Re: The Roots of Congestion
- From: "Larry Gross" <gross.larry@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 4 Nov 2005 03:01:05 -0800
John Lansford wrote:
> "Elliott Plack, USAR" <elliott.plack@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>
> Yes there is. Once you realize that the road needs more than 4 lanes
> each direction, the law of diminishing returns starts to show up.
> Motorists don't like having to fight their way across four or more
> lanes of traffic to get to an exit from the inside lane, so the more
> lanes you've got over 4-5 each direction, the less they get used.
>
> As for the reason why they fill up shortly after a road is widened,
> that is a complicated subject that hardly anyone will agree on. Some
> claim that "induced demand" will fill up any road improvements almost
> as soon as it is built. Politicians tend to forget their development
> plans that the road design was based on when they see underused lanes
> on a new road. Then there is diverted traffic, which are motorists
> who used to be using other roads who change their route to use the
> newly opened or widened facility.
I tend to think that engineering is a separate discipline than planning
though I'm quite sure that highway engineers are forced into planning
activities as part of their duties. Engineering a road involves things
like construction and configuration whereas planning gets into things
like WHERE to put the road. The process starts with a Purpose and Need
analysis which then follows into "Location and Design".
Purpose and Need and Location all get into significant tradeoffs and
making value judgements. A proposed new road involves quite a bit of
analysis including looking at existing infrastructure and determining
how a new road would affect and be affected by that infrastructure. The
value judgements come in when looking at where the "best" place would
be to locate the new road. For instance, we normally rule out things
like the Capitol or the White House, skyscrapers, even hospitals.. the
list goes on and on - so the process, in my view, tends towards
identifying candidate locations deemed as "useable" and the discussion
usually tends towards listing the things that will be lost - like
homes, wetlands, greenspace, businesses, etc. There is virtually no
category that is not owned by someone or some entity and virtually no
place that doesn't have advocates who value that place.
When controversy predictably ensues - those who value places are often
demonized as "standing in the way" of "needed" roads and slowing down
the process and driving up costs but methinks, in the end, there is
almost always going to be one or more Ox's
'gored' and it all depends on whose OX is involved.
The reality is though, that what drives almost all of the process, is
plain ole money. There is almost no area where their roads funds exceed
their road needs, and in the end, it's about making choices about where
to spend limited funds. Building new roads or even expanding existing
ones in urban or urbanizing areas is - in a word - VERY expensive - and
don't forget you building roads that won't be used except at rush hour
in many cases.
For instance, the Wilson Bridge will cost 2.4 billion dollars. The
Springfield Interchange will cost almost 700 million. To give
perspective, the annual budget for VDOT for the entire state of
Virginia is about 3 billion. It shouldn't take a rocket scientist to
understand that many such costly projects cannot be afforded on an
annual basis.
Folks tend to think that because they pay gas taxes that they are
entitled to as many new roads as are "needed" and think little further
than that. They don't even realize that almost HALF of VDOT's budge is
for maintenance of existing roads - and that cost goes up every year as
newly built roads are added that will also require maintenance.
I'll finish by saying that one of the most disengenuous processes
associated with road building is when "studies" are done when almost
everyone involved in the study knows fully well that the money for the
project being studied does not exist and will not be available for a
LONG, long time in most cases. A lot of money is spent in analysis and
planning for something where funding does not exist and probably will
not be available for years if not decades. Then someone totals up the
estimated construction costs of ALL of these studies and represents
the results as a "Crisis" upon which to use as the basis for increasing
taxes and then the real fun begins.
.
- References:
- Re: The Roots of Congestion
- From: John Lansford
- Re: The Roots of Congestion
- Prev by Date: Re: The Roots of Congestion
- Next by Date: Re: Article: Beyond Gasoline - Hyrdogen?
- Previous by thread: Re: The Roots of Congestion
- Next by thread: Re: The Roots of Congestion
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
