this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2023
932 points (98.1% liked)

Today I Learned

17813 readers
280 users here now

What did you learn today? Share it with us!

We learn something new every day. This is a community dedicated to informing each other and helping to spread knowledge.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must begin with TIL. Linking to a source of info is optional, but highly recommended as it helps to spark discussion.

** Posts must be about an actual fact that you have learned, but it doesn't matter if you learned it today. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.**



Rule 2- Your post subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your post subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Posts and comments which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding non-TIL posts.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-TIL posts using the [META] tag on your post title.



Rule 7- You can't harass or disturb other members.

If you vocally harass or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.

For further explanation, clarification and feedback about this rule, you may follow this link.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.

Unless included in our Whitelist for Bots, your bot will not be allowed to participate in this community. To have your bot whitelisted, please contact the moderators for a short review.



Partnered Communities

You can view our partnered communities list by following this link. To partner with our community and be included, you are free to message the moderators or comment on a pinned post.

Community Moderation

For inquiry on becoming a moderator of this community, you may comment on the pinned post of the time, or simply shoot a message to the current moderators.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

For critics of widening projects, the prime example of induced demand is the Katy Freeway in Houston, one of the widest highways in the world with 26 lanes.

Immediately after Katy’s last expansion, in 2008, the project was hailed as a success. But within five years, peak hour travel times on the freeway were longer than before the expansion.

Matt Turner, an economics professor at Brown University and co-author of the 2009 study on congestion, said adding lanes is a fine solution if the goal is to get more cars on the road. But most highway expansion projects, including those in progress in Texas, cite reducing traffic as a primary goal.

“If you keep adding lanes because you want to reduce traffic congestion, you have to be really determined not to learn from history,” Dr. Turner said.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] TenderfootGungi@lemmy.world 86 points 1 year ago (4 children)

This is because the extra lane allows demand to change. It is not congested so people feel ok building and moving to further out suburbs. This continues until demand has increased to cause delays.

Note that Houston and Paris have about the same population. Paris is 1/3 the size. They are actually removing a lane from their loop highway and planting trees, and turning another lane into busses only. Only considering transportation, I would much rather live in Paris.

[–] kyle@lemm.ee 31 points 1 year ago (2 children)

If you also consider the weather and politics, I would still much rather live in Paris.

[–] DoctorTYVM@lemmy.world 26 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] hglman@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Houston has fantastic food. I will die on that hill.

[–] massive_bereavement@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I know I'm putting myself in harm's way, but I would say Austin instead. Houston is a large parking lot with buildings in-between.

[–] hglman@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Austin is not a better food city. It might be a better city, but not because of the food.

[–] massive_bereavement@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I was just being facetious; I spent quite some time in Plano and around Dallas and I don't miss it due the whole commuting thing.
I had to drive to Houston now and then it was a miserable experience, and made me bitter of the whole Americana road trip thing.

That said, on last trip, we went somewhere down to Sant Jacinto (?) and I'll gladly live there. I did had some delicious crawfish that later vomited somewhere along the I-10 East freeway.

Edit: maybe I'm just mad nobody wears ten gallon hats.

[–] deadsenator@lemmy.ca 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Let's list the reasons why Houston is better....hrmmm...I got nothing.

[–] Gigan@lemmy.world 24 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] kittenspronkles@lemmy.ml 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Plenty of Cajuns in the area, which is basically French-Swamp-People

[–] thesilverpig@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

We prefer swamp frenchies.

Source, am half swamp frenchie

[–] 1847953620@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

French bad. Wow, never heard that one before.

[–] AA5B@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

But what options do you have in Houston, compared to Paris?

You can’t just not widen roads but instead

— less sprawl - places to live closer to each other and to destinations

-- useful transit or short distance commute options

-- remove bottlenecks

These are a lot harder to do, and I don’t imagine Houston even considered it

[–] Teppic@kbin.social 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Investing is public transport can be as hard or as easy as you want it to be. Sure building a full on subterranean high density metro system might be the utopia, but actually developing a high frequency, high quality bus route with dedicated bus lanes can be low cost and hugely increase the volume of people carried Vs the lane you took from cars.
Compliment this with docking cycle rental schemes, and some dedicated cycle infrastructure and you can transform how a big chunk of people get to work ...you start to win back the city from one which is built around cars and instead making it a city for people.

[–] Iamdanno@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

In Texas, and most of the places I know of, people won't ride the bus, or the bike. When it's August and the high temp for the day is 108, with 65% relative humidity, everybody wants to get in their car with the AC blowing directly on them, and be comfortable.

In my experience, every public bus I've been on has been miserable.

[–] max@feddit.nl 1 points 1 year ago

A modern bus on a hot day is like walking into a fridge in my country. They also look about 30 years newer than whatever I've seen when it comes to American buses, so that might help a little.

[–] TenderfootGungi@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Paris also has a subway.

[–] lagomorphlecture@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago

I stayed in Paris for a few months once, never once used a car. Never once had a problem getting somewhere, either.

[–] chilicheeselies@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

This makes sense. With the increased cost of city living, and an ever increasing population; doesnt this support the need for more lanes?