Quote:
Originally Posted by jtown,man
Not all induced demand is the same, to me anyways. Lets say Houston builds like its tenth beltway...surely a lot of that traffic will be people bypassing the other 9 beltways and new development will pop up and bam...traffic.
But lets take I 95 from Richmond to DC. Currently once you get in the burbs its like 4 lanes each way and three reversable express lanes in the middle. The traffic is insane. I can get to DC in 3 hours at 3 am...but at 4 in the afternoon...its more like 5 hours. Anyways, what if I 95 went from 4 lanes each way to....6? Would there be less traffic at first? Yes. Will more people drive I 95 because theres more lanes?
I don't know. I expect the answer to be yes. I would certainly visit my dad more in DC if the traffic was better...but would adding two lanes make the time difference so great for intercity traffic to convince such a large amount of people to travel between two points at such a number that would make the two new lanes obsolete? I highly doubt that.
So after my dazed post, I will say my point is this:
Adding more lanes/highways within a region could be considered bad induced demand. Between cities I think its generally a positive thing since truckers and other users need to travel, and a fancy new train in a metro does nothing for them or their business.
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I absolutely agree that induced demand is mostly an urban/suburban issue rather than intercity or rural issue. While there are certainly intercity corridors that would benefit from things like rail service, mass transit is most useful in urban areas.
Highways outside of urban areas are actually the perfect setting for private cars. Internal combustion engines tend to operate at their peak efficiency on the highway, and you have the freedom and flexibility to travel on your own timetable despite there not being the number of people necessary to warrant frequent mass transit.
When it comes to the efficiency/effectiveness of different modes in various settings, it goes:
Mass transit and active transport (walking, biking, etc.) - Urban > Suburban > Rural
Cars - Rural > Suburban > Urban
In other words, mass transport isn't well suited to areas outside of population centers (except for planes covering vast distances) while cars aren't well suited to areas within population centers. With transit, the more people that are going to the same or adjacent destinations the better it works (since there's enough demand to warrant frequent service, and moving large numbers of people with fewer, larger vehicles is far more efficient), while for cars the more people there are going to the same or adjacent destinations the worse they work (since having so many individual vehicles wastes energy and space and creates congestion).