Problem: Can the current U.S. road system handle future urban growth efficiently?

[bunt_q]

I'm a little tired of this notion that Americans can't tear themselves away from their cars. Nonsense, of course we can. We just don't have a choice. We spent 70 years building an environment that is only effectively served by cars, and we can't all live in prewar neighborhoods. Now, if you said Americans can't bring themselves to make transportation choices that take twice as long, that's true. Not because we love our cars, but because we're not stupid.

[Dr Nevergold]

The problem isn't roadway capacity, its lack of transit oriented development and transit services.

[Dr Nevergold]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

I'm a little tired of this notion that Americans can't tear themselves away from their cars. Nonsense, of course we can. We just don't have a choice. We spent 70 years building an environment that is only effectively served by cars, and we can't all live in prewar neighborhoods. Now, if you said Americans can't bring themselves to make transportation choices that take twice as long, that's true. Not because we love our cars, but because we're not stupid.

Americans are almost incapable of transit use for the reason that property rights are sacred here. Other societies have policies in where businesses are directed to build offices and shopping integrated with transit. We have demonstration areas in special locations here, but that is about it. Urbanism in America is almost like a museum, you have special examples in certain locations, then the real world of suburbanism the US revolves around. Most of our TOD is from pre WWII society and more agrarian that pre WWII elsewhere.

Americans love the single family house... again, its not conducive to TOD. New Urbanist communities really are new suburbanism.

Most american urbanism of today has been revitalized city neighborhoods that were burned out after WWII for decades, sitting vacant, with mostly older buildings.

Even if urban TOD is to be built today, you have the problem of not enough of a city being transit accessible. Urbanism in America largely is demonstration projects in a largely suburban environment.

[Wizened Variations]

The question is economic for two principal reasons:

A) The real cost of energy is increasing due to increasing worldwide demand of a finite resource (oil)*and the interaction between all forms of energy- i.e., as the cost of oil goes up, so does coal, uranium, natural gas (long term), etc.

B) Each of us, as Bunt correctly pointed out, employees the "time-value-cost" of money where we make decisions based upon cost versus time, with the framework of the greater economy.

Regarding A):

We cannot expect cheaper transportation infrastructural costs. Cost of steel, copper, asphalt, and, cement, in terms of both real costs and in terms of the availability of money and real costs will continue to trend upward, due to worldwide demands.

This is due simply to how energy is involved in mineral extraction, refining, manufacturing, and, transportation, whose costs are directly related to the price of energy.

Now apply this to the highway grid and transportation.

1) On a practical level, the costs of new cars will continue to increase (stripping out safety features and anti-pollution features will only delay the increase.)

2) The road network will be less and less maintained, with repair increasingly going to arterials.

3) The number major improvements such as widening freeways will decline due to both absolute cost and the availability of money.

4) Due to the ripple effects of the costs of materials and energy, combined with declines in income for the bulk of the population that indirectly result, people will drive less.

However, the rate of decline in the road grid will very likely be faster than the rate of the decline in the number of road miles driven, so the long term effect is that the state of the road network will decline faster than the traffic load.

Consequently, traffic loads will increase, and commute times will continue to go up over a smaller and smaller portion of the road network.

Concerning B)

1) As the real income for the bulk of the population continues to fall (the steady state approach uses the wrong CPI), people's time value cost of money equation will change in response. As the value of people's time drops, and, the cost continues to rise people will be ever more willing to spend more time earning money, traveling to work, etc., while spending less money for that travel.

2) The amount of money spent for transportation interacts directly with the amount of money provided through employment, as well as the time spent at work. For example, if one earns $50,000/year working 8 hours per day, one will be more willing to spend more time on transportation than if the same person makes $50,000 year and works 14 hours per day. Likewise, if one earns $40,000/year for an 8 hour per day job, one would likely be willing to spend more time commuting than if the same person made $50k/year on an 8 hour per day job.

These two sets of variables interact.

One last observation:

Almost all the light rail and commuter rail systems built in the US between 1945 and 2013 were DESIGNED, approved, and, built (or being built) without acting upon the scenario that a significant part of a city and/or metro area might be FORCED to use them, for purely economic reasons. Consequently, systems have not been designed for high average speed, and, functionality. Whether this has been due to a lack of foresight or not is immaterial to the reality that the vast majority** of such systems are not INTENDED to move masses of people, but, to develop property and to boost city images.
* World production of soft oil peaked in 2005.
**The two exceptions are BART and the Washington DC subway system.

[Wizened Variations]

Originally Posted by KevinFromTexas

Austin says no.

Seriously, we need more rail. It's a capacity issue (which we're lacking). It's already been proven that things like bypassing highways and toll lanes haven't worked here. We need more capacity in the central part of the metro. Tearing down neighborhoods to expand urban streets into highways isn't an option and ruin this city. It's something that was proposed in the 1960s with highways planned all over town. Nearly every Austinite today is horrified at what was proposed back then.

Austin is a special case since we have only one interstate highway in the metro. The only other north/south artery is 2 miles west of downtown. There is a third, but it's at least 12 miles east of downtown where no one lives or wants/needs to go anyway. We do have two central highways that run east/west 5 miles north and south of downtown, and two more east/west highways that form a semi-loop around the city about 15 miles north and south of Austin.

It's too bad it would cost a fortune, because what Austin really needs is a subway system. It would be difficult here since the city is hilly and sits on limestone that is just a few feet under ground.

There are other things, too, that would help the situation. Americans can't tear themselves away from their cars. I ride my bike whenever I can.

I did not realize how lucky Austin is. Not being blanketed with freeways is a serious plus in 2013.

Austin unlike Dallas or Houston therefore might have the opportunity to put in a mass transit system that actually carries a significant part of metro traffic.

Take a look at the Calgary, AB for a low end model.

Fight any expansion of the freeway grid.

PS there are a lot of freeway 'want to be"s'

[KevinFromTexas]

^Believe me, I am SO GLAD that Austin didn't go the route of building freeways everywhere. Austin would be a very different city today if that had happened. We'd likely have tons of suburban office parks and endless sprawl more centrally located than we do. Most of the sprawl here is outside of Austin's city limits or on the extreme boundary of it.

This is what they were planning in 1962 for Austin. That red freeway running through downtown immediately north of the river is today Cesar Chavez Street - one block south of The Austonian. Instead of being a freeway it's a downtown artery. That would have put a freeway between downtown and the river. It also would have continued east of I-35 creating a huge interchange near the river and continuing on ruining neighborhoods southeast of downtown. It ultimately would have connected today with SH-71 which runs by the airport. That street today is instead developing with vertical student housing and is planned to have a future light rail line. That one north of the Capitol is 15th Street. That one would have cut downtown in half and separated it from the UT Campus. It would have cut through the heart of Austin's most urban area and then continued on east and west of downtown cutting through old neighborhoods. The red one coming in from the north into downtown is today Guadalupe Street. It is the main street of the UT Campus and West Campus neighborhood north of downtown, as well as being a major artery of downtown. It's also eyed as a possible light rail route. It also would have divided and completely changed the character of some of Austin's oldest central neighborhoods north of the UT Campus. I-35 and Mopac are the only two highways on that map that exist today.


http://www.texasfreeway.com/Austin/h...ing_maps.shtml

This was posted by our local fox affiliate today on their Facebook page:


myFOXaustin - https://www.facebook.com/myfoxaustin...type=1&theater

[Wizened Variations]

Austin needs to look at the biggest capital, DC, and improve on their system.

The issue is the route.

Only one US transportation system built since WWII has a loop around downtown (except Washington which has 2 stop loops and is planning, I believe, a one stop loop). Instead, the vast majority are a variation of pure "hub and spoke." In large metro areas pure hub and spoke systems provide little capacity to quickly travel between spokes at a 10 to 15 minute travel distance from the hub (downtown). This, IMO, radically reduces both metro wide usage and the development of destination stops outside the downtown "hub."

The central purpose of building light rail, commuter rail, and, subways needs to change in the US, and, Austin, with it's huge intelligentsia and their interactions with the State, might have the pull to actually make something that works on a world class scale.

Perhaps giving State representatives junkets to places like Tokyo and Paris, both of which have extraordinary eye candy, and, have them ride each city's respective transit system. And not for 30 minutes, but during morning and evening rush. Have them travel between two places on a map in either city that demand transfers.

You get the idea- primp them up with how Austin is becoming the 2nd Capital and the 1st Capital has a world class subway system.