Bowser promised “zero traffic deaths” 10 years ago, but fatalities have doubled

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love the people on here who are pro driving but also hate traffic. Just move to LA already. Enjoy 18 lanes of jammed traffic in each direction.

Yes this makes me laugh too. What these people don't understand is that the more car-centric a city is the more people choose to drive and thus the more traffic. It's called "induced demand." It's why every time you widen a highway and add more lanes you wind up with more traffic not less.

People who think the key to making their commute easier is to eliminate bike lanes and bus lanes and other alternative forms of transportation are idiots because they don't understand every cyclist is a car not on the road. Every bus is 30-40 cars not on the road. Every metro line is thousands of cars not on the road.

If your goal is less traffic you should support every initiative to encourage people to walk or bike or take public transportation including stuff like Vision Zero that makes those alternatives safer.

If you're successful you might just wind up with a nice relaxing car commute with minimal traffic because everyone else decided to skip the car.

Though admittedly you will have to pay through the nose for parking and you may not be able to drive right up to your office due to closing certain streets to car traffic. But it would be worth it! Imagine Connecticut Avenue with virtually no traffic (except in the bike lanes) at 8am! This is actually what it's like in a lot of cities that have successful shifted most of the population to car-free travel. I was in Sweden over the summer and we rented a car and we were regularly the only car on any given street and could park basically anywhere we wanted (again parking was incredibly pricy in the cities). Probably the easiest and most pleasant driving experience I've ever had. You do have to be very alert to bikes and pedestrians but there are so many of them this isn't that hard -- they have their own wide lanes and traffic signals and as long as you follow the rules you won't have trouble.

"Induced demand" is a lie. It's a bullshit theory made up by car hating weirdos. The average new car now costs almost $50,000. You think if we make traffic run more smoothly, everybody is going to rush out to spend $50,000 on a new car? Give me a break.

+1

So we have another person here who doesn’t understand economics. Do you deny basic physics also? Do you have problems following simple logic? If so, you have a likeminded friend in the author of the post you endorsed.

The city has been trying to make traffic worse for years, and guess what's happened? Driving has become *more* popular. It is the only mode of transportation that's gaining market share. Bus ridership is down, subway ridership is down, cycling is down, even after correcting for the rise of remote work. I think your "induced demand" theory needs a little work.

You are an extremely reliable source of misinformation.

First, popularity of cycling in DC is increasing very rapidly. This article runs through the numbers: https://ggwash.org/view/96705/biking-in-the-district-is-for-normiesthats-a-good-thing

Second, the fact that people shifted from public transport to driving during the pandemic is an argument in favor of - not against - induced demand.

I see a lot of posts in this thread that have sought to educate you. That you persist in ignoring actual science and advancing false claims suggests that you are most probably a troll.

Citing GGW as the authority:

It's not just DC. Biking is down almost everywhere.

Bloomberg News:

Biking to Work Isn’t Gaining Any Ground in the US

Despite growth in New York and a few other big cities, commuting by bicycle is less popular nationwide than it was a decade ago.

"After increased investments in bicycle infrastructure, big experiments with urban bike sharing, an explosion in electric-bike sales and an overall pandemic bike-buying boom, the latest news on bike commuting in the US from the Census Bureau’s annual American Community Survey is not impressive. An estimated 731,272 Americans used bicycles as their chief means of transportation to work in 2022, up from 2021 but down almost 75,000 from before the pandemic and 175,000 from the peak year of 2014."

We will all die waiting for a shred of evidence that shows cycling is becoming less popular in DC relative to other modes.

Look at the transportation survey released last year by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments. They have driving up by more than 10 percentage points from 2019, even after correcting for remote work. Bicycling and everything else is down during the same time.

And every time you cite that survey, its pointed out that its two-years old, commuting is not representative of all trips, and that the modes vary greatly within this very large metro area. It also shows that drivers are a minority of DC residents. None of this seems to sink through with you though.

So, to recap (according to you):

Official government investigations into the causes of traffic deaths in DC are bullshit

Gold standard transportation surveys that we've been relying on for decades are also bullshit

Book reports by Estonian high school students on "induced demand" are not bullshit

Everyone got it?

FWIW the PP you are responding to self diagnosed themselves as insane.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love the people on here who are pro driving but also hate traffic. Just move to LA already. Enjoy 18 lanes of jammed traffic in each direction.

Yes this makes me laugh too. What these people don't understand is that the more car-centric a city is the more people choose to drive and thus the more traffic. It's called "induced demand." It's why every time you widen a highway and add more lanes you wind up with more traffic not less.

People who think the key to making their commute easier is to eliminate bike lanes and bus lanes and other alternative forms of transportation are idiots because they don't understand every cyclist is a car not on the road. Every bus is 30-40 cars not on the road. Every metro line is thousands of cars not on the road.

If your goal is less traffic you should support every initiative to encourage people to walk or bike or take public transportation including stuff like Vision Zero that makes those alternatives safer.

If you're successful you might just wind up with a nice relaxing car commute with minimal traffic because everyone else decided to skip the car.

Though admittedly you will have to pay through the nose for parking and you may not be able to drive right up to your office due to closing certain streets to car traffic. But it would be worth it! Imagine Connecticut Avenue with virtually no traffic (except in the bike lanes) at 8am! This is actually what it's like in a lot of cities that have successful shifted most of the population to car-free travel. I was in Sweden over the summer and we rented a car and we were regularly the only car on any given street and could park basically anywhere we wanted (again parking was incredibly pricy in the cities). Probably the easiest and most pleasant driving experience I've ever had. You do have to be very alert to bikes and pedestrians but there are so many of them this isn't that hard -- they have their own wide lanes and traffic signals and as long as you follow the rules you won't have trouble.

"Induced demand" is a lie. It's a bullshit theory made up by car hating weirdos. The average new car now costs almost $50,000. You think if we make traffic run more smoothly, everybody is going to rush out to spend $50,000 on a new car? Give me a break.

+1

So we have another person here who doesn’t understand economics. Do you deny basic physics also? Do you have problems following simple logic? If so, you have a likeminded friend in the author of the post you endorsed.

The city has been trying to make traffic worse for years, and guess what's happened? Driving has become *more* popular. It is the only mode of transportation that's gaining market share. Bus ridership is down, subway ridership is down, cycling is down, even after correcting for the rise of remote work. I think your "induced demand" theory needs a little work.

You are an extremely reliable source of misinformation.

First, popularity of cycling in DC is increasing very rapidly. This article runs through the numbers: https://ggwash.org/view/96705/biking-in-the-district-is-for-normiesthats-a-good-thing

Second, the fact that people shifted from public transport to driving during the pandemic is an argument in favor of - not against - induced demand.

I see a lot of posts in this thread that have sought to educate you. That you persist in ignoring actual science and advancing false claims suggests that you are most probably a troll.

Citing GGW as the authority:

It's not just DC. Biking is down almost everywhere.

Bloomberg News:

Biking to Work Isn’t Gaining Any Ground in the US

Despite growth in New York and a few other big cities, commuting by bicycle is less popular nationwide than it was a decade ago.

"After increased investments in bicycle infrastructure, big experiments with urban bike sharing, an explosion in electric-bike sales and an overall pandemic bike-buying boom, the latest news on bike commuting in the US from the Census Bureau’s annual American Community Survey is not impressive. An estimated 731,272 Americans used bicycles as their chief means of transportation to work in 2022, up from 2021 but down almost 75,000 from before the pandemic and 175,000 from the peak year of 2014."

We will all die waiting for a shred of evidence that shows cycling is becoming less popular in DC relative to other modes.

Look at the transportation survey released last year by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments. They have driving up by more than 10 percentage points from 2019, even after correcting for remote work. Bicycling and everything else is down during the same time.

And every time you cite that survey, its pointed out that its two-years old, commuting is not representative of all trips, and that the modes vary greatly within this very large metro area. It also shows that drivers are a minority of DC residents. None of this seems to sink through with you though.

So, to recap (according to you):

Official government investigations into the causes of traffic deaths in DC are bullshit

Gold standard transportation surveys that we've been relying on for decades are also bullshit

Book reports by Estonian high school students on "induced demand" are not bullshit

Everyone got it?

Yes, that response is purposely dense. Your gold standard transportation survey is actually a "commuting" survey. A lot of transportation happens outside of commuting you realize right? Take air travel for instance. Lots of people fly right? But not according to your survey. I guess planes are a figment of our imagination. Biking and walking are much more common modes of transportation for errands and entertainment, and that's where the usage is these days. Also, you do realize commuting patterns in 2022 are not being used to make planning decisions, because everyone knows 20-22 are aberrations.

Here's a thought experiment on induced demand. Reverse it. If we decommissioned highways for instance, would fewer people drive to work?

This is how you know induced demand is nonsense. It only makes sense in absurd thought experiments. How about giving me a concrete, real life example from life here in Washington DC? Tell me how many drivers are moved into other modes of transportation by discrete changes in policy. Be specific.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The leap of faith the "induced demand" crowd makes is if that if they make traffic awful enough, then people will switch to bikes or buses or whatever. But there's no evidence that's actually happening. The numbers show the opposite. More likely is drivers just sit in traffic longer or they avoid going to parts of the city where traffic is especially bad. I know I stopped going downtown because the bike lanes made traffic and parking so awful. That doesnt mean I stopped driving. I just go elsewhere. Instead of going to the Apple store downtown, I go to one in the burbs.

If your plan is to drive into the city center of a major metropolitan capital, you have only yourself to blame if you dislike traffic 🤡

As you well know these efforts are neither limited to nor focused on downtown.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's very curious that our government thinks it can raises taxes on rich people as much as it wants, and they won't move away (even with low tax Virginia being right there!), but if they make changes to our transportation infrastructure, it will have a profound effect on people's transportation choices. It's an odd circle to try to square. Logically, it seems impossible to reconcile the two.

And of course no one argues that building more housing in DC will just encourage more people to move to DC, which would be the natural implication of applying the theory of induced demand to housing.

We want more people to move to DC. This is explicitly one of the reasons people who advocate for more housing in DC do so -- we want more people to move to the city center close to jobs and amenities because it is more efficient and reduces the need for so much car infrastructure.

If more people move to DC it increases the tax base and also makes it more desirable to potential employers. From a purely economic standpoint you always want your population to be growing. If you aren't growing you are dying.

The reason you don't want more people to move here is because you want to live in a large house on a large lot in a neighborhood of similar low density and you want to climb into your SUV every morning and enjoy a short traffic-free commute to wherever it is you want to go and then park right next to it for free. You don't understand this fantasy cannot be achieved in an urban center because it's extremely expensive to achieve -- you need lots and lots of people paying lots of taxes and using amenities like roads and schools and parking structures in order to make them affordable on a per use basis. But you can't build a large enough tax base with low density housing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love the people on here who are pro driving but also hate traffic. Just move to LA already. Enjoy 18 lanes of jammed traffic in each direction.

Yes this makes me laugh too. What these people don't understand is that the more car-centric a city is the more people choose to drive and thus the more traffic. It's called "induced demand." It's why every time you widen a highway and add more lanes you wind up with more traffic not less.

People who think the key to making their commute easier is to eliminate bike lanes and bus lanes and other alternative forms of transportation are idiots because they don't understand every cyclist is a car not on the road. Every bus is 30-40 cars not on the road. Every metro line is thousands of cars not on the road.

If your goal is less traffic you should support every initiative to encourage people to walk or bike or take public transportation including stuff like Vision Zero that makes those alternatives safer.

If you're successful you might just wind up with a nice relaxing car commute with minimal traffic because everyone else decided to skip the car.

Though admittedly you will have to pay through the nose for parking and you may not be able to drive right up to your office due to closing certain streets to car traffic. But it would be worth it! Imagine Connecticut Avenue with virtually no traffic (except in the bike lanes) at 8am! This is actually what it's like in a lot of cities that have successful shifted most of the population to car-free travel. I was in Sweden over the summer and we rented a car and we were regularly the only car on any given street and could park basically anywhere we wanted (again parking was incredibly pricy in the cities). Probably the easiest and most pleasant driving experience I've ever had. You do have to be very alert to bikes and pedestrians but there are so many of them this isn't that hard -- they have their own wide lanes and traffic signals and as long as you follow the rules you won't have trouble.

"Induced demand" is a lie. It's a bullshit theory made up by car hating weirdos. The average new car now costs almost $50,000. You think if we make traffic run more smoothly, everybody is going to rush out to spend $50,000 on a new car? Give me a break.

+1

So we have another person here who doesn’t understand economics. Do you deny basic physics also? Do you have problems following simple logic? If so, you have a likeminded friend in the author of the post you endorsed.

The city has been trying to make traffic worse for years, and guess what's happened? Driving has become *more* popular. It is the only mode of transportation that's gaining market share. Bus ridership is down, subway ridership is down, cycling is down, even after correcting for the rise of remote work. I think your "induced demand" theory needs a little work.

You are an extremely reliable source of misinformation.

First, popularity of cycling in DC is increasing very rapidly. This article runs through the numbers: https://ggwash.org/view/96705/biking-in-the-district-is-for-normiesthats-a-good-thing

Second, the fact that people shifted from public transport to driving during the pandemic is an argument in favor of - not against - induced demand.

I see a lot of posts in this thread that have sought to educate you. That you persist in ignoring actual science and advancing false claims suggests that you are most probably a troll.

Citing GGW as the authority:

It's not just DC. Biking is down almost everywhere.

Bloomberg News:

Biking to Work Isn’t Gaining Any Ground in the US

Despite growth in New York and a few other big cities, commuting by bicycle is less popular nationwide than it was a decade ago.

"After increased investments in bicycle infrastructure, big experiments with urban bike sharing, an explosion in electric-bike sales and an overall pandemic bike-buying boom, the latest news on bike commuting in the US from the Census Bureau’s annual American Community Survey is not impressive. An estimated 731,272 Americans used bicycles as their chief means of transportation to work in 2022, up from 2021 but down almost 75,000 from before the pandemic and 175,000 from the peak year of 2014."

We will all die waiting for a shred of evidence that shows cycling is becoming less popular in DC relative to other modes.

Look at the transportation survey released last year by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments. They have driving up by more than 10 percentage points from 2019, even after correcting for remote work. Bicycling and everything else is down during the same time.

And every time you cite that survey, its pointed out that its two-years old, commuting is not representative of all trips, and that the modes vary greatly within this very large metro area. It also shows that drivers are a minority of DC residents. None of this seems to sink through with you though.

So, to recap (according to you):

Official government investigations into the causes of traffic deaths in DC are bullshit

Gold standard transportation surveys that we've been relying on for decades are also bullshit

Book reports by Estonian high school students on "induced demand" are not bullshit

Everyone got it?

Yes, that response is purposely dense. Your gold standard transportation survey is actually a "commuting" survey. A lot of transportation happens outside of commuting you realize right? Take air travel for instance. Lots of people fly right? But not according to your survey. I guess planes are a figment of our imagination. Biking and walking are much more common modes of transportation for errands and entertainment, and that's where the usage is these days. Also, you do realize commuting patterns in 2022 are not being used to make planning decisions, because everyone knows 20-22 are aberrations.

Here's a thought experiment on induced demand. Reverse it. If we decommissioned highways for instance, would fewer people drive to work?

This is how you know induced demand is nonsense. It only makes sense in absurd thought experiments. How about giving me a concrete, real life example from life here in Washington DC? Tell me how many drivers are moved into other modes of transportation by discrete changes in policy. Be specific.

JFC. People have posted rigorous empirical studies, published in top economic journals that contradict your arguments and yet now you want an anecdote. Please. You are a complete joke.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's very curious that our government thinks it can raises taxes on rich people as much as it wants, and they won't move away (even with low tax Virginia being right there!), but if they make changes to our transportation infrastructure, it will have a profound effect on people's transportation choices. It's an odd circle to try to square. Logically, it seems impossible to reconcile the two.

And of course no one argues that building more housing in DC will just encourage more people to move to DC, which would be the natural implication of applying the theory of induced demand to housing.

We want more people to move to DC. This is explicitly one of the reasons people who advocate for more housing in DC do so -- we want more people to move to the city center close to jobs and amenities because it is more efficient and reduces the need for so much car infrastructure.

If more people move to DC it increases the tax base and also makes it more desirable to potential employers. From a purely economic standpoint you always want your population to be growing. If you aren't growing you are dying.

The reason you don't want more people to move here is because you want to live in a large house on a large lot in a neighborhood of similar low density and you want to climb into your SUV every morning and enjoy a short traffic-free commute to wherever it is you want to go and then park right next to it for free. You don't understand this fantasy cannot be achieved in an urban center because it's extremely expensive to achieve -- you need lots and lots of people paying lots of taxes and using amenities like roads and schools and parking structures in order to make them affordable on a per use basis. But you can't build a large enough tax base with low density housing.

Close to what jobs in DC?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's very curious that our government thinks it can raises taxes on rich people as much as it wants, and they won't move away (even with low tax Virginia being right there!), but if they make changes to our transportation infrastructure, it will have a profound effect on people's transportation choices. It's an odd circle to try to square. Logically, it seems impossible to reconcile the two.

And of course no one argues that building more housing in DC will just encourage more people to move to DC, which would be the natural implication of applying the theory of induced demand to housing.

We want more people to move to DC. This is explicitly one of the reasons people who advocate for more housing in DC do so -- we want more people to move to the city center close to jobs and amenities because it is more efficient and reduces the need for so much car infrastructure.

If more people move to DC it increases the tax base and also makes it more desirable to potential employers. From a purely economic standpoint you always want your population to be growing. If you aren't growing you are dying.

The reason you don't want more people to move here is because you want to live in a large house on a large lot in a neighborhood of similar low density and you want to climb into your SUV every morning and enjoy a short traffic-free commute to wherever it is you want to go and then park right next to it for free. You don't understand this fantasy cannot be achieved in an urban center because it's extremely expensive to achieve -- you need lots and lots of people paying lots of taxes and using amenities like roads and schools and parking structures in order to make them affordable on a per use basis. But you can't build a large enough tax base with low density housing.

As usual you all only tell part of the story.

An economically sustainable city needs high income residents in order to afford the things it wants. Schools, transportation time, and personal space are the three main drivers of where young professional families choose to live.

Increasing density increases the strain on the infrastructure. If an area doesn't have spare capacity in their infrastructure then it requires commensurate spending to increase capacity.


The crazy thing about the ideas being pushed is that they not only don't include the infrastructure needs necessary for increasing density in many cases they are paired with policies that decrease infrastructure capacity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's very curious that our government thinks it can raises taxes on rich people as much as it wants, and they won't move away (even with low tax Virginia being right there!), but if they make changes to our transportation infrastructure, it will have a profound effect on people's transportation choices. It's an odd circle to try to square. Logically, it seems impossible to reconcile the two.

And of course no one argues that building more housing in DC will just encourage more people to move to DC, which would be the natural implication of applying the theory of induced demand to housing.

We want more people to move to DC. This is explicitly one of the reasons people who advocate for more housing in DC do so -- we want more people to move to the city center close to jobs and amenities because it is more efficient and reduces the need for so much car infrastructure.

If more people move to DC it increases the tax base and also makes it more desirable to potential employers. From a purely economic standpoint you always want your population to be growing. If you aren't growing you are dying.

The reason you don't want more people to move here is because you want to live in a large house on a large lot in a neighborhood of similar low density and you want to climb into your SUV every morning and enjoy a short traffic-free commute to wherever it is you want to go and then park right next to it for free. You don't understand this fantasy cannot be achieved in an urban center because it's extremely expensive to achieve -- you need lots and lots of people paying lots of taxes and using amenities like roads and schools and parking structures in order to make them affordable on a per use basis. But you can't build a large enough tax base with low density housing.

As usual you all only tell part of the story.

An economically sustainable city needs high income residents in order to afford the things it wants. Schools, transportation time, and personal space are the three main drivers of where young professional families choose to live.

Increasing density increases the strain on the infrastructure. If an area doesn't have spare capacity in their infrastructure then it requires commensurate spending to increase capacity.


The crazy thing about the ideas being pushed is that they not only don't include the infrastructure needs necessary for increasing density in many cases they are paired with policies that decrease infrastructure capacity.

This may be the most nonsensical thing I’ve read today. And I’ve read a lot of nonsense today.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The leap of faith the "induced demand" crowd makes is if that if they make traffic awful enough, then people will switch to bikes or buses or whatever. But there's no evidence that's actually happening. The numbers show the opposite. More likely is drivers just sit in traffic longer or they avoid going to parts of the city where traffic is especially bad. I know I stopped going downtown because the bike lanes made traffic and parking so awful. That doesnt mean I stopped driving. I just go elsewhere. Instead of going to the Apple store downtown, I go to one in the burbs.

If your plan is to drive into the city center of a major metropolitan capital, you have only yourself to blame if you dislike traffic 🤡

As you well know these efforts are neither limited to nor focused on downtown.

yes, they include things like speed humps on neighborhood streets to keep you from killing kids on their way to school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's very curious that our government thinks it can raises taxes on rich people as much as it wants, and they won't move away (even with low tax Virginia being right there!), but if they make changes to our transportation infrastructure, it will have a profound effect on people's transportation choices. It's an odd circle to try to square. Logically, it seems impossible to reconcile the two.

And of course no one argues that building more housing in DC will just encourage more people to move to DC, which would be the natural implication of applying the theory of induced demand to housing.

We want more people to move to DC. This is explicitly one of the reasons people who advocate for more housing in DC do so -- we want more people to move to the city center close to jobs and amenities because it is more efficient and reduces the need for so much car infrastructure.

If more people move to DC it increases the tax base and also makes it more desirable to potential employers. From a purely economic standpoint you always want your population to be growing. If you aren't growing you are dying.

The reason you don't want more people to move here is because you want to live in a large house on a large lot in a neighborhood of similar low density and you want to climb into your SUV every morning and enjoy a short traffic-free commute to wherever it is you want to go and then park right next to it for free. You don't understand this fantasy cannot be achieved in an urban center because it's extremely expensive to achieve -- you need lots and lots of people paying lots of taxes and using amenities like roads and schools and parking structures in order to make them affordable on a per use basis. But you can't build a large enough tax base with low density housing.

As usual you all only tell part of the story.

An economically sustainable city needs high income residents in order to afford the things it wants. Schools, transportation time, and personal space are the three main drivers of where young professional families choose to live.

Increasing density increases the strain on the infrastructure. If an area doesn't have spare capacity in their infrastructure then it requires commensurate spending to increase capacity.


The crazy thing about the ideas being pushed is that they not only don't include the infrastructure needs necessary for increasing density in many cases they are paired with policies that decrease infrastructure capacity.

True, Manhattan is famously known for having zero wealthy residents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love the people on here who are pro driving but also hate traffic. Just move to LA already. Enjoy 18 lanes of jammed traffic in each direction.

Yes this makes me laugh too. What these people don't understand is that the more car-centric a city is the more people choose to drive and thus the more traffic. It's called "induced demand." It's why every time you widen a highway and add more lanes you wind up with more traffic not less.

People who think the key to making their commute easier is to eliminate bike lanes and bus lanes and other alternative forms of transportation are idiots because they don't understand every cyclist is a car not on the road. Every bus is 30-40 cars not on the road. Every metro line is thousands of cars not on the road.

If your goal is less traffic you should support every initiative to encourage people to walk or bike or take public transportation including stuff like Vision Zero that makes those alternatives safer.

If you're successful you might just wind up with a nice relaxing car commute with minimal traffic because everyone else decided to skip the car.

Though admittedly you will have to pay through the nose for parking and you may not be able to drive right up to your office due to closing certain streets to car traffic. But it would be worth it! Imagine Connecticut Avenue with virtually no traffic (except in the bike lanes) at 8am! This is actually what it's like in a lot of cities that have successful shifted most of the population to car-free travel. I was in Sweden over the summer and we rented a car and we were regularly the only car on any given street and could park basically anywhere we wanted (again parking was incredibly pricy in the cities). Probably the easiest and most pleasant driving experience I've ever had. You do have to be very alert to bikes and pedestrians but there are so many of them this isn't that hard -- they have their own wide lanes and traffic signals and as long as you follow the rules you won't have trouble.

"Induced demand" is a lie. It's a bullshit theory made up by car hating weirdos. The average new car now costs almost $50,000. You think if we make traffic run more smoothly, everybody is going to rush out to spend $50,000 on a new car? Give me a break.

+1

So we have another person here who doesn’t understand economics. Do you deny basic physics also? Do you have problems following simple logic? If so, you have a likeminded friend in the author of the post you endorsed.

The city has been trying to make traffic worse for years, and guess what's happened? Driving has become *more* popular. It is the only mode of transportation that's gaining market share. Bus ridership is down, subway ridership is down, cycling is down, even after correcting for the rise of remote work. I think your "induced demand" theory needs a little work.

You are an extremely reliable source of misinformation.

First, popularity of cycling in DC is increasing very rapidly. This article runs through the numbers: https://ggwash.org/view/96705/biking-in-the-district-is-for-normiesthats-a-good-thing

Second, the fact that people shifted from public transport to driving during the pandemic is an argument in favor of - not against - induced demand.

I see a lot of posts in this thread that have sought to educate you. That you persist in ignoring actual science and advancing false claims suggests that you are most probably a troll.

Citing GGW as the authority:

It's not just DC. Biking is down almost everywhere.

Bloomberg News:

Biking to Work Isn’t Gaining Any Ground in the US

Despite growth in New York and a few other big cities, commuting by bicycle is less popular nationwide than it was a decade ago.

"After increased investments in bicycle infrastructure, big experiments with urban bike sharing, an explosion in electric-bike sales and an overall pandemic bike-buying boom, the latest news on bike commuting in the US from the Census Bureau’s annual American Community Survey is not impressive. An estimated 731,272 Americans used bicycles as their chief means of transportation to work in 2022, up from 2021 but down almost 75,000 from before the pandemic and 175,000 from the peak year of 2014."

We will all die waiting for a shred of evidence that shows cycling is becoming less popular in DC relative to other modes.

Look at the transportation survey released last year by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments. They have driving up by more than 10 percentage points from 2019, even after correcting for remote work. Bicycling and everything else is down during the same time.

And every time you cite that survey, its pointed out that its two-years old, commuting is not representative of all trips, and that the modes vary greatly within this very large metro area. It also shows that drivers are a minority of DC residents. None of this seems to sink through with you though.

So, to recap (according to you):

Official government investigations into the causes of traffic deaths in DC are bullshit

Gold standard transportation surveys that we've been relying on for decades are also bullshit

Book reports by Estonian high school students on "induced demand" are not bullshit

Everyone got it?

Yes, that response is purposely dense. Your gold standard transportation survey is actually a "commuting" survey. A lot of transportation happens outside of commuting you realize right? Take air travel for instance. Lots of people fly right? But not according to your survey. I guess planes are a figment of our imagination. Biking and walking are much more common modes of transportation for errands and entertainment, and that's where the usage is these days. Also, you do realize commuting patterns in 2022 are not being used to make planning decisions, because everyone knows 20-22 are aberrations.

Here's a thought experiment on induced demand. Reverse it. If we decommissioned highways for instance, would fewer people drive to work?

This is how you know induced demand is nonsense. It only makes sense in absurd thought experiments. How about giving me a concrete, real life example from life here in Washington DC? Tell me how many drivers are moved into other modes of transportation by discrete changes in policy. Be specific.

The clearest example of induced demand was actually when the streetcar came to what is now Ward 3. Basically no one lived there before the streetcar, then once there was an easy way to get downtown, you had thousands of people suddenly living there. Another good example is metro. Notice how you tend to have clusters of larger buildings and businesses around metro stations? That's all induced demand.

Now look at the region. Gainesville, Clarksburg, and other such places were tiny hamlets until big wide highways ran right by them. Then they boomed. Why is that? Induced demand.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's very curious that our government thinks it can raises taxes on rich people as much as it wants, and they won't move away (even with low tax Virginia being right there!), but if they make changes to our transportation infrastructure, it will have a profound effect on people's transportation choices. It's an odd circle to try to square. Logically, it seems impossible to reconcile the two.

And of course no one argues that building more housing in DC will just encourage more people to move to DC, which would be the natural implication of applying the theory of induced demand to housing.

We want more people to move to DC. This is explicitly one of the reasons people who advocate for more housing in DC do so -- we want more people to move to the city center close to jobs and amenities because it is more efficient and reduces the need for so much car infrastructure.

If more people move to DC it increases the tax base and also makes it more desirable to potential employers. From a purely economic standpoint you always want your population to be growing. If you aren't growing you are dying.

The reason you don't want more people to move here is because you want to live in a large house on a large lot in a neighborhood of similar low density and you want to climb into your SUV every morning and enjoy a short traffic-free commute to wherever it is you want to go and then park right next to it for free. You don't understand this fantasy cannot be achieved in an urban center because it's extremely expensive to achieve -- you need lots and lots of people paying lots of taxes and using amenities like roads and schools and parking structures in order to make them affordable on a per use basis. But you can't build a large enough tax base with low density housing.

As usual you all only tell part of the story.

An economically sustainable city needs high income residents in order to afford the things it wants. Schools, transportation time, and personal space are the three main drivers of where young professional families choose to live.

Increasing density increases the strain on the infrastructure. If an area doesn't have spare capacity in their infrastructure then it requires commensurate spending to increase capacity.


The crazy thing about the ideas being pushed is that they not only don't include the infrastructure needs necessary for increasing density in many cases they are paired with policies that decrease infrastructure capacity.

The thing is, infrastructure is actually cheaper per person with density. You just need longer pipe runs, wires, and most especially roads with low density. Its those costs that crush local governments, and why they try to fob as much of those off onto developers as possible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's very curious that our government thinks it can raises taxes on rich people as much as it wants, and they won't move away (even with low tax Virginia being right there!), but if they make changes to our transportation infrastructure, it will have a profound effect on people's transportation choices. It's an odd circle to try to square. Logically, it seems impossible to reconcile the two.

And of course no one argues that building more housing in DC will just encourage more people to move to DC, which would be the natural implication of applying the theory of induced demand to housing.

We want more people to move to DC. This is explicitly one of the reasons people who advocate for more housing in DC do so -- we want more people to move to the city center close to jobs and amenities because it is more efficient and reduces the need for so much car infrastructure.

If more people move to DC it increases the tax base and also makes it more desirable to potential employers. From a purely economic standpoint you always want your population to be growing. If you aren't growing you are dying.

The reason you don't want more people to move here is because you want to live in a large house on a large lot in a neighborhood of similar low density and you want to climb into your SUV every morning and enjoy a short traffic-free commute to wherever it is you want to go and then park right next to it for free. You don't understand this fantasy cannot be achieved in an urban center because it's extremely expensive to achieve -- you need lots and lots of people paying lots of taxes and using amenities like roads and schools and parking structures in order to make them affordable on a per use basis. But you can't build a large enough tax base with low density housing.

DC doesn’t actually have a tax revenue problem. It has a waste, fraud and abuse problem. So much of our tax money goes into ineffective programs (think “violence interrupters” which are really politically-steered transfer payments to well-connected consultants and outright grifters and fraudsters. (See Trayon White indictment).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's very curious that our government thinks it can raises taxes on rich people as much as it wants, and they won't move away (even with low tax Virginia being right there!), but if they make changes to our transportation infrastructure, it will have a profound effect on people's transportation choices. It's an odd circle to try to square. Logically, it seems impossible to reconcile the two.

And of course no one argues that building more housing in DC will just encourage more people to move to DC, which would be the natural implication of applying the theory of induced demand to housing.

We want more people to move to DC. This is explicitly one of the reasons people who advocate for more housing in DC do so -- we want more people to move to the city center close to jobs and amenities because it is more efficient and reduces the need for so much car infrastructure.

If more people move to DC it increases the tax base and also makes it more desirable to potential employers. From a purely economic standpoint you always want your population to be growing. If you aren't growing you are dying.

The reason you don't want more people to move here is because you want to live in a large house on a large lot in a neighborhood of similar low density and you want to climb into your SUV every morning and enjoy a short traffic-free commute to wherever it is you want to go and then park right next to it for free. You don't understand this fantasy cannot be achieved in an urban center because it's extremely expensive to achieve -- you need lots and lots of people paying lots of taxes and using amenities like roads and schools and parking structures in order to make them affordable on a per use basis. But you can't build a large enough tax base with low density housing.

As usual you all only tell part of the story.

An economically sustainable city needs high income residents in order to afford the things it wants. Schools, transportation time, and personal space are the three main drivers of where young professional families choose to live.

Increasing density increases the strain on the infrastructure. If an area doesn't have spare capacity in their infrastructure then it requires commensurate spending to increase capacity.


The crazy thing about the ideas being pushed is that they not only don't include the infrastructure needs necessary for increasing density in many cases they are paired with policies that decrease infrastructure capacity.

Lol. Take Cleveland Park- there is more income per capita in the apartments east of Conn Ave than in the boomer retirees' houses - and it is the boomer retirees who have time to show up to whine to DC officials in their rent seeking cries for handouts, like maintaining their suburban housing...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's very curious that our government thinks it can raises taxes on rich people as much as it wants, and they won't move away (even with low tax Virginia being right there!), but if they make changes to our transportation infrastructure, it will have a profound effect on people's transportation choices. It's an odd circle to try to square. Logically, it seems impossible to reconcile the two.

And of course no one argues that building more housing in DC will just encourage more people to move to DC, which would be the natural implication of applying the theory of induced demand to housing.

We want more people to move to DC. This is explicitly one of the reasons people who advocate for more housing in DC do so -- we want more people to move to the city center close to jobs and amenities because it is more efficient and reduces the need for so much car infrastructure.

If more people move to DC it increases the tax base and also makes it more desirable to potential employers. From a purely economic standpoint you always want your population to be growing. If you aren't growing you are dying.

The reason you don't want more people to move here is because you want to live in a large house on a large lot in a neighborhood of similar low density and you want to climb into your SUV every morning and enjoy a short traffic-free commute to wherever it is you want to go and then park right next to it for free. You don't understand this fantasy cannot be achieved in an urban center because it's extremely expensive to achieve -- you need lots and lots of people paying lots of taxes and using amenities like roads and schools and parking structures in order to make them affordable on a per use basis. But you can't build a large enough tax base with low density housing.

As usual you all only tell part of the story.

An economically sustainable city needs high income residents in order to afford the things it wants. Schools, transportation time, and personal space are the three main drivers of where young professional families choose to live.

Increasing density increases the strain on the infrastructure. If an area doesn't have spare capacity in their infrastructure then it requires commensurate spending to increase capacity.


The crazy thing about the ideas being pushed is that they not only don't include the infrastructure needs necessary for increasing density in many cases they are paired with policies that decrease infrastructure capacity.

Lol. Take Cleveland Park- there is more income per capita in the apartments east of Conn Ave than in the boomer retirees' houses - and it is the boomer retirees who have time to show up to whine to DC officials in their rent seeking cries for handouts, like maintaining their suburban housing...

So is that why the Trumper at Cleveland Pk Smart Growth pushed his way onto the Ward redistricting commission and gerrymandered the ANC seats to favor apartment dwellers? And found and funded compliant candidates to run for the gerrymandered seats and vote for his development agenda? Truly Trumpy.