The difference is that those extra lanes take up physical space, which goes unused outside of rush hour, while increasing frequency of eg trains or trams does not. For example, I was recently in the US and during the day the 6-lane-each-way highways were completely empty, almost like a ghost town, but during rush hour, they were at a complete standstill.
> If people didn't typically commute at the same time...
Absolutely! That would be ideal.
Re:Against the synchronous society
by JoshTriplett on Saturday January 06, 2018 @08:11PM
(#16088473)
> The difference is that those extra lanes take up physical space, which goes unused outside of rush hour, while increasing frequency of eg trains or trams does not.
To increase the capacity of trains and busses, you need more trains/busses, larger trains/busses, more train/bus operators, more electricity/gas usage, more storage, more maintenance, and so on. And those same huge trains and busses also become near-empty late at night.
Yes, the baseline efficiency of a train or bus is potentially better, making all the standard tradeoffs. But everyone commuting at the same time causes similar problems with both. I'm not arguing against public transit, here, I'm arguing against the claim upthread that "This is a problem of a car centric society", which is orthogonal to a staggered commute.
And during rush hour, the highways are a lot more full, and often capacity (number of lanes) is increased to compensate. If people didn't typically commute at the same time, then busses, trains, and car transport would all benefit from a reduction in required peak capacity. This is not in any way specific to cars.