Image via WikipediaThe Fundamental Law of Road Congestion: Evidence from US Cities (Forthcoming, Duranton, Gilles and Turner, Matthew A., American Economic Review, Feb. 2011)Also quoted here: More Roads, More Traffic (WSJ Blogs-Ideas Market, May 27, 2011)
And here: Transit and Congestion, an Indirect Connection (DC Streets Blog, Oct. 2, 2009)
The article under review today confirms (with extensive evidence and analysis) what many of those who study traffic and road use already believed: that building roads does not relieve congestion, it adds to it. Further that adding transit does not help either. The only choice between road building, more transit or congestion pricing is the latter – which happens also to be the one that covers its own costs or even adds revenue back into road budgets.
Key Quotes:
“increased provision of interstate highways and major urban roads is unlikely to relieve congestion of these roads.”
“People drive more when there are more roads to drive on, commercial driving and trucking increases with the number of roads, and, to a lesser extent, people migrate to areas with lots of roads.”
“They didn’t find that transit reduces congestion..more buses and trains won’t reduce congestion..because regardless of how many drivers switch to transit, other drivers will fill the vacuum.”
“here are all these people out there waiting to take trips as soon as there’s space on the roads. So if somebody stays home, or if you add capacity to the road, there’s somebody there waiting to use that space”
“If you build it, you will sit in traffic on it.”
“These findings suggest that both road capacity expansions and extensions to public transit are not appropriate policies with which to combat traffic congestion. This leaves congestion pricing as the main candidate tool to curb traffic congestion”
“an increased provision of roads or public transit is unlikely to relieve congestion and that the current provision of roads exceeds the optimum given the absence of congestion pricing”
“tolling will create both the demand and the revenue for new transit capacity. The relationship between capacity and congestion is one we'd all do well to understand”
Related articles
- Study: Building Roads to Cure Congestion Is an Exercise in Futility (dc.streetsblog.org)
- Brussels the most congested city, UK most congested country (inautonews.com)
- Building More Roads Only Causes More Traffic (fastcompany.com)
- Gas hikes, road tolls, congestion charges needed to fund transit (thestar.com)
- City congestion rates revealed (autonetinsurance.co.uk)
- Traffic alert: 'Expect congestion' on East Marginal starting Wednesday (westseattleblog.com)
- Congestion in Sydney getting worse: NRMA (news.theage.com.au)
- Does Destroying Highways Solve Urban Traffic Congestion? (freakonomics.com)
- Call for motorway system expansion (autonetinsurance.co.uk)
- Motorists angry at state of roads (autonetinsurance.co.uk)
- Satnav problems to be corrected (autonetinsurance.co.uk)
- Some Truths about Congestion and the Case for Congestion Pricing (pollutionfree.wordpress.com)
- Bike congestion causing problems for Montreal cyclists (cbc.ca)
- Bradford roads 'are third most congested in England' (thetelegraphandargus.co.uk)
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