> A carpool lane was to be added to reduce congestion on a 10-mile stretch of Los Angeles’s I-405 freeway, the second most congested road in the U.S.
From https://www.vox.com/2014/10/23/6994159/traffic-roads-induced... :
> By way of illustration, consider the following situation: there's a store where you know you can save $10 on something you need to buy, but it's 10 miles away. If you assume there will be terrible traffic and it'll take 30 minutes to get there, you'll just buy the product at a closer store. However, if a new lane gets added to a highway that will speed your journey there, you'll decide it's worth it.
> Over time, thousands of people will make this calculation - along with similar ones, like deciding to drive a few blocks rather than walk, because it'll be faster, or choosing to move farther from work, in exchange for a bigger house, because they assume the distance can be covered quickly. Eventually, they increased miles they drive will go a long way towards filling up the new, expensive roads that municipalities went to so much trouble to build.
There are still plenty of drivers in NYC; one of the big plusses of the subway system is that it makes room for other people who want or need to drive more. Every single time the subway is out of service the roads totally lock up because the subways divert a lot of people.
“We should build transit infrastructure so everyone else can use it and I can keep driving” would be an improvement in mindset many parts of the country.
Needing to own a car because there is no way to get by without one, isn't freedom.
Freedom from…?
And I say that as someone who's all for making public transportation better and reducing reliability on cars
That said, the freedom to drive is a publicly subsidized freedom, paid for at the expense of the taxpayer and enjoyed unevenly by the population. Society made a choice to build many roads. We could make the decision, too, to make rail and other public transit so ubiquitous, clean and affordable that the need to have a massive, costly and pollution-generating asset just to get to work and get groceries could be a thing of the past for more people.
I will drive myself directly to work and save myself 2 hours. I don't care if it's worse for the rest, you couldn't pay me to sit on a bus for 2-3 hours just so I can sit in an office for 8 and then make the whole trip home at the end of the day.
Sorry not sorry.
So, ironically, what you are complaining about (and would probably vote against if given the choice) is something that could benefit you.
But hey, at least you have your freedom or something.
And your example of a poor efficiency bus system (for your specific commute) is common but is usually a symptom of poor investment rather than an inherent problem with transit systems.
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 that traffic congestion is an exponential problem (https://youtu.be/cHSCmQnGH9Q).
As a result, investing in car infrastructure is actually not a good way to improve your commute time. It may seem backwards, but since more car infrastructure encourages more drivers, and since more drivers increase congestion at an exponential rate, more car infrastructure tends to (at the best case) not improve the situation at all.
This is why people like myself really try to push for investment in other forms of transit. If you have multiple, high-quality transit options, some people will pick the train, some will pick a bike, and others will pick a car.
If biking and taking the train or bus is good enough that it gets a few drivers off the road, that makes the experience significantly better for you, as we are now decreasing congestion at an exponential rate. Even a handful of people using something else on a busy road can make a big difference in how long you wait at a traffic light.
I’m advocating for you to have more freedom: more good choices and options available to you. Right now you have one choice, driving, and it isn’t even that good because you have to wait in traffic. Why wouldn’t it be better to have 2 or 3 excellent transit options? Even driving would be better. (https://youtu.be/d8RRE2rDw4k)
This isn’t so much about individual choice. (Though every driver is the congestion simply by using a car.) This isn’t so much about rural and remote areas either. This is about what we invest in to improve the quality of life and transit effectiveness in dense areas.
Another creative solution to reduce traffic is to work from home or a smaller satellite office that’s closer than that. Neighborhood coworking offices near local cafes, gyms etc make for nice walkability, bikability and drivability.