Will DC resume commuter traffic patterns in the fall?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Well, there's more than one way traffic can get worse, isn't there? One is obviously is you increase the number of cars. The other is if you decreases the capacity of streets to accommodate traffic. The latter is what happens when you add bike lanes -- you reduce the amount of car traffic the road can handle. You can end up with worse traffic even if the total number of cars has declined.

But the purpose of the transportation system isn't to move cars. It's to move people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Bike lanes reduce the number of people who can use roads, which reduces the circulation of people in a city. Not sure what's controversial about that observation.

Bike lanes increase the number of people who can use roads.

I mean, just think about it. What occupies more space, 1 person on a bicycle, or 1 person in a car?

Look at all the bike lanes the city has put in downtown. What is that going to do? It's going to discourage people from coming downtown because it's going to be too much of a hassle to park, and traffic downtown will be a lot worse.

Some fraction of the people who drove downtown will still come downtown via other means, such as the subway. But most will probably just go somewhere else because there's nothing *that* special about downtown that people can't get elsewhere. (Lots of people can also just work from home). A few more people will ride bicyclists downtown but probably not that many because the number of bikers in DC is small to begin with. The net effect will be the reduce the total number of people who come downtown.

That will disrupt the entire economy downtown. The amounts restaurants pay for rent for example are keyed off assumptions about how many people they'll serve. If their customer bases suddenly shrink, because now it's too much trouble for people to actually get to their restaurant, then those rents suddenly don't make sense.

Where is the evidence for this claim? I have seen it - or some variation on it - raised time and again on this thread, but never, ever, ever with a single shred of evidence. Not thought experiments, evidence. Where is the evidence that bike lanes make traffic a lot worse?

The rest of your post embodies the Yogi Berra quote: "nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded." If it's too much trouble to go downtown, why is the traffic so bad? Could it be because of all of the people who want to go downtown?

Well, there's more than one way traffic can get worse, isn't there? One is obviously is you increase the number of cars. The other is if you decreases the capacity of streets to accommodate traffic. The latter is what happens when you add bike lanes -- you reduce the amount of car traffic the road can handle. You can end up with worse traffic even if the total number of cars has declined.

One of the things I have noticed over the past decade is a penchant in all walks of life to relearn why things are the way they are. In this case, I guess DC is determined to relearn the purpose of arterials.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
One of the things I have noticed over the past decade is a penchant in all walks of life to relearn why things are the way they are. In this case, I guess DC is determined to relearn the purpose of arterials.

The purpose of arterials is to move lots of cars fast through an area. Which is great, if you're in one of those cars, but terrible for basically everything else. DC has evidently decided to reprioritize the everything else. It's high time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Well, there's more than one way traffic can get worse, isn't there? One is obviously is you increase the number of cars. The other is if you decreases the capacity of streets to accommodate traffic. The latter is what happens when you add bike lanes -- you reduce the amount of car traffic the road can handle. You can end up with worse traffic even if the total number of cars has declined.

But the purpose of the transportation system isn't to move cars. It's to move people.

Most people in DC drive (and remember: most commuters in DC actually live in Maryland or Virginia).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Well, there's more than one way traffic can get worse, isn't there? One is obviously is you increase the number of cars. The other is if you decreases the capacity of streets to accommodate traffic. The latter is what happens when you add bike lanes -- you reduce the amount of car traffic the road can handle. You can end up with worse traffic even if the total number of cars has declined.

But the purpose of the transportation system isn't to move cars. It's to move people.

Most people in DC drive (and remember: most commuters in DC actually live in Maryland or Virginia).

So, first of all, while it's true that most people in DC drive, it's not true that most people drive for all or even most of their trips.

Second of all, many people in DC do not drive.

And third of all, so what? They drive now, therefore driving must be the transportation priority now and forevermore? Nope.

As for commuters from Maryland and Virginia who are currently driving, if they don't like the driving conditions in DC, then they can adjust their behavior accordingly. DC has no responsibility to operate its transportation system to benefit commuters from Maryland and Virginia over its own residents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow, I was the OP and last I checked this thread, there was only one response. So I'm surprised that it mushroomed & interested to read the competing theories & arguments.

I need to go back and read all the responses, but the point of my post was that I hope the regular patterns are resumed. Obviously, that helps commuters like me, but it also helps downtown. If my commute is a daily nightmare, I'll work from home as much as possible. My organization is shifting to a hybrid model where all employees will have the choice about where they work. I'm not going to waste an hour in bumper-to-bumper traffic each way (especially for a drive that used to be 30 minutes most of the time.)

The pandemic has killed off most of the small restaurants and shops near my office - if office workers don't come back, neither will those small businesses and the jobs they create. I understand why NWDC residents may want Beach Drive just for bikes and may want to keep cars off Conn Ave, but it's not a net benefit for the city as a whole.

This is exactly why the patterns pre-pandemic won't resume. Everyone will be on a hybrid model where they come in for a day or two every couple of weeks.

Maybe, maybe not. My colleagues desperately want to be back as much as possible, as do at least some of our bosses. If my commute remained reasonable, I would probably go to the office 4 days per week. If it's much worse than pre-pandemic times, I'll stay on Zoom as much as possible. Same for many others. And the thing that I've seen with reopening our office is that this is very much a sort of collective action dilemma - it's only worth coming in if there are enough people there to make the experience worthwhile. No point in going to the office just to get on Zoom. If you make commuting more time-consuming and unpleasant, it will have a ripple effect that may discourage even those who *don't* have lousy commutes from coming in.

To the PP who said other businesses will pop up to replace the coffee shops and clothing stores that have gone away, maybe but I wouldn't be so sure. If office buildings are half occupied or less, who would these new shops and restaurants rely on for customers? I've been around here long enough to remember DC before it became hip. There were vast swaths of downtown that were completely dead on weekends because there was no point in opening up without the usual weekday office workers. I see the same thing happening again to a lot of the traditional downtown parts of DC, and even to neighborhoods like Dupont.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Well, there's more than one way traffic can get worse, isn't there? One is obviously is you increase the number of cars. The other is if you decreases the capacity of streets to accommodate traffic. The latter is what happens when you add bike lanes -- you reduce the amount of car traffic the road can handle. You can end up with worse traffic even if the total number of cars has declined.

But the purpose of the transportation system isn't to move cars. It's to move people.

Most people in DC drive (and remember: most commuters in DC actually live in Maryland or Virginia).

So, first of all, while it's true that most people in DC drive, it's not true that most people drive for all or even most of their trips.

Second of all, many people in DC do not drive.

And third of all, so what? They drive now, therefore driving must be the transportation priority now and forevermore? Nope.

As for commuters from Maryland and Virginia who are currently driving, if they don't like the driving conditions in DC, then they can adjust their behavior accordingly. DC has no responsibility to operate its transportation system to benefit commuters from Maryland and Virginia over its own residents.

The so what is that drivers are the vast majority of people here, and the anti-car jihadists are a rounding error share of Washington residents. Maybe we should have transportation policies that reflect what the public actually wants.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

The so what is that drivers are the vast majority of people here, and the anti-car jihadists are a rounding error share of Washington residents. Maybe we should have transportation policies that reflect what the public actually wants.

DDOT makes the decisions. DDOT is part of the DC government. The DC government is elected by the DC public. So it seems like this is what the DC public actually wants.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
One of the things I have noticed over the past decade is a penchant in all walks of life to relearn why things are the way they are. In this case, I guess DC is determined to relearn the purpose of arterials.

The purpose of arterials is to move lots of cars fast through an area. Which is great, if you're in one of those cars, but terrible for basically everything else. DC has evidently decided to reprioritize the everything else. It's high time.

Hence why there is a determination to relearn the purpose of arterials.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The so what is that drivers are the vast majority of people here, and the anti-car jihadists are a rounding error share of Washington residents. Maybe we should have transportation policies that reflect what the public actually wants.

DDOT makes the decisions. DDOT is part of the DC government. The DC government is elected by the DC public. So it seems like this is what the DC public actually wants.

LOL. You win the naive post of the week award.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The so what is that drivers are the vast majority of people here, and the anti-car jihadists are a rounding error share of Washington residents. Maybe we should have transportation policies that reflect what the public actually wants.

DDOT makes the decisions. DDOT is part of the DC government. The DC government is elected by the DC public. So it seems like this is what the DC public actually wants.

LOL. You win the naive post of the week award.

Well, if it's not what the DC public actually wants, then they can express their displeasure at the ballot box.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Bike lanes reduce the number of people who can use roads, which reduces the circulation of people in a city. Not sure what's controversial about that observation.

Bike lanes increase the number of people who can use roads.

I mean, just think about it. What occupies more space, 1 person on a bicycle, or 1 person in a car?

Look at all the bike lanes the city has put in downtown. What is that going to do? It's going to discourage people from coming downtown because it's going to be too much of a hassle to park, and traffic downtown will be a lot worse.

Some fraction of the people who drove downtown will still come downtown via other means, such as the subway. But most will probably just go somewhere else because there's nothing *that* special about downtown that people can't get elsewhere. (Lots of people can also just work from home). A few more people will ride bicyclists downtown but probably not that many because the number of bikers in DC is small to begin with. The net effect will be the reduce the total number of people who come downtown.

That will disrupt the entire economy downtown. The amounts restaurants pay for rent for example are keyed off assumptions about how many people they'll serve. If their customer bases suddenly shrink, because now it's too much trouble for people to actually get to their restaurant, then those rents suddenly don't make sense.

You know, other cities like NY, have installed hundreds of miles of bike lanes, and somehow, they didn't suffer the armageddon that you envision. I'll take my chances, thank you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Well, we know what the city thinks about its small businesses, so I expect to see Connecticut narrowed down to one lane in each direction any day now with permanent bike lanes and with no street parking. In fact, DDOT will just drop the "Avenue" and rename it "Connecticut Way" or "Connecticut Lane."

Study after study has found that bike lanes are good for small businesses.

So you can stop worrying now.

The area business lobbying group stated in the post that their main objective was to end the reversible lanes and rush hour parking restrictions. The businesses support the bike lanes but not at the expense of parking.

And the residents told the businesses that they would stop supporting them if they didn't support the bike lanes. the residents also told DDOT and their elected officials they wanted the bike lanes, and a more pleasant main street rather than a commuter highway. DDOT and the elected officials agreed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Well, there's more than one way traffic can get worse, isn't there? One is obviously is you increase the number of cars. The other is if you decreases the capacity of streets to accommodate traffic. The latter is what happens when you add bike lanes -- you reduce the amount of car traffic the road can handle. You can end up with worse traffic even if the total number of cars has declined.

But the purpose of the transportation system isn't to move cars. It's to move people.

Most people in DC drive (and remember: most commuters in DC actually live in Maryland or Virginia).

So, first of all, while it's true that most people in DC drive, it's not true that most people drive for all or even most of their trips.

Second of all, many people in DC do not drive.

And third of all, so what? They drive now, therefore driving must be the transportation priority now and forevermore? Nope.

As for commuters from Maryland and Virginia who are currently driving, if they don't like the driving conditions in DC, then they can adjust their behavior accordingly. DC has no responsibility to operate its transportation system to benefit commuters from Maryland and Virginia over its own residents.

I'm the OP again, and the bolded is just dumb. I live on a busy street in MD that gets a ton of commuter traffic from NIH and elsewhere. I wish it were different but the reality is if you live near a major locus of employment, those employees have to have some way to get to their jobs. Of course MoCo and the state of MD have to operate a transportation system that enables commuters reach to those facilities. Ideally, that design also benefits those of us who live nearby, by preventing massive traffic jams or cars speeding through neighborhoods with elementary schools. I would never advocate that the state or the county block cars (including many DC commuters) from reaching NIH simply because I'd prefer more peace and quiet - that's the bargain I made when deciding to live in a congested area.

If you live in DC and you don't want anyone from the neighboring jurisdictions commuting by car into the city, it's probably time to move to West Virginia or some other rural environment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Well, there's more than one way traffic can get worse, isn't there? One is obviously is you increase the number of cars. The other is if you decreases the capacity of streets to accommodate traffic. The latter is what happens when you add bike lanes -- you reduce the amount of car traffic the road can handle. You can end up with worse traffic even if the total number of cars has declined.

But the purpose of the transportation system isn't to move cars. It's to move people.

Most people in DC drive (and remember: most commuters in DC actually live in Maryland or Virginia).

Most people in MD and VA drive.

Most people in DC don't. A lot do, but not most.