[da1 related] New Houston Mayor to Texas DOT: Wider Roads Mean More Traffic

LOL. I wish I could be as ignorant as you, must be blissful.

 

Read the LA Times article I posted. We've likely already passed "peak transit ridership"...

educate yourself

 

No the statement is illogical. Self driving taxis using a bus lane would destroy passenger per hour rates of a regular car lane, be more way convenient than rail and safer than passenger cars. The infrastructure costs would be nothing compared to rail and private companies would buy the cars.

 

Through federal funds and local laws (minimum lots, setbacks, and minimum parking) sprawl has essentially been subsidized over a good chunk of the 20th century and onward into the 21st.

Do free market folks actually believe sprawl would be what the market dictates?

 

That opinion piece?

Uber rides aren't "cheap" compared to bus fare and train fare. How long will it take autonomous vehicles to be affordable for the masses? It still seems transit, any mode, is still going to need large capitol to get off the ground.

Automobile users sure as heck haven't paid for the roads or the upkeep.

 

autonomous taxis will be cheaper than uber. so probably as soon as they are adopted.

 

So, you agree with my statement that a solution relying on cheaper taxis would increase people using "convenient" solo-passengers vehicles vs mass transit alternatives. It would put more cars on the roads. You just said that.

And you make up for that increase by giving the taxis use of the bus lanes? I'm trying to remember where the bus lanes are on freeways? You mean HOVs? So, HOV car-poolers are going to share with taxis?

So, your solution is to put more cars on the road, because they are cheaper. And you promise better flow, despite increased volume, because computers will make everything more efficient.

* I tried to fit in your "private companies would buy the cars", too. But couldn't figure that part out wrt reducing traffic.

 

No I don't agree. I think it would take people out of private cars not out of mass transit. It could easily increase mass transit and eliminate park and rides. I said it would increase passengers per hour, probably less cars on the road as autonomous lanes would never be parking lots.

No autonomous would not be on the same lanes as HOV. You lose advantage if you have a driver looking at his phone when 10 linked cars are rolling at 70 mph.

 

If you move a person from their own car to another, you are not reducing cars on the road. If it is cheaper and more convenient than mass transit, its use will increase, thus more cars.

Your theory is about futuristic, smoother flow, but requires special lanes, and must offset increased flow volume from more use of solo-vehicles.

I'd prefer to see a commercial-based, carpooling service that uses HOVs. But we still seem too focused on solo-vehicles. It's in our culture. I don't see Uber moving towards drivers with shuttles and willingness to set up, reliable daily routes for car-poolers like the Airport Shuttle Vans. Uber's model is not ride-sharing. It's about on-demand for point to point. Not point to point to point to point to final destination of all drivers...like HOV carpooling.

Uber is actually moving towards logistics as their big growth potential, which has nothing to do with traffic reductions.

 

Are you talking about total cars used in a given day or total cars on the freeway at a single point in time. If flow increases and average travel time drops, why would number of cars on the road increase? The number of cars per mile of freeway is much higher in bumper to bumper traffic.

I doubt it will be cheaper than mass transit, just Uber. Such a service would be easy to utilize EVs also.

I don't see why single passenger cars would increase. I think autonomous taxis would increase car pooling and mass transit. It makes getting to mass transit less of a hassle. Like bigtexxx said. Mass transit is incredibly inconvenient.

That's great but like you said the obstacle is culture and not technology. I ride a motorcycle and lane split. A study found that if 10 percent of all private cars were replaced by motorcycles in the traffic flow of the test area, total time losses for all vehicles decreased by 40 percent and total emissions reduced by 6 percent Great, but won't happen. Motorcycles and lane splitting are common for single passengers everywhere but the USA.

 

I don't know why we're even debating this. We'll have flying cars soon anyway and sky's the limit for lanes.

 

So let me get this straight. Are people really saying that the city of Houston should hold off on major mass transit solutions and wait for the arrival of self driving cars?

That's like a cancer patient holding out on treatment in favor of waiting on the cure.

 

Yeah except the city isnt going to die. Terrible analogy.

 

I saw one of these once and had no idea they existed. Blew my mind.

 

I'm not saying that. I don't see why it's an either/or question. Houston should have heavy rail to take traffic off of freeways today, but they should also be considering building the infrastructure that will allow cars in the future to self-drive in high traffic density situations based on data provided by that freeway infrastructure in the future. In my mind, it's just a technological advance that makes the existing freeways more efficient without having to continue these awful widening projects. If traffic is the issue, we shouldn't limit ourselves to either reducing the volume of traffic or expanding the volume of the road; we should focus on both. If self-driving based on data made available by freeway infrastructure becomes a reality, you can effectively increase the volume of road space to be used by traffic by having vehicles safely self-drive at the highest speeds the road can be safely traversed at. You become more limited by natural obstacles like grade and quality of the road, degree of turns, and so on, and also by the engineering of the vehicle. It's just another potential solution that's sometimes cast aside as unrealistic, but the technology already exists to make it a reality. It's just a matter of building the infrastructure to support the market.

 

I say this everytime we talk about Houston transit, but the fact that 4 million people are already spread out over 550 square miles of low density development means you are never going to serve them with a train, especially in a city with 4 months of unwalkable heat and 60 days of unwalkable rain. It's not like NY where you can walk 1500 feet in any direction and catch a train.

Our best approach would be to phase out the 9-5 workday. If you are not driving at rush hour, you can drive all over this town at 65 mph. I do it all the time.

For the future imagine if autonomous cars (electric) were driving in a coordinated car "train" where everyone in the HOV and toll lanes were going 70 mph. bumper to bumper with no stupid panic stops or rubber-necking, including commuter busses from park and rides.

By the way 610/59 is already scheduled for a rebuild.

 

There are 6.3 million people in the Houston area. Facts are important.

Very unlikely that you can phase out the 8-5 (very few work 9-5) work day. The collaboration benefits of having the employees there at the same time are huge.

 

I honestly don't see how traffic is such a big problem it requires solutions this drastic. Admittedly I'm a little intransigent on driver-less cars but the workday idea above seems tailored towards a very narrow sector of the workforce and would cause more problems than it would solve.

 

Save for the fact that driver less cars are here technologically, and more of a participatory and liability problem at this point, and cancer might possibly never, ever be cured.

 

I agree traffic is not a debilitating problem even for rush hour drivers. There are worse conditions than sitting in a private, climate controlled environment within contact of anyone on the planet, with any music or book you might want, with access to any food or drink you might want.

It could be improved if the frustration of stop/start driving could be alleviated though. That seems easily within the current technology. Get on the freeway, flip on the driving program and open up the laptop.

Back to the low density issue, individuals in Houston are going to always require individual last mile solutions because of the distances required to aggregate enough people onto public transportation. That's why Parkn'Ride seems the best route here over high density solutions like trains.