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A comment on How Seattle Got More People to Ride the Bus. Parent comment

Re:How Seattle Got More People to Ride the Bus by DrScump on Saturday October 21, 2017 @07:55PM (#15524285) 

  They have special rights of way
... which come at the expense of taking away existing universal-use lanes, worsening all other traffic congestion.
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Re:How Seattle Got More People to Ride the Bus by TrinaryWorksToo on Saturday October 21, 2017 @08:06PM (#15524334)
Which then gets people on the bus, easing the congestion. This is a well documented effect, where the opposite happens, adding more lanes increases traffic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand#Reduced_demand_...
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Re:How Seattle Got More People to Ride the Bus by DrScump on Saturday October 21, 2017 @08:13PM (#15524362) 

  a well documented effect
Not really. Had the "road diet" actually resulted in a shift from cars to transit, the transit agencies would show a corresponding increase in their census and farebox return. They didn't.
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Re:How Seattle Got More People to Ride the Bus by TrinaryWorksToo on Saturday October 21, 2017 @09:05PM (#15524532)
Okay, you're right about the Wikipedia article not showing an increase in those statistics for mass transit. However, this paper does show a substitution effect for busses: http://clinlawell.dyson.cornell.edu/InTech_public_transit_ch...

However, there is an induced demand effect where because there are less cars, more people will drive. So in effect an extra lane appears, empty of the people riding the bus.

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