [email protected] 6 points 4 days ago

Ever heard of induced demand?

[-] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Sure, you argued against the claim that roads can decrease congestion, the negation of which is the claim that it always increases congestion. Since I only need a single example to prove you wrong I can claim it to be irrelevant to the counter example provided.

[-] [email protected] 8 points 4 days ago

Sometimes removing roads actually helps congestion

[-] [email protected] 5 points 4 days ago

That's equivalent to only well placed roads removing congestion.

[-] [email protected] 6 points 4 days ago

Sure an extra lane can relieve congestion, for a bit then 10 years later you're back to where you started or worse.

This is mostly due to the fact that American cities grow sprawl and not density. So basically unless there's a population collapse adding another lane is a temporary solution.

That's why they are basically always adding new lanes, they can't keep up with the demand. So instead of continually trying to keep up with demand it's time to work on reducing demand

[-] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago

Building roads is not an extra lane and an extra bus bike or tram lane has surely relieved congestion. Same for an extra lane for queueing in niche cases. Added a random feature at a random spot will not yield desired results.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Seems a bit pedantic, but sure.

New roads are unlikely to fix issues in many places. Small to medium sized town building a new connector would be helpful. Not so helpful for anything large or metro sprawl. Those places mostly limit themselves to adding additional lanes with little result

[-] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

Fixing one bottleneck to find another bottleneck 3 years later is not an argument that bottlenecks should not be fixed

[-] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago

Though bottlenecks are complex and sometimes shouldn't be fixed, at least not without building up capacity to the roads they feed into, or else you might end up with new bottlenecks that back traffic back up to the original ones anyways. Without 3 years needing to pass.

[-] [email protected] 17 points 4 days ago

CityNerd did a video explaining why this happens. It's because city planners and traffic engineers assume that the same proportion of people will drive in the future, just that there will be more of them. So if you assume everyone's still going to drive you have to build more lanes because everyone will drive.

[-] [email protected] 11 points 4 days ago

Doubles as the shelf where she keeps her fucks.

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this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2025

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