Why Traffic Congestion Grows Exponentially, Why It Matters, and What To Do About It // An Explainer
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN commenters cite it when arguing that congestion is an exponential, feedback-driven problem so widening roads or removing a few cars behaves counterintuitively.
What it is
CityNerd explains why traffic congestion grows nonlinearly as more cars use a road network, and why adding road capacity tends not to fix it. It covers the consequences for drivers, bus riders, cyclists and pedestrians, and discusses alternatives such as true bus rapid transit.
Recommended by 0 HN commenters across 0 different months, 2022 to 2024.
What Hacker News said
Cites jewayne · 2022-06 · on “Why America can’t build”
Here's a video on the topic: ("Why Traffic Congestion Grows Exponentially, Why It Matters, and What To Do About It") [this video]
Cites noahtallen · 2022-06 · on “Why America can’t build”
This is a straw man argument, where you’re using a worst-case scenario for buses. A quick rail line could get you to the office in under an hour, and would beat traffic if it was designed well. Hell, buses ought to skip traffic via dedicated lanes since they’re carrying so many more people than a car. But it’s important to note that only takes 2-3 hours because public transit doesn’t get the investment it needs to be good . And even when cars do get an extreme amount of investment, it still takes you an hour to go 25 miles. It should be clear at this point that driving is not a scalable, general solution for quick, effective transit in areas with lots of people. The pretty simple reason is t
Cites xracy · 2023-11 · on “'It gets scary': Neighbors say these Bay Area ghost kitchens are out of control”
ah yes, "traffic enforcement fixes traffic" That's why there exists no traffic in all of the places with traffic police. It's not at all like it's a positive feedback loop where one person messing up parking causes downstream effects for the rest of the day... [this video]
Cites xracy · 2024-06 · on “Waymo the Leapfrog”
Traffic congestion increases nonlinearly[1]. i.e. the 10th car on a road has a smaller effect than the 100th car on the road. Accordingly, the cost of increasing a bus' size and decreasing its speed pales in comparison to the value derived by removing 5-20 cars from the road. [this video]