- So what’s going on here? Arguably, our mental model of traffic is just wrong. We tend to think of traffic volumes, and trip-making generally as inexorable forces of nature. The diurnal flow of 250,000 vehicles a day on an urban freeway like I-85 is just as regular and predictable as the tides. What this misses is that there’s a deep behavioral basis to travel. Human beings will shift their behavior in response to changing circumstances. If road capacity is impaired, many people can decide not to travel, change when they travel, change where they travel, or even change their mode of travel. The fact that Carmageddon almost never comes is powerful evidence of induced demand: people travel on roadways because the capacity is available for their trips, and when the capacity goes away, so does much of the trip making.
Now hold on a minute. That's because every news outlet in the City warned people to simply not drive anywhere that weekend for the better part of six months. As a result, people laid in plans to stay local and not drive anywhere that weekend. It's not just that people "avoided taking trips in the area" its that people avoided taking trips throughout LA and Orange county. IT FUCKING SUCKS. Because while the authors are all hot'n'bothered about how Carmageddon didn't happen, The Rampture sure as shit did and lemme tell ya - knowing that no matter where you fucking go, there will be construction slows shit down to a fucking crawl. That shit bumped a 45 minute commute into a 90 minute commute and it did it for a solid year. This is fundamentally arguing that people choose to commute and if the road goes out, well shit maybe they won't go to work. I have an idea. Why don't we assess the economic impact to businesses along that corridor... and maybe assess shipping costs on stuff that passes through Atlanta... and I dunno, maybe take a quality-of-life survey for everybody along those surface streets during and after the repair rather than dismissively say "well, it's Monday and things aren't shit yet so therefore they never will be."One of the most famous instances of this phenomena was in Los Angeles. In 2011 and 2012, the state highway department closed a 10-mile stretch of Interstate 405 on several weekends to rebuild overpasses. The media was awash in predictions of Carmaggedon. But surprisingly, nothing of the kind happened.
So what happens when we take a major urban freeway out of service for a couple of months?
What this misses is that there’s a deep behavioral basis to travel. Human beings will shift their behavior in response to changing circumstances. If road capacity is impaired, many people can decide not to travel, change when they travel, change where they travel, or even change their mode of travel.
The author of this article? Yea, he wrote that shitty piece on Louisville and the bridge tolls a while back. (Note: Traffic is better because truckers are paying the $10 as it saves then about 20 minutes travel time through town. Fewer trucks in the old bridge interchange makes the traffic faster for the rest of us) I looked into the guy a bit. He lives in Portland, Oregon. One of the most walkable/bikable cities in the US. And look, he hates cars and highways. No shit, really. Meanwhile those of us who do not live in Hipsterstan need cars, need highways etc. Great, now I'm pissed off at the internet again.