More lanes = More cars

[Slick Vik]

The question that I've never seen answered about induced demand is what the coorelation is to economic growth. Taking the Katy Freeway example, yes there is more traffic after the expansion, but it's also pretty obvious that West Houston has been in a prolonged boom since it was completed. So it's great to argue that removing a highway doesn't cause congestion but I haven't been able to find any evaluation of the economic impact of that removal and would be very curious to see a non-biased study of that subject.

I fully expect the anecdotal responses, but those aren't studies.

Or the economy picked up around the time parts of it completed. Had it fully completed in the heart of the recession its economic impact would be zero. Edited June 18, 2014 by Slick Vik

[livincinco]

Or the economy picked up around the time parts of it completed. Had it fully completed in the heart of the recession its economic impact would be zero.

Have I ever told you how impressive it is that you can be 100% certain of a completely hypothetical situation? Kind of reminds me of Stephen Colbert's comment about George Bush - "He believes the same thing on Wednesday that he believed on Monday. No matter what happens on Tuesday."

[IronTiger]

Or the economy picked up around the time parts of it completed. Had it fully completed in the heart of the recession its economic impact would be zero.

Actually it started to wrap up just as the recession started. It's laughable that you'll go out of your way to try to discredit freeways as being worthless.

[Slick Vik]

Actually it started to wrap up just as the recession started. It's laughable that you'll go out of your way to try to discredit freeways as being worthless.

It still hasn't wrapped up. There is construction around shepherd even now.

Have I ever told you how impressive it is that you can be 100% certain of a completely hypothetical situation? Kind of reminds me of Stephen Colbert's comment about George Bush - "He believes the same thing on Wednesday that he believed on Monday. No matter what happens on Tuesday."

So massive investment was being made during the recession?

[IronTiger]

It still hasn't wrapped up. There is construction around shepherd even now.

The big highway with "too many lanes" west of 610 is the one I'm referring to and the one that's often cited. You're trying to change the goalposts to try to make your point, which isn't working.

Point is, "induced demand" just takes two pieces of evidence and attempts to make it truth without taking into other variables. I've also found that the main people who use the "induced demand" argument happen to be fans of mass transit.

[Slick Vik]

The big highway with "too many lanes" west of 610 is the one I'm referring to and the one that's often cited. You're trying to change the goalposts to try to make your point, which isn't working.

Point is, "induced demand" just takes two pieces of evidence and attempts to make it truth without taking into other variables. I've also found that the main people who use the "induced demand" argument happen to be fans of mass transit.

I never changed the goalposts I referred to the project as a whole.

[JLWM8609]

It still hasn't wrapped up. There is construction around shepherd even now.

 

 

The Katy Freeway widening wrapped up in 2009 and the project's borders were from the Ft. Bend county line to Washington Ave. The project you're referring to around Shepherd has nothing to do with the 03-09 Katy Freeway widening.

[samagon]

Or the economy picked up around the time parts of it completed. Had it fully completed in the heart of the recession its economic impact would be zero.

 

Actually, the katy freeway is a terrific example of the whole point of the article.

 

Increase the lanes on the freeway and it will be used more frequently.

 

It's no secret that people bemoan that after the expansion that the drive times on the freeway are just as bad as they were pre-expansion. So what was gained by adding 20 lanes on each side?

 

There's a good point in his post though, increase the density of the traffic and you increase the commerce that will naturally occur on that corridor. Same as how rail ridership should increase the commerce because it's a denser form of transit, to deny that one has this effect and that the other does not, that's just silly.

 

As an anecdotal point to the katy freeway, my family lives in Alief, and I have many friends who still live there. Prior to the expansion, I chose 59 as the means to get from my house in the east end to my parents, or friends, but after construction was completed, I find myself using Katy fwy rather than 59.

Edited June 19, 2014 by samagon

[livincinco]

Exactly, there seems to be an assumption that if you remove capacity, the balance of the network just "absorbs" the capacity, but that seems to be a very questionable assumption to me. It's also quite likely that decreased capacity causes workers and/or companies to locate elsewhere which would cause a reduction in the economic productivity of the area.

I truly haven't seen any analysis of that and it seems to be a rather obvious question.

Edited June 19, 2014 by livincinco

[Slick Vik]

Exactly, there seems to be an assumption that if you remove capacity, the balance of the network just "absorbs" the capacity, but that seems to be a very questionable assumption to me. It's also quite likely that decreased capacity causes workers and/or companies to locate elsewhere which would cause a reduction in the economic productivity of the area.

I truly haven't seen any analysis of that and it seems to be a rather obvious question.

Has this reduction happened in San Francisco?

[IronTiger]

Problem is, removing freeways really is an unknown and needs more studying to make sure it could be done carefully. There aren't very many highway removal projects, ever: a few of them (Milwaukee, Portland) involved removing an older pre-Interstate road when it redundant (yet are often touted as "freeway removal"), Boston relocated theirs entirely underground (which didn't actually "remove" a freeway, actually replacing an old 1940s viaduct with a new one), San Francisco's freeways were only spurs to begin with and structurally compromised, and Seoul's freeway we really don't know a whole lot about the traffic patterns (Google Earth suggests that the surface streets were always more popular) or its structural integrity (it was built over a river, after all).

 

Assuming that something is the case based on a few rare examples of an already-rare event is just a rather shaky assumption. The only way to really "prove" something is if we start closing off a lot of freeways to measure any economic effects, and even if "hey, freeways are worth something", we would have destroyed economies in the process.