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:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There were 35 traffic fatalities in 2022. Here's what happened per the DC government:

12 deaths -- pedestrian error
9 deaths -- speeding driver
4 deaths -- drunk/stoned driver
4 deaths -- driver error
2 deaths -- bicycle error
2 deaths -- medical emergency
1 death -- scooter/motorcycle/atv error
1 death -- hit and run/unknown

This is a crock of bullshit. The DC crash data doesn't provide attribution of fault. This person posting this is interpreting every crash involving a dead pedestrian or cyclist as them being at fault. They are wrong.

This is what's so $!@#*(& up about this "debate". The idiots protesting road diet changes don't understand a goddamn thing about data yet say stuff like this like its fact. Absolutely freaking ridiculous.

This is all nonsense.

The figures come from the police department. Each year they put out a report that includes data on the causes of traffic deaths in the city. You can look them yourself.

For 2022, see page 24 of this report: https://mpdc.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/mpdc/publication/attachments/AR_2022_lowres.pdf

Any source - from the MPD or otherwise - that attributes every single crash to a single cause is just not serious.

I’m happy for you that you found a single publication that you think gives you the prerogative to blame cyclists and pedestrians for their own deaths, but you should also be aware that it reveals to the rest of us a gross ignorance and lack of critical thinking.

I look forward to you presenting your revelations - courtesy of the 2022 MPD Annual Report - in a public meeting and outing yourself for the fool that you are.

The report lists the "predominant cause" of each fatality. Also, is there someone else, besides the police department, who investigated what happened in each of these accidents?

Ask yourself who at MPD prepares annual reports. Then ask yourself if the authors of annual reports are those who complete major crash investigations. Further ask yourself what the investigators of those major crashes likely think about their work being crudely summarized in an idiotic tabulation. And then go felch yourself.

Yes, it's just a big conspiracy.

You're the only person in Washington D.C. who is pissed off that so few people here are killed by speeding dirvers.

What was described is the opposite of a conspiracy.

You’re the only person - well, probably not the only person, but among a select few - who refuses to understand the simple reality that excessive speed is a necessary condition in fatal accidents in a city where speed limits are set low enough to preclude fatal accidents when drivers adhere to them.

As the data shows, the majority of traffic deaths in Washington DC have nothing to do with excessive speed.

You and your “data” are a sick joke.

It's the DC government's data.

I have only a couple of questions for you. Do you honestly believe that every vehicular crash has a single cause and that crash investigators can conclusively determine whether a vehicle was exceeding the speed limit at the time of the crash? If you answer yes to both questions, then congratulations! You think your tabulation is relevant to this discussion. But just don’t expect anyone else to pay the slightest heed to your nonsensical opinions.

Have you been in an accident? The police do pretty thorough investigations. And a lot of people rely on them, including the families of people involved, insurance companies and the court system. We put some people in prison for the rest of their lives based on those investigations.

Then let’s see the investigation reports and discuss those, rather than the meaningless crap the deranged crank is misrepresenting at “data”.

The official results of the police investigations are "meaningless crap" being misinterpreted? You are insane.

Reducing the results of a complex investigations to a single cause is indeed meaningless crap. No sane person would believe otherwise.

Like cars?

Well, SUVs, trucks, cars all being larger, road design, distracted driving from mobile phones and entertainment centers, etc, etc. So, no.

I thought "Reducing the results of a complex investigations to a single cause is indeed meaningless crap. No sane person would believe otherwise."

Does that mean that you are not sane?

PP here. WTF are you talking about. You replied to some other PP who was saying traffic crashes are complicated and so assigning blame to a single thing is crazy by saying "like cars", implying that anyone saying that drivers are a problem are doing the same thing. Except its not just cars. It's not just drivers. It's the whole freaking driving ecosystem you dolt.

The cars are larger. They are infact mostly not even cars anymore - they are SUVs. And even the cars are larger. This means they take up more space. They have more aggressive flat fronts. This means they are more dangerous when their front ends come into contact with a human being, who now goes UNDER instead of OVER. The vehicles are loaded with electronical bullshit that distracts the crap out of the driver, to the extent that some vehicles don't even bother with a dashboard and i
instead slap a 20in HID in the center of the vehicle.

So no, it's not just "cars". It's everythign about the ecosystem being just absolutely terrible for the people who AREN'T in the vehicle.

To put things into context, American roads are now more dangerous than Russian roads. Surely that should shock some people out of complacency.

Watching Russian dashcams on youtube was a legit past time in the 2010's. Now there are more good 'ol USA dashcams on youtube than russians...

[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:

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.

We've had bike lanes for more than 20 years. There's more than 150 miles of them. Over the years, the city has spent billions of dollars promoting bicycling.

Surely, the induced demand crowd can tell us how many drivers all of that has pulled off the road. I believe someone likened induced demand to a law of physics, so the answer should be easy to determine. So let's hear it!

(My suspicion is the answer is close to zero and that all bike lanes really do is pull people off buses and subways and reduce the amount that Washingtonians walk).

Crickets...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I rarely see drivers driving like nut jobs in DC. I CONSTANTLY see pedestrians and people on wheels with a death wish - people who step right out into traffic without even look, saunter slowly across the street mid block, zooming in and out of cars on a scooter with no helmet etc. Without focusing on how non-cars are interacting with cars I doubt they’ll make more progress.

I can't think of a time I have left my house and walked more than a block from my house and NOT seen at least one of the following:

- Red light running
- Speeding
- Right turns with yielding to pedestrians
- Left turns against the light and without yielding to pedestrians in the cross walk
- Failure to yield to pedestrians in a signed crosswalk that crosses the road midblock
- Failure to signal changes of lane or turns
- ATVs and motorcycles weaving through traffic and ignoring all traffic signals and hopping sidewalks
- Running stop signs
- Passing on the right

And while less frequent I see the following a minimum of 12x a year:

- Crossing into oncoming traffic or driving on shoulders or through parking lots to get around traffic
- Driving well above speed limit (like 15 mph or more above speed limit) while weaving through traffic
- Drivers who are clearly under the influence driving erratically

I see this stuff while walking and I see it while driving. I don't even ride a bike so I can't speak to that. Drivers in this area pose a serious threat to the safety of other people whether on foot on a bike in a car or on a bus. I support virtually all traffic calming measures and any efforts to shift peopel from driving to other forms of transport even though I also drive at times because I'd rather it take me longer to drive places or be inconvenient than that I risk my life and my child's life daily just by walking to school or to the grocery store.

I regularly do all of those things except for ATVs and driving under the influence. You guys neutered the cops, so there are no consequences and I get where I'm going faster.

[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:

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.

We've had bike lanes for more than 20 years. There's more than 150 miles of them. Over the years, the city has spent billions of dollars promoting bicycling.

Surely, the induced demand crowd can tell us how many drivers all of that has pulled off the road. I believe someone likened induced demand to a law of physics, so the answer should be easy to determine. So let's hear it!

(My suspicion is the answer is close to zero and that all bike lanes really do is pull people off buses and subways and reduce the amount that Washingtonians walk).

Crickets...

People have already linked you the bike share data that demonstrates massive year over year increases before the pandemic, a dip during it, and then new records every single month of the last two calendar years.

"According to a recent report by Transportation for America, the 100 largest urbanized areas expanded their total lane miles 42 percent between 1993 and 2017 (equivalent to more than 30,000 miles of lanes), exceeding their collective 32 percent population growth during that time. Despite all that road construction, total delays in those regions skyrocketed 144 percent."

^induced demand

Shut up.

[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:

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.

We've had bike lanes for more than 20 years. There's more than 150 miles of them. Over the years, the city has spent billions of dollars promoting bicycling.

Surely, the induced demand crowd can tell us how many drivers all of that has pulled off the road. I believe someone likened induced demand to a law of physics, so the answer should be easy to determine. So let's hear it!

(My suspicion is the answer is close to zero and that all bike lanes really do is pull people off buses and subways and reduce the amount that Washingtonians walk).

Crickets...

What's the point of talking to someone who thinks we spend billions on bike lanes, no one bikes, except somehow you constantly see cyclists doing dangerous things.

You should just go to a car forum or something like that where everyone will just agree with you and give you the updoots you obviously crave.

[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:

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.

We've had bike lanes for more than 20 years. There's more than 150 miles of them. Over the years, the city has spent billions of dollars promoting bicycling.

Surely, the induced demand crowd can tell us how many drivers all of that has pulled off the road. I believe someone likened induced demand to a law of physics, so the answer should be easy to determine. So let's hear it!

(My suspicion is the answer is close to zero and that all bike lanes really do is pull people off buses and subways and reduce the amount that Washingtonians walk).

ding ding ding

The role of bicycles is limited to <2 mile trips. The exact type of trip that is usually done by walking or buses.

If bike lanes aren't getting people out of cars, and if they are mostly just reducing the number of people walking and taking the bus and taking the subway, and if bike lanes are simultaneously increasing the amount of time people sit in traffic, then it would seem that, on net, bike lanes are...*bad* for the environment.

[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:

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.

We've had bike lanes for more than 20 years. There's more than 150 miles of them. Over the years, the city has spent billions of dollars promoting bicycling.

Surely, the induced demand crowd can tell us how many drivers all of that has pulled off the road. I believe someone likened induced demand to a law of physics, so the answer should be easy to determine. So let's hear it!

(My suspicion is the answer is close to zero and that all bike lanes really do is pull people off buses and subways and reduce the amount that Washingtonians walk).

Crickets...

People have already linked you the bike share data that demonstrates massive year over year increases before the pandemic, a dip during it, and then new records every single month of the last two calendar years.

"According to a recent report by Transportation for America, the 100 largest urbanized areas expanded their total lane miles 42 percent between 1993 and 2017 (equivalent to more than 30,000 miles of lanes), exceeding their collective 32 percent population growth during that time. Despite all that road construction, total delays in those regions skyrocketed 144 percent."

^induced demand

Shut up.

The question was how many drivers has the bicycle experiment in Washington D.C. gotten off the road. Seems like a pretty basic question. Your nonanswer screams loud and clear that you have no idea.

[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:

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.

We've had bike lanes for more than 20 years. There's more than 150 miles of them. Over the years, the city has spent billions of dollars promoting bicycling.

Surely, the induced demand crowd can tell us how many drivers all of that has pulled off the road. I believe someone likened induced demand to a law of physics, so the answer should be easy to determine. So let's hear it!

(My suspicion is the answer is close to zero and that all bike lanes really do is pull people off buses and subways and reduce the amount that Washingtonians walk).

Crickets...

People have already linked you the bike share data that demonstrates massive year over year increases before the pandemic, a dip during it, and then new records every single month of the last two calendar years.

"According to a recent report by Transportation for America, the 100 largest urbanized areas expanded their total lane miles 42 percent between 1993 and 2017 (equivalent to more than 30,000 miles of lanes), exceeding their collective 32 percent population growth during that time. Despite all that road construction, total delays in those regions skyrocketed 144 percent."

^induced demand

Shut up.

The question was how many drivers has the bicycle experiment in Washington D.C. gotten off the road. Seems like a pretty basic question. Your nonanswer screams loud and clear that you have no idea.

If you’d like to pay me a few hundred thousand dollars, I could run a survey and devise a methodology to compile an estimate for you. But asking others to do quite time-intensive calculations for you when you’ve demonstrated a strong aversion to credible research findings and have belittled academic researchers is a bit rich.

[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:

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.

We've had bike lanes for more than 20 years. There's more than 150 miles of them. Over the years, the city has spent billions of dollars promoting bicycling.

Surely, the induced demand crowd can tell us how many drivers all of that has pulled off the road. I believe someone likened induced demand to a law of physics, so the answer should be easy to determine. So let's hear it!

(My suspicion is the answer is close to zero and that all bike lanes really do is pull people off buses and subways and reduce the amount that Washingtonians walk).

ding ding ding

The role of bicycles is limited to <2 mile trips. The exact type of trip that is usually done by walking or buses.

If bike lanes aren't getting people out of cars, and if they are mostly just reducing the number of people walking and taking the bus and taking the subway, and if bike lanes are simultaneously increasing the amount of time people sit in traffic, then it would seem that, on net, bike lanes are...*bad* for the environment.

Which all goes to show that it only takes a few silly assumptions to produce a ridiculous argument.

[Anonymous]

Seriously, they should execute a few illegal ATV riders as a deterrent to other punks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

We've been over this. The person you are talking about has donated to democrats and libertarians. They worked for the trump administration when they were here because that was the administration here and the people in this city who run business that are supported by the federal gov't can't afford to just say f it for 4 years and take a loss.

Dude is a libertarian through and through and is all about some individual property rights. I'm okay with that cause I don't like HOA's telling me what color I can paint my front door or that I can only plant bermuda grass in my little tiny front yard, which is why i don't live in the burbs. But i sure as shit don't want Mary Rowse marching to my house and taking pictures of my window treatments to complain at the next historic district bullshit meeting either.

Development dude is still working for Trump. Weird. https://www.newsweek.com/trump-gets-bad-news-his-own-pollsters-firm-1814645

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Seriously, they should execute a few illegal ATV riders as a deterrent to other punks.

That's the one level of lawbreaking that the "no cars" crowd never mentions. When and ATV parks in a bike lane their brains melt.

[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:

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.

We've had bike lanes for more than 20 years. There's more than 150 miles of them. Over the years, the city has spent billions of dollars promoting bicycling.

Surely, the induced demand crowd can tell us how many drivers all of that has pulled off the road. I believe someone likened induced demand to a law of physics, so the answer should be easy to determine. So let's hear it!

(My suspicion is the answer is close to zero and that all bike lanes really do is pull people off buses and subways and reduce the amount that Washingtonians walk).

Crickets...

People have already linked you the bike share data that demonstrates massive year over year increases before the pandemic, a dip during it, and then new records every single month of the last two calendar years.

"According to a recent report by Transportation for America, the 100 largest urbanized areas expanded their total lane miles 42 percent between 1993 and 2017 (equivalent to more than 30,000 miles of lanes), exceeding their collective 32 percent population growth during that time. Despite all that road construction, total delays in those regions skyrocketed 144 percent."

^induced demand

Shut up.

The question was how many drivers has the bicycle experiment in Washington D.C. gotten off the road. Seems like a pretty basic question. Your nonanswer screams loud and clear that you have no idea.

If you’d like to pay me a few hundred thousand dollars, I could run a survey and devise a methodology to compile an estimate for you. But asking others to do quite time-intensive calculations for you when you’ve demonstrated a strong aversion to credible research findings and have belittled academic researchers is a bit rich.

It is legitimately bonkers that no one can point to a single study from the past 20 years showing that bike lanes in DC do what they say it does. You would think government policy would be based on more than just wishful thinking. The DC government is so depressing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I rarely see drivers driving like nut jobs in DC. I CONSTANTLY see pedestrians and people on wheels with a death wish - people who step right out into traffic without even look, saunter slowly across the street mid block, zooming in and out of cars on a scooter with no helmet etc. Without focusing on how non-cars are interacting with cars I doubt they’ll make more progress.

I can't think of a time I have left my house and walked more than a block from my house and NOT seen at least one of the following:

- Red light running
- Speeding
- Right turns with yielding to pedestrians
- Left turns against the light and without yielding to pedestrians in the cross walk
- Failure to yield to pedestrians in a signed crosswalk that crosses the road midblock
- Failure to signal changes of lane or turns
- ATVs and motorcycles weaving through traffic and ignoring all traffic signals and hopping sidewalks
- Running stop signs
- Passing on the right

And while less frequent I see the following a minimum of 12x a year:

- Crossing into oncoming traffic or driving on shoulders or through parking lots to get around traffic
- Driving well above speed limit (like 15 mph or more above speed limit) while weaving through traffic
- Drivers who are clearly under the influence driving erratically

I see this stuff while walking and I see it while driving. I don't even ride a bike so I can't speak to that. Drivers in this area pose a serious threat to the safety of other people whether on foot on a bike in a car or on a bus. I support virtually all traffic calming measures and any efforts to shift peopel from driving to other forms of transport even though I also drive at times because I'd rather it take me longer to drive places or be inconvenient than that I risk my life and my child's life daily just by walking to school or to the grocery store.

I regularly do all of those things except for ATVs and driving under the influence. You guys neutered the cops, so there are no consequences and I get where I'm going faster.

Lazy MPD abandoned their work and still get paid. What a great racket.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I rarely see drivers driving like nut jobs in DC. I CONSTANTLY see pedestrians and people on wheels with a death wish - people who step right out into traffic without even look, saunter slowly across the street mid block, zooming in and out of cars on a scooter with no helmet etc. Without focusing on how non-cars are interacting with cars I doubt they’ll make more progress.

I can't think of a time I have left my house and walked more than a block from my house and NOT seen at least one of the following:

- Red light running
- Speeding
- Right turns with yielding to pedestrians
- Left turns against the light and without yielding to pedestrians in the cross walk
- Failure to yield to pedestrians in a signed crosswalk that crosses the road midblock
- Failure to signal changes of lane or turns
- ATVs and motorcycles weaving through traffic and ignoring all traffic signals and hopping sidewalks
- Running stop signs
- Passing on the right

And while less frequent I see the following a minimum of 12x a year:

- Crossing into oncoming traffic or driving on shoulders or through parking lots to get around traffic
- Driving well above speed limit (like 15 mph or more above speed limit) while weaving through traffic
- Drivers who are clearly under the influence driving erratically

I see this stuff while walking and I see it while driving. I don't even ride a bike so I can't speak to that. Drivers in this area pose a serious threat to the safety of other people whether on foot on a bike in a car or on a bus. I support virtually all traffic calming measures and any efforts to shift peopel from driving to other forms of transport even though I also drive at times because I'd rather it take me longer to drive places or be inconvenient than that I risk my life and my child's life daily just by walking to school or to the grocery store.

I regularly do all of those things except for ATVs and driving under the influence. You guys neutered the cops, so there are no consequences and I get where I'm going faster.

Lazy MPD abandoned their work and still get paid. What a great racket.

Having an MPD officer convicted of murder because a drug dealer doesn't know how to drive will drive down traffic enforcement efforts.