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PaperclipPerfector  10d ago (text post)   33715 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 11, 2024

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I found this blog when I was trying to figure out what a “Soviet triangle” meant. Thought it was interesting reading. That article is about bus networks, but there are others on subway placement, throughout, all sorts of stuff.

congestion fees

Those certainly disincentivize traffic, but I’m not sure I grasp the economics. Taxing consumption reduces the clearing quantity. But the clearing quantity for roads is the supply of workers! Any intervention that doesn’t change the ratio of road usage per worker is going to affect the cost of labor, too.

So we need to ask whether self-driving cars fundamentally changes that ratio. I think it has to, right? Flawless zipper-merging. Reduced accident rates. Shorter following distances, perhaps ending in attached convoys to reduce drag. There’s a lot of room for technical solutions.

I don’t think we’ve hit the limit on people-miles per hour. Until we do, we still have room to make congestion more efficient.

I think you make a pretty important point: Many, if not most, drivers in cities don't even want to be there. They are there to get the paycheck to do the things they actually want to do. Thus any "solution" to too many people driving in the city will inevitably end up hollowing out that industrial/urban core of office buildings. We've seen this story before. This kills the city.

Pedestrian Observations is great! I don't know any better source for highlighting transit economics and (especially) instances of transit agency incompetence.

Taxing consumption should lower road usage per worker, because it makes workers more likely to bike, carpool, or take transit.

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