More On Left Lane Driving

Carl Taylor wrote:
> Most traffic jams are really the result of overpopulation, not a lack
> of roads. Building more roads is a temporary fix unless growth finally
> ends, but there's little hope of that with our immigration levels.

Population growth is what makes it imperative to build more roads, but
the failure to do so is still what causes congestion. Population growth
is like erosion: an unstoppable natural process, but slow enough that
man can easily keep up if we do our job.

> Witness Los Angeles County, an area with few places left to put roads,

There is no such limit. We have yet to stack up ordinary streets four
levels high as they are in Chicago's Loop, but Chi shows it can be done.

> and tremendous congestion. I don't see a solution to traffic jams
> without a cessation of growth. But people are reluctant to think at
> that level. They'll try in vain to build the problem out of existence
> and it will keep getting worse.

Trying to legislate no-growth can only ever produce one of two results:

1) If you try to stop (or divert) growth by refusing to build the
infrastructure that growth makes necessary, the growth happens anyway.
This is the problem in CA and most of the US.

2) You can stop growth at the source by regulating births as Red China
does, but then you get the tyranny they've got now plus the pension
crisis they're about to have. (By regulating births from 1986 to the
present, China has massively cut its number of young people so that its
pension system will actually go into crisis _before_ ours even though
theirs is decades more recent!)

What you, and the whole enviro movement, don't get is that new people
are not a burden to the economy -- they're its greatest source of new
wealth. The proof of this is in the works of Julian Simon, especially
"Ultimate Resource 2".

Carl Taylor wrote:
> Most traffic jams are really the result of overpopulation, not a lack
> of roads. Building more roads is a temporary fix unless growth finally
> ends, but there's little hope of that with our immigration levels.

Population growth is what makes it imperative to build more roads, but
the failure to do so is still what causes congestion. Population growth
is like erosion: an unstoppable natural process, but slow enough that
man can easily keep up if we do our job.

> Witness Los Angeles County, an area with few places left to put roads,

There is no such limit. We have yet to stack up ordinary streets four
levels high as they are in Chicago's Loop, but Chi shows it can be done.

> and tremendous congestion. I don't see a solution to traffic jams
> without a cessation of growth. But people are reluctant to think at
> that level. They'll try in vain to build the problem out of existence
> and it will keep getting worse.

Trying to legislate no-growth can only ever produce one of two results:

1) If you try to stop (or divert) growth by refusing to build the
infrastructure that growth makes necessary, the growth happens anyway.
This is the problem in CA and most of the US.

2) You can stop growth at the source by regulating births as Red China
does, but then you get the tyranny they've got now plus the pension
crisis they're about to have. (By regulating births from 1986 to the
present, China has massively cut its number of young people so that its
pension system will actually go into crisis _before_ ours even though
theirs is decades more recent!)

What you, and the whole enviro movement, don't get is that new people
are not a burden to the economy -- they're its greatest source of new
wealth. The proof of this is in the works of Julian Simon, especially
"Ultimate Resource 2".

In article >,
Scott en Aztlán <newsgroup> wrote:
>On Mon, 13 Dec 2004 12:35:40 -0600,
>(Matthew Russotto) wrote:
>
>>>>>Induced Traffic is a scientifically validated fact. I'm surprised that
>>>>>an expert on nonsensical driving such as yourself doesn't know that.
>>>>
>>>>Induced traffic is largely a myth.
>>>
>>>http://userpages.chorus.net/burleigh...affic_bib.html
>>
>>Most of the links on that page are dead.
>
>Did you bother to read the ones that aren't?

After several came up dead and one came up with mere advocacy rather
than any sort of data, I quit bothering.

>I suggest you start with these:
>
>http://www.secondcrossing.org/Assess...ced_Travel.htm

Contains no data.

>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv...t/traffic4.htm

Advocacy. I used to live there. It wasn't "induced traffic" which
filled up I-270. It was "too little, too late". The region was
growing, the roads were not. Several roads (such as the inter-county
connector) have been delayed or canceled, and Marylands (intentional)
hub-and-spoke development funnels everyone onto I-270. People were
ALREADY moving to Northern Montgomery and Frederick counties before
I-270 was widened; I lived in Frederick County myself, before and
duing the widening.

>If it's a myth, it should be trivial for you to debunk it.

Does not follow.

>Bottom line: I provided FACTS to back up my statement. If you can't do
>the same for yours, then STFU.

What little facts you have do not lead to the conclusion you make.

Some officials involved with the project, such as former State Highway
Administration head Hal Kassoff, attribute the runaway traffic volumes
to Maryland's buoyant economy.

"Highways don't cause traffic," said Kassoff, now vice president of
highway programs for the Parsons Brinckerhoff Inc. engineering
firm. He dismissed the notion of induced travel as "simplistic."

In article >,
Scott en Aztlán <newsgroup> wrote:
>On Mon, 13 Dec 2004 12:35:40 -0600,
>(Matthew Russotto) wrote:
>
>>>>>Induced Traffic is a scientifically validated fact. I'm surprised that
>>>>>an expert on nonsensical driving such as yourself doesn't know that.
>>>>
>>>>Induced traffic is largely a myth.
>>>
>>>http://userpages.chorus.net/burleigh...affic_bib.html
>>
>>Most of the links on that page are dead.
>
>Did you bother to read the ones that aren't?

After several came up dead and one came up with mere advocacy rather
than any sort of data, I quit bothering.

>I suggest you start with these:
>
>http://www.secondcrossing.org/Assess...ced_Travel.htm

Contains no data.

>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv...t/traffic4.htm

Advocacy. I used to live there. It wasn't "induced traffic" which
filled up I-270. It was "too little, too late". The region was
growing, the roads were not. Several roads (such as the inter-county
connector) have been delayed or canceled, and Marylands (intentional)
hub-and-spoke development funnels everyone onto I-270. People were
ALREADY moving to Northern Montgomery and Frederick counties before
I-270 was widened; I lived in Frederick County myself, before and
duing the widening.

>If it's a myth, it should be trivial for you to debunk it.

Does not follow.

>Bottom line: I provided FACTS to back up my statement. If you can't do
>the same for yours, then STFU.

What little facts you have do not lead to the conclusion you make.

Some officials involved with the project, such as former State Highway
Administration head Hal Kassoff, attribute the runaway traffic volumes
to Maryland's buoyant economy.

"Highways don't cause traffic," said Kassoff, now vice president of
highway programs for the Parsons Brinckerhoff Inc. engineering
firm. He dismissed the notion of induced travel as "simplistic."

Scott en Aztlán wrote:
> Observation #1: The streets downtown are TWO levels high, not FOUR.
> The street level was raised to pull the streets out of the mud and
> install sewers.

Lake Shore Drive has four.

Scott en Aztlán wrote:
> Observation #1: The streets downtown are TWO levels high, not FOUR.
> The street level was raised to pull the streets out of the mud and
> install sewers.

Lake Shore Drive has four.

In article >,
Scott en Aztlán <newsgroup> wrote:
>On Tue, 14 Dec 2004 09:40:45 -0600,
>(Matthew Russotto) wrote:
>
>>>I suggest you start with these:
>>>
>>>http://www.secondcrossing.org/Assess...ced_Travel.htm
>>
>>Contains no data.
>>
>>>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv...t/traffic4.htm
>>
>>Advocacy. I used to live there. It wasn't "induced traffic" which
>>filled up I-270. It was "too little, too late". The region was
>>growing, the roads were not.
>
>Why was the region growing if there was no good way to get to parts of
>it?

Because there were (and are) a lot of jobs there, and the school
systems were by and large fairly decent.

>If pockets of the region were growing for local reasons, as opposed to
>being bedroom communities for some other portion of the region, then
>better roads aren't needed at all, as most traffic would be local.

You still seem to be stuck in the whole "live in the suburbs, commute
downtown" thing. That's not how it works. Both commercial and
residential development moved up the I-270 corridor. The majority of
the commuting is south to work and north to home, but not to a single
central place. As for why it worked that way -- the further north you
went, the less housing would cost. A crappy one bedroom apartment in
Gaithersburg was well over $800/month when I worked there. A nice one
in Frederick was $650/month.

>You only need better roads when you live in one place (e.g. a sprawling
>bedroom community on the fringes of the metropolitan region) and work
>in another (in a downtown high rise or an office park on the other
>side of the region).

If you assume what you are trying to demonstrate, you won't get far.
More people means more traffic means you need better roads.

>Roads today are built for the same reasons streetcar lines were 100
>years ago: many are built not to serve existing populations, but to
>help real estate developers sell houses in previously undeveloped
>areas. People won't move to your McMansion tract if there's no way for
>them to get to work once they're living there, so developers pull
>strings to get "roads to nowhere" built - and then the roads fill up
>AFTER the houses are sold.

Again, you're assuming what you're trying to prove.

In article >,
Scott en Aztlán <newsgroup> wrote:
>On Tue, 14 Dec 2004 09:40:45 -0600,
>(Matthew Russotto) wrote:
>
>>>I suggest you start with these:
>>>
>>>http://www.secondcrossing.org/Assess...ced_Travel.htm
>>
>>Contains no data.
>>
>>>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv...t/traffic4.htm
>>
>>Advocacy. I used to live there. It wasn't "induced traffic" which
>>filled up I-270. It was "too little, too late". The region was
>>growing, the roads were not.
>
>Why was the region growing if there was no good way to get to parts of
>it?

Because there were (and are) a lot of jobs there, and the school
systems were by and large fairly decent.

>If pockets of the region were growing for local reasons, as opposed to
>being bedroom communities for some other portion of the region, then
>better roads aren't needed at all, as most traffic would be local.

You still seem to be stuck in the whole "live in the suburbs, commute
downtown" thing. That's not how it works. Both commercial and
residential development moved up the I-270 corridor. The majority of
the commuting is south to work and north to home, but not to a single
central place. As for why it worked that way -- the further north you
went, the less housing would cost. A crappy one bedroom apartment in
Gaithersburg was well over $800/month when I worked there. A nice one
in Frederick was $650/month.

>You only need better roads when you live in one place (e.g. a sprawling
>bedroom community on the fringes of the metropolitan region) and work
>in another (in a downtown high rise or an office park on the other
>side of the region).

If you assume what you are trying to demonstrate, you won't get far.
More people means more traffic means you need better roads.

>Roads today are built for the same reasons streetcar lines were 100
>years ago: many are built not to serve existing populations, but to
>help real estate developers sell houses in previously undeveloped
>areas. People won't move to your McMansion tract if there's no way for
>them to get to work once they're living there, so developers pull
>strings to get "roads to nowhere" built - and then the roads fill up
>AFTER the houses are sold.

Again, you're assuming what you're trying to prove.

>>> Observation #1: The streets downtown are TWO levels high, not FOUR.
>>> The street level was raised to pull the streets out of the mud and
>>> install sewers.

>> Lake Shore Drive has four.

> Where?
>
> Certainly not the section that runs in front of Navy Pier - I've
> walked underneath that section, and there are only 2 levels.
>
> But more to the point, LSD does not run through downtown, so even if
> it has 4 levels at some point, my observation above still stands.

You must be using a definition of "downtown" that doesn't include the
Loop.

>>> Observation #1: The streets downtown are TWO levels high, not FOUR.
>>> The street level was raised to pull the streets out of the mud and
>>> install sewers.

>> Lake Shore Drive has four.

> Where?
>
> Certainly not the section that runs in front of Navy Pier - I've
> walked underneath that section, and there are only 2 levels.
>
> But more to the point, LSD does not run through downtown, so even if
> it has 4 levels at some point, my observation above still stands.

You must be using a definition of "downtown" that doesn't include the
Loop.