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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   31304 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 15, 2023

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Let's say we add the new lanes, and congestion stays the same, and travel times stay the same. Is this a failure?

Let's say you have a single supermarket in a town. It's too crowded, the lines are always long. A second supermarket opens in a town. There's enough demand that, now, both supermarkets are too crowded, and the lines are too long. Is this bad? No, it's strictly an improvement - more people are buying food now! And the supermarket makes more money!

The same is true of 'induced demand' - the goal of 'reduce congestion' wasn't accomplished, but a separate goal of 'more people getting to where they want to' was. The extra people who drive on the new highway are benefitting greatly from the change - they can now get to places they couldn't before!

No, it would be a net decrease, because the cost of doing so would be very high, and those resources could be more efficiently used elsewhere.

That's ... not a net decrease. That's a 'suboptimal policy'. It's only a net decrease if those resources would be used more efficiently elsewhere absent the highway. Which, I think you would agree when looking at the rest of the city budget, they're not likely to be any time soon.

It would suck for anyone who currently lives in the area and has to deal with additional car traffic

A net decrease would require comparing that 'dealing with additional traffic' to the new jobs or new activities the people the additional traffic brings, or the economic benefits from the businesses employing / serving the additional traffic. And ... I can't see how that comes out net negative. Having your property sized does suck, yeah, and I'm not sure how to factor that cost in - but that's basically a universal cost of development, so it doesn't obviously bring the total negative.

I think the induced demand idea comes from the observation that while travel times for things like trains are fairly stiff as utilization approaches capacity, roads tend to see a large increase in travel times when approaching capacity. I don't think it's aptly described by induced demand, but it is likely rather frustrating that an increase in capacity is just that, with no decrease in travel times. This is an especially bitter truth because the total throughput may be maximised at less than full capacity.

Yeah. If the only cost one pays to drive is in travel time, and more people want to use the road at 0 congestion than can, congestion will be the 'price' that rises until the market clears. And if the supply curve is X people can use the road at 0 congestion, but X * 1.05 people can use the road at high congestion ... if the demand curve is in the wrong place, everyone can end up with high congestion. But this isn't a "distributive effect" as it'd be if it was a toll price extracting surplus value, because nobody's "getting" the lost time to congestion, it's just burned.

This is an especially bitter truth because the total throughput may be maximised at less than full capacity.

I'm not entirely sure what a 'full capacity but not max throughput' road looks like? (genuine question as opposed to rhetorical)

And if the supply curve is X people can use the road at 0 congestion, but X * 1.05 people can use the road at high congestion ... if the demand curve is in the wrong place, everyone can end up with high congestion.

I wouldn't be surprised if past a certain point congestion decreased capacity.

I'm not entirely sure what a 'full capacity but not max throughput' road looks like? (genuine question as opposed to rhetorical)

A traffic jam.

I missed some of these comments from before.

That's ... not a net decrease. That's a 'suboptimal policy'. It's only a net decrease if those resources would be used more efficiently elsewhere absent the highway. Which, I think you would agree when looking at the rest of the city budget, they're not likely to be any time soon.

"Don't tax people as much" is pretty efficient. You can make any project at all seem good by comparing it to something even worse, but this isn't a high standard.

A net decrease would require comparing that 'dealing with additional traffic' to the new jobs or new activities the people the additional traffic brings, or the economic benefits from the businesses employing / serving the additional traffic. And ... I can't see how that comes out net negative. Having your property sized does suck, yeah, and I'm not sure how to factor that cost in - but that's basically a universal cost of development, so it doesn't obviously bring the total negative.

You're not counting any of the money spent as part of the net negative. If we could teleport roads in for free, then yeah, that be a different calculation. But the roads are free to drive on, which means they are being used above the level which is economically efficient, and building more lanes would just exacerbate the problem. This is what I mean by net negative: We're spending more and more money for what is, yes, a fairly marginal benefit. You know what would let a lot more people commute faster, with fewer externalities? A train.

Let me ask you this: Is there any domain where this argument doesn't apply? Should the government supply every good at 0 cost to the consumer? Because I'm pretty sure that communism doesn't work very well.

But the roads are free to drive on, which means they are being used above the level which is economically efficient,

By this reasoning, any salaried employee is also being used above the level which is economically efficient, at least if the employer has a choice of what assignments to give the employee.

...what?

The roads are paid for. They are just not paid for on a per-mile basis; travelling more doesn't mean you pay more.

If paying for something, but not proportionately to its use, makes it be used above its economically efficient level, that argument also applies to other things paid for in such a fashion. Such as salaried employees.

(Actually, gas taxes pay for roads and they are proportional to miles driven, but ignore that for now.)

If paying for something, but not proportionately to its use, makes it be used above its economically efficient level, that argument also applies to other things paid for in such a fashion.

A salaried employee is, at least for now, an actual human, and thus capable of affecting how much work it actually does. But, this argument absolutely applies to other things. Education and health care are 2 notable examples--the consumer rarely pays anything close to the actual cost, which results in overconsumption and inefficiency (for some reason I feel like I would get way less pushback on The Motte if I made the same argument for these domains...).

(Actually, gas taxes pay for roads and they are proportional to miles driven, but ignore that for now.)

Gas taxes only pay for a fraction of road costs and gas consumed is only roughly related to road cost imposed. It also has very little to do with any externalities, like noise.

Is this a failure?

If your goal is to reduce congestion, which is typically a major stated goal of these projects, then yes, it's clearly a failure.

And the market makes more money!

I don't think this statement means anything, but also there is no "market" here. The state government just wants to build more highway, regardless of costs or benefits.

a separate goal of 'more people getting to where they want to'

I don't know why every time I end up in a discussion about roads on here, all of the car enthusiasts use the same analogy as if I don't understand that more people driving means that more people are going places. That's not the question. The question is how this particular use of space, money, and time compares to alternatives. It's like offering starving people 1,000-dollar truffle mushrooms as food, and then when someone points out that 98% of them are still starving because you could only afford to feed 2%, you pat yourself on the back because, well, you fed some people, right?

Plus, you can't just completely ignore everyone except for the group who benefits. What about the businesses and homes that would be subsumed by the wider freeway? Are they better off? What about people who live in East Austin and would like to be able to get into downtown without driving? What about people who can't or don't want to drive?

Okay, lets bring some numbers into it. I-35 through downtown has an average annual daily traffic count (AADT) of 150,000-200,000. The widest section of the Katy Freeway in Houston has an AADT of about 300,000. It seems plausible that if we doubled the width of I-35 we could get an AADT of 250,000-300,000 before experiencing the current level of congestion. That's 50,000 extra commuters (since AADT measures traffic both ways). To put that in perspective, 50,000 is 4% of the entire population of Travis County. Suppose an entire city block has to be demolished the whole length of the freeway through the county, does that directly impact 50,000 people? Do 4% of the county's citizens live or work directly adjacent to the East side of I-35? It's not like these people are thrown into the fires of Mordor either. The massively increased throughput will open up development opportunities further away from the city center, increasing the supply of housing and driving down rents.

Having your business seized is probably much worse than being able to live in a slightly further out area is good, and destroying the downtown makes it less valuable to everyone, including the new commuters, but as I tried to describe in my replies to curious, the main issue is cost. 7.5 billion is $140,000 per commuter. Another issue is just time--Austin's population increased by 200,000 between 2005 and 2015 (corresponding to each of those commuters supporting a family of 4, though in reality this is generous since families aren't that big any more). Are you going to build another 4 lanes every <10 years? Constant construction, until the whole of downtown is pavement?

increasing the supply of housing and driving down rents.

The problem isn't being too far from the city, it's limitations on development. There's enormous amounts of underdeveloped land extremely close to downtown. Destroying an apartment building close to downtown so you can build more sprawling houses far away is a terrible way to reduce rents. Similarly, development opportunities far away are much less valuable. Like, this is just so backwards--let's destroy development downtown so we can build slightly more very far away? Should we just not have cities at all?

And the market makes more money!

By market I meant "the supermarket", not a market in the economy sense, sorry

If your goal is to reduce congestion, which is typically a major stated goal of these projects, then yes, it's clearly a failure.

Well, that's the main stated goal because 'people who do not shop or live or work here, but will after we do ' isn't a particularly valuable constituency for local politics, whereas 'people who live here and want driving to be easier is'. But ... imagine we expand the highways, but we track everyone who uses the highway & their frequency of use in the preceding months, and ban anyone from using the highway more frequently than they did in the past. This would ensure congestion is relieved. But seems dumb, precisely because 'existing people driving a bit faster' seems worse than 'more people using the highway'?

The question is how this particular use of space, money, and time compares to alternatives

If all the transit-urbanism claims are true and that money should go into efficiently constructed subways instead, and if doing so would cause road use to be demanded so much less that current congestion dries up ... strong assumptions, but then yes, the current highway expansion would be pointless. But given that alternative isn't happening, and both lack of political will and existing dysfunction in construction in the US make it unlikely to happen soon. Whereas the highway expansion is happening. So outside of that, what better alternatives are there for that money, do you think?

you pat yourself on the back because, well, you fed some people, right?

It makes the question of 'should we stop handing out the truffle mushrooms'? And - if you're an individual who has that power, yes, you should simultaneously stop buying truffles and start buying rice. But given I don't have that power, I don't see how advocating against building the highway helps much - because if the highway stops, the existing (stronger) forces preventing better (i am assuming they are better for this discussion, haven't thought enough to be sure) forms of transit won't suddenly dissipate, we'll be arguably worse off, without expanded highways or better transit

By market I meant "the supermarket", not a market in the economy sense, sorry

Ok, the combined revenue (or profit) of the 2 markets is higher than of the single supermarket before. Yes, but this doesn't tell us anything. There is no corresponding value in the analogy, because the roads are free to use. There's also no way to know, in this case, what the correct number of roads actually is, because again there is no market (general definition).

But seems dumb, precisely because 'existing people driving a bit faster' seems worse than 'more people using the highway'?

A ban is dumb, but there should be congestion pricing. Keeping the highway uncongested is actually relatively valuable, because it increases throughput. But again, the real problem is that you will never build enough highways. It is impossible.

But given that alternative isn't happening, and both lack of political will and existing dysfunction in construction in the US make it unlikely to happen soon. Whereas the highway expansion is happening. So outside of that, what better alternatives are there for that money, do you think?

As the article I linked mentioned, the city recently passed a bond to fund more transit. But overall, I find this logic fairly circular, like when liberal groups use endless litigation to drive up the cost of the death penalty, and then try to have the death penalty banned because it's so expensive. Part of the reason transit is so expensive is because of people who want to build more roads instead. (For what it's worth, I don't think most US cities need a subway. Light rail is fine, and even in the US that compares pretty well in terms of cost per mile per passenger's worth of capacity).

we'll be arguably worse off, without expanded highways or better transit

The city is working on better transit, and either project will certainly take years, if not decades, to complete, and probably be subject to substantial opposition and delays. Overall it seems like your argument boils down to "building roads has more existing political support, so let's keep providing more political support to building more roads" which, again, seems circular.

The market in this case is utility enjoyed by people living where they prefer.

...what? I have no idea what you're trying to say. This is just a non sequitur.

People derive enjoyment from certain living arrangements? This seems pretty uncontroversial to me. Some people may like trees, some may like an upper floor on a tall building, some may like having a garage or a big back yard or a pool or a huge basement or space for their mother in law to live with them but in a physically different structure or any of a zillion other things.

The amount of enjoyment is measured by economists as utility. People might or might not trade something they really like like eating less pizza for something else they like like a skinny waist or giving up a short commute to get some housing feature they prefer. These trade decisions are just as much market decisions as trades purely done with currency they just involve trades of utility, too.

Just because no dollars are exchanged it's still a trade which means it's effectively a market, and the same tools we use to study currency based markets work to study utility markets, it's just harder to directly observe prices.

What trades are you talking about? What does any of this have to do with the subject at hand? I'm well aware of what utility is and the fact that people have preferences, but you haven't explained how any of it relates to roads.

People trade more time commuting for a home that has some feature they value with more utility than one that would have a shorter commute.

This is your 3rd comment and you have yet to say anything that is clearly related to the thread topic. There is no market in roads, which are all built by the government. That roads allow some people to live further out (at the cost of preventing other people from living closer in) does not change this fact.

The roads are the marketplace, which facilitate direct utility trading. It's like the government expanding a market place allowing more people to buy food. The goal of building a road shouldn't be to reduce congestion its to allow more people to pay the congestion price to get the home they value more than the time they pay.

Similar to building a larger market or a second market may not reduce the price of wheat or bread the purpose of the expansion was to it increases the volume of wheat or bread sold in the market.

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