First analysis of how Uber and Lyft have affected roadway congestion in SF

Re:First analysis of how Uber and Lyft have affected roadway... by TangoTrotFox on Wednesday October 17, 2018 @04:14AM (#18237136)

In many ways, I think solutions like this are just kicking the can. Travel in a place like Bangkok for one day. Red lights look like the start of a motocross rally. There are even motorbike taxis. And motorcycles deciding the sidewalk doubles as a bike line is a common sight. But traffic is still completely brutal. That's also with city wide subway and airtrain transport options as well.

The problem is simple. People need access to the roadways in a fashion that grows linearly to low exponentially. But the capacity of the roadway capacity stays constant with an occasional constant bump. Even if you suddenly toss every single driver on a scooter, it's just one of those constant time bumps. You'll eventually bump into the exact same problem of a constant road capacity against an increasing roadway access demand.

You need a way of linearly, and indefinitely, increasing traffic capacity, not one-off constant value work-arounds.

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Re:First analysis of how Uber and Lyft have affected roadway... by njarboe on Wednesday October 17, 2018 @01:49PM (#18241551)

Check out the Boring Company. This could be the solution. Tunnels can be stacked below the city just as deep or deeper than you can build up.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:First analysis of how Uber and Lyft have affected roadway... by TheCoelacanth on Wednesday October 17, 2018 @09:25AM (#18238676)

Amount of potential traffic can't grow without limit. People need space to do other things. That puts a natural limit on the amount of traffic because people don't go places just to get there. They go places to do something when they get there.

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Re:First analysis of how Uber and Lyft have affected roadway... by TangoTrotFox on Wednesday October 17, 2018 @02:56PM (#18242452)

The big underlying factor is population increase, both permanent increases of the local population and temporary increases from visitors. Though I imagine there are also other factors even beyond that one that also increase traffic. It's probably safe to say that increased income results in more activity involving transport, for instance. I'd agree there's definitely some theoretic cutoff where it becomes practically physically impossible to squeeze any more people into an area, but I'm not sure how practical it is to consider that since you're hitting major dystopia long before you get to that point.

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