How Traffic Jams Are Made In City Hall

The bad logic and failed policies of transportation planners

Ted Balaker & Sam Staley from the April 2007 issue

(Page 7 of 9)

 

In short, even cramming four times more people into the typical U.S. subdivision of 4-5 units per acre would produce only a modest uptick in transit use. And it isn't an uptick for the region. It's an uptick for the neighborhood-those living within a quarter mile of a transit stop. There is virtually no effect beyond the immediate vicinity of the transit stop, regardless of density.

 

At these densities, Americans would literally have to give up any hope of having a decent-sized yard and most would have to live in townhouses. The land use pattern would have to fundamentally change, resembling the landscape more common in the carless 19th century than in the highly mobile and adaptable 21st century.

 

Forget, at least for the moment, whether the government should effect such a sweeping change. It almost certainly can't. In a forthcoming report, Adrian Moore of the Reason Foundation (the nonprofit organization that publishes this magazine) and Randal O'Toole of the Thoreau Institute examine data from the National Personal Transportation Survey and find that doubling an urban area's density would, at most, reduce the total number of car trips by 10 percent to 20 percent. No U.S. urban area has managed to double its density or to reduce car travel by such magnitudes.

 

Real Solutions

Believe it or not, there are ways to reduce traffic congestion, even if most politicians and planners haven't been eager to adopt them. Here are five potent suggestions, ideally done not alone but in conjunction with one another:

 

Creative construction. Expanding capacity doesn't always mean adding lanes to congested roads, although that's often a good idea as well. In densely populated Southern California, portions of the highway network are elevated well above the ground, including the Harbor Transitway approaching downtown Los Angeles. In Texas, San Antonio and Austin have double-decker freeways as well. In 2006 Tampa opened its cross-town expressway, an elevated road built in the median of an existing four-lane highway.

 

If going up is a problem, you can also go down. Australia has done an effective job of using tunnels to connect highways while preserving neighborhoods, an excellent alternative to destroying businesses and homes.

 

Smarter management. Building new capacity can get you only so far. The Federal Highway Administration estimates that half of all congestion could be eliminated simply through better management of the existing road network. Among other approaches, this could mean metering freeway ramps, turning two-way streets into one-way streets, and improving traffic light coordination. According to the Institute of Transportation Engineers, better-coordinated lights can reduce stops by as much as 40 percent, thereby cutting gas consumption, emissions, and travel times.

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