[DismalScientist]

@Tim Kelley 9914 wrote:

The CC trail is downhill as you travel south–you probably see most of the people speeding in that direction.

Also: http://ballston.patch.com/articles/local-pathletes-pursue-championship-dreams

Tim: At least you stick to the streets for your Cat 6 races. :p

[DismalScientist]

@Roscoe 9877 wrote:

But why are so many of these people on this trail just so consistently and totally INCONSIDERATE and RUDE ? They make me sick. A generalization, I know…..but the DC/MD area cyclists I’ve encountered are far and away the rudest, most disgustingly inconsiderate group of cyclists I’ve seen in my life. I just don’t understand it.

Seeing as you have omitted VA cyclists, this seem reasonable.:p

[DismalScientist]

@jabberwocky 9901 wrote:

Riding abreast is actually good etiquette on narrow roads. If a cyclist and car cannot share a lane legally (which is much more common than people think), the car must leave the lane entirely to pass safely anyway, and riding abreast is then helpful because it reduces the distance the car needs to pass.

Is this really true? My standard practice if driving is to move over the center line giving the cyclists 6 or 7 feet. Of course, there are some drivers that think you can’t touch a double yellow line. I drives me nuts as a cyclist when drivers complain that they can’t pass because of the double yellow line even though sight lines are sufficient to safely get by a relatively slow moving cyclist.

[DismalScientist]

@dasgeh 9862 wrote:

I believe there are quite a few of us Arlingtonians who realize that the cars on the freeway have got to go somewhere at some point, and therefore our preference is fewer cars, both on and off the freeway.
*This really should be qualified — (1) most people perceive they’re better off when they drive alone, because of the immediate benefits (flexibility, speed) and costs (mainly gas), however many people would not be better off if they rationally took into account longer term costs (car insurance, depreciation, safety risks) and (2) even those longer term costs don’t capture the true cost of driving to our society — if they did, the cost-benefit analysis for many would look very different.

Just because it’s not the perfect end-all-be-all solution doesn’t mean it’s not good, in that it makes transportation marginally better for some people. It’s certainly a problem that we don’t have a single systematic plan to address transportation in the region, but I am confident that Arlington’s actions have helped reduce the number of cars on the road. In regards to 66’s restrictions, I think that some people have been encouraged to carpool because of them. It’s not a complete solution, but it helps.

I disagree that Metro can’t expand in this corridor. The Silver Line (to Dulles) could be extended further North into Arlington (under Lee Hwy?) and through Gtown, increasing rush hour capacity (imagine the Silver and Orange meeting at EFC then diverging again). It would be expensive, but if we stop throwing money at roads, maybe we could afford it.

To the earlier point about people acting outside of their self-interest [sorry – I’m too lazy to track down the quote], that’s not really what’s going on — there’s a collective action problem. We’d all be better off if everyone drove less. But each individual is “better off” when they drive alone*, and the individual is only making a choice for him/herself, we get a lot more people driving.

1) I don’t like arguments that people don’t take into account longer term costs. Saying they don’t is like saying they aren’t acting in their own self-interest, which seems mighty presumptuous. I agree that externalities, by definition, distort private costs from social costs. This seems a better argument for you. Of course, my original statement was just discussing pure preferences, comparing one car on an arterial road vs. one on I-66. This was meant to counter what I perceive Will’s argument that I was somehow cherry-picking streets on which I preferred less traffic when I cited Arl Blvd, Lee Hwy, Wash. Blvd, and Wilson Blvd, which are, of course, the 4 main east-west arterial roads in Arlington.

2) I wasn’t particularly keen on the options provided. They discussed adding bus lanes, as if that would help given that traffic is generally free-flowing in the rush hour direction! The further discussed a bus rapid transit system with dedicated stops. I don’t see how this is conceptually all that different from Metro, which would be only a few blocks from any bus loading facilities in Arlington. Any facility along the Dulles Toll Road will be replaced by the Silver Line. Furthermore, any bus facility outside of the beltway doesn’t really change road infrastructure needs inside the beltway.
(Note I use the term free-flowing here rather than capacity, as I note Justin’s correct point.)
I’m not anti-HOV and recognize their benefits. I think my main point is that I think the cheapest and easiest way of adding road capacity would be inside the walls of I-66. However, because the HOV lanes are free flowing, adding them as HOV wouldn’t move more traffic. I haven’t figured what I would propose. Perhaps HOT/HOV lanes with the proceeds to crabon bikes for the truly needy.:rolleyes:

3) I choose the words “Metro infrastructure” carefully. Obviously the way Metro should expand is by using longer, more frequent trains. The Silver Line would help with this. Putting metro under Lee Hwy would be extremely disruptive. Not even the most wild-eyed road proponent would suggest something similar, but with pavement.
In terms of “throwing money at roads,” different people have different standards of what this means. Earlier in this thread was a discussion of the trend in lane miles and per capita lane miles.

[DismalScientist]

@WillStewart 9856 wrote:

And this one addresses some of the techniques involved in success (or failure) of HOV projects.

http://www.mountain-plains.org/pubs/pdf/MPC04-158.pdf

This study addresses the use of HOV in Salt Lake City and (after an exceedingly quick glance) seems to show that the HOV lanes move more people than the general purpose lanes. That’s all fine and dandy. Here the HOV lanes and the general purpose lanes were on the same freeway. The problem with Arlington is that I-66 are the HOV lanes and Arlington Blvd. acts as the general purpose lanes. I think this is the only HOV system in the country that is set up this way.

[DismalScientist]

@WillStewart 9856 wrote:

This captures your entire motivation. You want the road network to be changed so that traffic on your preferred road is lightened, regardless of the impact to the rest of the travelers.

Others are calling for a systemic solution that addresses the greater good. I personally think it would have been better just to bring in the Metro and not 66, to reduce the amount of suburban sprawl, though car addiction was even higher then, undoubtedly affecting the decision.

I don’t think I am quite that provincial. I think the majority of Arlington residents should prefer cars on the freeway rather than on the surface streets.

I think the survey and the general question don’t seek and can’t seek a systematic solution. The question is what to do to a specific highway corridor. Because drivers can take other corridors, any action on one corridor can’t be a systematic solution. Bringing in more Metro may be a systematic approach, but since the Metro infrastructure in the corridor is already fully built out, this isn’t really an option when discussing this particular corridor.

[DismalScientist]

Am I to interpret this as saying that I must anticipate potential bonehead maneuvers by drivers before entering the crosswalk even when the light indicates I have the right of way? Furthermore, these anticipated bonehead maneuvers can commence even after I entered the crosswalk? Ouch… Ride defensively everyone.

[DismalScientist]

@baiskeli 9844 wrote:

Sure, and I’m saying that for some, the suburbs come out ahead because the alternatives are so rare. There isn’t much higher-density development to choose, and what is there is expensive for that reason. They may make the best choice for them given the choices, but the choices are limited.

You don’t see how someone living in an Apartment or condo in Arlington, perhaps not even owning or rarely using a car, could live cheaper than a standard home in Arlington?

Ah, but that goes right back to the point – development is inextricably linked to transportation. The government needs to provide the mode of transportation that makes high density development work. And of course there’s other things like zoning involved, to name just one of many factors. There is no pure free market involved here.

By the way, I’ve never debated a real economist and it’s scaring the hell out of me!

1) I think condo prices around Metro stations are so expensive because the land around Metro stations is limited and developers are going to build units for those people with lots of money who don’t particularly value lawns and sidewalks to shovel. If you want cheaper apartments, there are some on bus lines. I guess what I am saying is that it is difficult to imagine that there are people whose marginal decisions are between such widely diverse options like Loudoun and Arlington.
2) You misunderstood my statement. I though one possibility you were arguing was that smart growth would lower the price of single family housing in Arlington, which might allow someone from Loudoum to buy in. Although I don’t think think that smart growth would lower property values, I find it hard to believe that a person is sufficiently poor that he was forced to live in Loudoun, that a decrease in Arlington values would allow him to buy in.
3) I agree that development is linked to transportation. But it seems that Metro in Arlington is fully developed. The only thing stopping them greedy developers in providing the density the people want is zoning changes. But here, smart growth could be characterized as government simply getting out of the way by changing zoning laws. It doesn’t require affirmative action by the government.

4) I don’t think we are debating. I am just trying to lay out the issues in the standard cold-hearted way for which we dismal scientists are known.

[DismalScientist]

@dasgeh 9834 wrote:

I think there are two main questions to consider:
1. Should we lift HOV restrictions on I66?
2. Should we widen I66?

1. I think the answer here is no, because it means a net increase in # of cars.
2. I say definitely not, not only because I think it will mean a net increase in # of cars in the long run (among other problematic growth patterns). Most importantly, it would cost money (even within the walls). Given limited budgets, any money spent to widen a road is money not spent on bike paths, Metro improvements, driver education, etc etc etc.

On a completely different note, does anyone out there know if there have been studies done comparing the public subsidy of roads (construction and maintenance) to the cost of fixed infrastructure for public transport. I’d be interested to know whether user fees for Metro cover the same types of things that drivers pay for (i.e. the trains, and their maintenance and operation), while the public subsidy covers that same types of things that the public subsidy of roads pays of (building and maintenance of tracks, stations, etc). Just curious.

What I would like is for road that I have problem with high amounts of traffic to be restricted and that extra traffic to be diverted to roads where the traffic doesn’t bother me. Because of the way that it is designed, the traffic on I-66 does not bother me. I would like Washington Blvd. and the rest of my commute restricted to HOV and local traffic. baiskelli would like the same for Wilson Blvd. (I presume.) Other Arlingtonians would undoubtedly like Arlington Blvd and Lee Hwy similarly restricted. Because this scheme restricts seven lanes of inbound traffic, I would throw these Fairfax commuters a bone and widen I-66 and give them 3 to 4 lanes of unrestricted traffic. Alas, this scheme is not practical.

I agree that only removing HOV restrictions would quickly cause I-66 to fill up, although I suspect that most of this effect would not impinge on Washington Blvd compared to current conditions. Traffic patterns suggest that the hoard from Fairfax prefers Arlington Blvd as their alternative to I-66. I agree that inducing single occupancy driving is a problem with removing HOV restrictions, which is why I would advocate widening and derestricting in tandem, not that that would ever happen.

On budgetary issues–who knows how tradeoffs are made?

On studies looking at subsidization rates among different modes of transportation, there are plenty of them out there and they all give the results that their sponsors want.

[DismalScientist]

@baiskeli 9835 wrote:

No, I think it means when you increase density in one place, you don’t have to have as much development spill out, because the demand has gone down. For instance, some people who would have to live in Loudoun County can now live in Arlington if they want to.

Sorry, I was less than concise. I don’t know anyone who has to live in Loudoun. I would imagine people choose to live there given their relative valuation of commuting costs, relative amenities (lawn, lack of people riding carbon bikes in full kit when they can be riding a classic steel bike with shifters on the downtube as God intended, (OOPS, that came out?) etc), housing costs, job locations, etc. I don’t see how smart growth lowers housing prices in Arlington so that people in Loudoun would choose differently. If you mean that these people would choose to live in the high density areas afforded by smart growth, then there is a profit opportunity for high density development in Arlington and it doesn’t need to be encouraged by government.

[DismalScientist]

@WillStewart 9832 wrote:

There are cultural and habit ‘inertial’ factors at play here, however. For example, I introduced a good friend of mine moving back to the area to commuter bus service. He had never taken a bus to work in his life, although there were opportunites in the past. He viewed riding buses as something the lower classes did, not someone like him in the middle class. He’s now sold on the lower financial cost and lower stress (and undoubtedly lower time).

People are also creatures of habit. Even with gas prices over $3/gallon, people continue to drive to work by themselves, sometimes for long distances and in SUVs/minivans. One interview I remember is of a person commuting from Loudoun to Arlington in an SUV who answered the question about what he was going to do about the tripling in gas prices with, “What can you do? You just have to suck it up and pay the pump prices.” We come from a very different mindset, so putting ourselves in the shoes of others is not as easy as it would seem.

My two links above address this from a parameter and algorithmic basis, so additional cites help with empircal (and derived) data;

3. An Analysis of the Relationship Between Highway Expansion and Congestion in Metropolitan Areas, November 1998, Surface Transportation Policy Project

4. INDUCED DEMAND AND ELASTICITY, US DoT, 2002

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EDIT: By the way, thank you for the collegial tone during our debate. All too often these days, exchanges are exercises in denigrating the other person instead of careful explanation of the facts and their perceived meaning.

As a general point, I really don’t have a dog in this fight. I realize that I have a minority opinion in Arlington on this issue and nothing I do is going to change that. The end result will be determined by the interplay between the state government and Arlington. Furthermore, I am not, in general, a proponent of expanding the highway system and driving in general. As stated above, I view the I-66 thing as an exception where I think the externalities associated with an expansion within the walls are are minor compared to the externalities of traffic on other routes through Arlington.

On the point of people being creatures of habit, I don’t know what to make with such arguments. Although true, any remedy comes across as “I know what right for you better than you do.” I would not want to be on the opposite end of such an argument on any different subject.

On the STPP paper, there is a potential selection issue and a causality issue.

The selection issue involves whether all of the metro areas are similarly situated in terms of the initial level of congestion. If there are a large number of low lane growth metro areas that are not congested at the beginning of the sample and, because of that lack of congestion, they do not build many lanes. If at the end of the sample, they are still not congested, what does that tell us? Well, nothing. However, it does bias down the average increase in congestion for low growth metro areas, affecting the paper’s conclusion.

The causality issue is more important. Are roads built because population grows or because of congestion? The model does not address this. One way to approach this is to make the explanatory variable (i.e. which variable to view has high vs. low construction) as the percentage increase in per capita lane miles. As an extreme example, the population of Las Vegas increased 139%, yet its lane miles increased 50%. Clearly road miles did not increase commensurate with population, yet the study treats Las Vegas as a metro area with high highway growth.

The other study talks about the generic methodology involved in computing a long run elasticity from short run elasticities and other factors. I only scanned it, but it does not seem to present any real estimate responsive to this discussion.

[DismalScientist]

@WillStewart 9826 wrote:

The cost of driving can be measured in several ways, including financial, time, stress, etc. My contention is that generated/induced traffic would create a logjam in the system (especially at the Rosslyn tunnel and Tysons ‘feeder’ road, if not also at the Roosevelt Bridge), reducing the person/hour rate of throughput. Part of this is related to culture, as well. A person in this area may be willing to accept a higher cost of driving if they are able to drive in by themselves (as the majority does, so the evidence is prima facia). Driving in alone invariably raising the financial and stress costs, and in many (or perhaps most) situations raise the time cost.

This is a multi-variate problem, though, so my contention is that point 5 (and others) will overwhelm point 6.

1) I took your statement to mean in the long run quantity (throughput) falls. This implies to me that the total (private) price increased, whether expressed in monetary, time, stress, etc. terms.
The fact that people drive by themselves tells me that they view the costs of doing so (whether monetary or other intangible) is lower than their other alternatives, be they carpooling, bicycling, transit, whatever. I view the choice of transportation as an optimization problem, not one of “acceptance.” Just because people drive doesn’t mean they want to, only that it is the least costly solution for them.

2) It most certainly is a multivariate problem. It is hard to model. As invisiblehand points out, there are few natural experiments and how do you properly account for all else equal. There are massive endogeneity problems with trying to measure the effect of induced driving on the quantity of throughput demand? Where’s the data? 😮

[DismalScientist]

@baiskeli 9824 wrote:

We don’t have to force limits on growth or population. That’s why the term “smart growth” was coined. We can offer the choice of high density or not, with the choice of transportation modes that go with that, and let people choose what they want. Right now, we put far too many resources into the low-density, car-dependent side. Enough people will choose high-density, and this will benefit those who want to drive around too by getting them off the roads and easing development pressure in the hinterlands. And when it comes to public policy, that means not constantly throwing money at widening or building new highways all the time, for one thing.

We are building a huge Metro line along the I-66 corridor right now. That’s a good choice, and we’ve already made it.

“Smart growth” as you have defined it is a hybrid solution: increasing density in some places and letting development spill out in others. I imagine opponents of Smart Growth would characterize it just increasing density. Given that people have difference in their desires to trade-off congestion vs. density, I would imagine the likely outcome would be such a hybrid result.

We shall see if the Silver line is a mistake or not. I don’t know what the ridership will look like, but with the tolls on the DTR increasing imposing a tax on drivers, it will be interesting to see the reaction. (I’m glad I don’t live off route 7!)

[DismalScientist]

@WillStewart 9821 wrote:

What tends to happen over and over again (Til Hazel, Toll Brothers, etc) is that land speculators influence the elections in outer suburbs and exurbia to install development-friendly politicians. These politicians then change land use plans (or grant waivers) so that developers can turn farmland into housing developments. The houses are inexpensive, because the land is inexpensive, and the taxes are initially cheap. When roads, schools, etc have to be built, then taxes go up and residents blame the politicians who come later.

Gee…. It seems mighty short-sighted of the voters out there to allow such politicians to be installed against the voters’ self interests.

[DismalScientist]

@WillStewart 9819 wrote:

Yes, citations are indeed important, as they help others understand how one came to take a particular position on a subject;

Generated and induced traffic;

1. Todd Litman, Generated Traffic and Induced Travel – Implications for Transport Planning, 8 June 2011, Victoria Transport Policy Institute

2. Patrick DeCorla-Souza, AICP, ACCOUNTING FOR INDUCED TRAVEL IN EVALUATION OF URBAN HIGHWAY EXPANSION, Federal Highway Administration
[/INDENT]

Thank you.
I do not argue that induced traffic does not exist. The argument that you made is that the “log jam” effect would decrease throughput in the long run because of lowering the cost of driving. This is equivalent to saying in Litman’s argument that the initial price decline along the short run demand is more than compensated by the outward shift in demand and in the long run, the price of driving would increase on net, ceteris paribus (all else equal). This is equivalent to an upward sloping long run demand curve. As a dismal scientist, I am compelled to state by the relevant licensing authority that upward-sloping long run demand curves do not exist. Hence, I said you statement was logically inconsistent.

The DeCorla-Souza article correctly categorizes sources of induced travel. My argument is that point 6 is important and I value automotive traffic being induced from unimproved facilities (Washington Blvd) more than I devalue traffic moved to the improved facility (I-66).
(Furthermore, if I lived closer to Arlington Blvd, I would make an even stronger argument that the restrictions on I-66 caused the joy and pleasure that the pseudo-freeway that Arlington Blvd has become.)

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