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Re: What Really Causes Traffic Congestion

Posted by WillD on Thu Jul 11 02:39:13 2013, in response to Re: What Really Causes Traffic Congestion, posted by BrooklynBus on Wed Jul 10 23:05:09 2013.

1- We could have fewer cars and trucks on the road by increasing mass transit options and encouraging rail freight.

6- Increase rail freight opportunities to remove truck traffic from the roads, especially the BQE.

1- We could have fewer cars and trucks on the road by increasing mass transit options and encouraging rail freight

Building mass transit to reduce congestion on highways is a fools errand. The people who avail themselves of whatever new transit service is offered will no longer be stuck in the traffic. But due to the triple convergence of mode, route, and time, whatever the reduction in traffic due to their trips being removed from a congested road will be filled by another commuter adjusting their route, mode, or departure time. You cannot build your way out of congestion, either by building roads or rails. All you can hope to do is maximize the number of people who are unaffected by that congestion on mass transit.

2A- Police should give tickets to double parking that causes traffic congestion and not merely view summonses as a means to raise revenue.

Do you have evidence that the police are currently not ticketing double parked cars despite having the opportunity to do so?

2B- Schedule as much roadwork as possible for the middle of the night or when the road is not busy, although there always will be some roadwork that causes some congestion.

2C- Also, try to minimize disruptions from utility work. I was once delayed 20 minutes on 62nd Street near the Queensborough Bridge one Sunday morning because only three vehicles were able to cross First Avenue during each traffic cycle due to the utility work. A traffic agent, if posted there, could have allowed vehicles to cross on a red signal, eliminating most of the delay since First Avenue traffic was very light at that time.

2D- Unless the road is widened, which may not be feasible, little can be done here except perhaps banning parking to increase traffic flow

These three are effectively the same and go back to holding the automobile's needs above the needs of all street users. Unfortunately with the infrastructure in NYC those demands are not particularly realistic.

2E- Again, all we can do regarding accidents is to try to prevent them. Once they occur, traffic congestion usually cannot be avoided if traffic volumes are high.

Accident/disabled vehicle clearance is a fairly valid congestion alleviation technique. It has been successfully implemented around the country. But it's normally done on limited access highways where the process of finding disabled vehicles can be largely automated. On arterial streets in NYC it'd be considerably more difficult.

3- Do not intentionally put traffic signals out of sync causing unnecessary congestion. However, even when they are in sync, congestion can be caused along intersecting streets because their green time has been reduced. In those cases, parking can be banned during those hours, adding a traffic lane near the intersection for right turning vehicles. When a computer failure causes out of sync signals, a smooth sailing roadway can be instantly turned into a parking lot with the same number of vehicles. Fortunately, that problem is usually corrected in a few hours.

Again, all other requirements are secondary to the needs of the driver, who apparently needs to have the maximum amount of green light time as is humanly possible. I guess it's to hell with someone's grandmother trying to get across the street after getting off a bus.

4- If there is inadequate green time, that should be corrected, if possible, which may not be that easy to do.

5- The only way to reduce the numbers of pedestrians crossing at an intersection is to either add a mid-block crossing or build a pedestrian overpass.

Oh, I didn't notice that 4 was redundant based on what you said in 3. But 5 is laughable. Now the pedestrians have to climb and descend a series of steps just so the driver, who again has sacrosanct ownership of the road, is not delayed by a few minutes. That is to say nothing of the incredible cost to the city to construct anything close to the number of pedestrian overpasses that would be required to make even a tiny impact on traffic congestion. Grade separation of pedestrians and automobiles may be the most inconvenient, most expensive way to go about congestion relief.

6 is of course redundant.

7- Add more trains and buses or don’t overdevelop.

Also redundant with #1 and #6. So really in here you have about 3 complete, unique ideas you stretched into eleven bulleted points by repeating them. And what do you mean by "overdevelop?" Do you mean to not develop land past the point where a hierarchical street grid can easily convey most of the people living in an area through the peak period without experiencing congestion? Because I seriously doubt there is *anywhere* in the five boroughs that even remotely meets that criteria. There are sparsely populated exurban developments served by 4 lane "super streets" with limited grade separation which manage to experience peak period congestion. NYC is beyond hope of ever conveying an appreciable fraction of its residents by automobile without experiencing congestion.