You really can’t build your way out of congestion
I have just started reading the book “Still Stuck in Traffic: Coping with Peak-Hour Traffic Congestion” by Anthony Downs, and it promises to be quite an interesting insight into what causes traffic congestion, and what can (and can’t) be done to alleviate it.…
27 Comments Changing Mindsets
There’s a lot of talk in transport and land-use planning circles about changing mindsets, that to get people using public transport more often (or to get people living in higher density housing if we’re talking about land-use planning) we need to change their mindsets, to overcome decades of habit and somehow create a giant “culture change” in the way that people live and move around urban areas.…
Accessibility vs Mobility
Accessibility and mobility are two quite interesting terms that get thrown around a lot when it comes to transport planning. Humantransit has an excellent post quite recently on the pitfalls of trying to analyse public transport projects as if they were roading projects.…
Why are we ignoring a Northwest Busway?
Well I went along to a fairly significant chunk of NZTA’s Waterview Connection expo today. While I criticised the wisdom of running something for seven hours in a previous post, I must say that having all that time available meant that issues could be delved into in far greater detail than I’ve ever seen at any previous consultation.…
Can you build your way out of congestion?
Whether or not it’s possible to “build your way out of congestion” is a fundamental question that transport planners all around the world grapple with. On the one hand, we seem to have been building a lot of “transport stuff” over the past few hundred years yet our cities seem as congested as ever; while on the other hand it seems quite crazy to suggest that building transport projects is pointless as no matter what you build, you’ll never actually be able to make a difference to congestion.…
Induced Traffic Demand
One of the big debates in transport circles is the concept of ‘induced demand’ or ‘induced traffic’. As its simplest, induced demand means that when you make an improvement to a transport corridor, that improvement will encourage more people to use that transport corridor – or more simply: “if you build it they will come”.…
Highway widening and CO2 emissions
One of the best things about this blog becoming more and more widely read is that I am increasingly having people email me interesting links to transport research or transport-related events happening around Auckland. I also seem to have ended up on ARTA’s emailing list for all media releases these days (perhaps I am now an important stakeholder?)…
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