IEVS: California Autobahn: Bill proposes to cut emissions by adding fast lanes

My Nissan Leaf Forum

Help Support My Nissan Leaf Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

GRA

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 19, 2011
Messages
14,018
Location
East side of San Francisco Bay
https://www.greencarreports.com/new...roposes-to-cut-emissions-by-adding-fast-lanes

Definitely not a fan of this. The last thing we should be doing is expanding freeways. Besides, lots of people cruise at 80-85 on I-5 in the rural parts of the central valley now, so instead of building more lanes we could just up the speed limit. Of course, this bill is by an Orange County Republican who's also a long-time opponent of high-speed rail (he's got lots of company in the last area, at least how it was being done), and has zero chance of passage in the Democratic-controlled House and Senate with a Dem. Governor as well.
 
Unlimited speed limit + skill of average California driver (a large percentage of whom are unlicensed or had their license taken away) + condition of average car in California = What could possibly go wrong?

It works in Germany because they take licensing seriously, and have no qualms about ordering crappy cars off the road and ticketing drivers who drive like idiots.
 
RonDawg said:
Unlimited speed limit + skill of average California driver (a large percentage of whom are unlicensed or had their license taken away) + condition of average car in California = What could possibly go wrong?

It works in Germany because they take licensing seriously, and have no qualms about ordering crappy cars off the road and ticketing drivers who drive like idiots.
Yup.
 
KeiJidosha said:
Higher sustained speed requires more energy, producing more emissions. As to being an alternative to high speed rail, as the price of H.S.R. has increased, so have the estimated transit times. Autonomous vehicles may yet arrive sooner and be quicker than the bullet train.
https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-bullet-train-speed-20180729-story.html
Almost certainly, and even though I'm a fan of HSR generally (I think it HAS to replace most regional air transport), the way that California's has been a boondoggle almost from the start makes me think that AV ZEV buses tooling along at 85-100 mph makes far more sense in the near and mid-term. The problem is that for quite some time, they'll have to deal with non-AV human drivers.
 
If we could get an autobahn, ALONG WITH the driver education, enforced responsibility, stringent vehicle testing, and the far superior road-building that are concomitant with the German Autobahn, then I'd be all for it. Good luck with all of that. :roll:
 
smkettner said:
We already have an Autobahn. We do need another lane or two. Roadways are overloaded.
New lanes just provide another example of demand response, or in popular reference terms, "if you build it, they will come." Traffic engineers have been recommending the approach of building our way out of congestion for over 80 years by assuming that human behavior doesn't alter when circumstances change, and it's a perfect example of one definition of insanity - doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. If building more lane-miles eased congestion, LA would be the least traffic-congested city in the U.S.

As has been shown many, many times, more lanes just encourages more people to drive further ("If you lived here, you'd be home now!") and take more optional trips, quickly eliminating any advantage. One study of a large number of such projects found that for every 10% increase in lane-miles there was on average an immediate increase of 4% in traffic, and the entire 10% was used up within a few years - in many cases, the congestion was just as bad when the new lanes opened as it had been before.

Conversely, removing lanes typically causes the traffic to disappear and not return to the same level. "Carmageddon" on I-405 a few years back demonstrated this for the short term: http://www.accessmagazine.org/spring-2014/carmageddon-los-angeles-sizzle-fizzle/

The removal of the Embarcadero Freeway in S.F. after Loma Prieta showed similar effects over the long run; https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/20...as-removed-25-years-ago-no-one-misses-it.html

and also see the articles that follow that one on the same page. Urban congestion is inevitable, and to some extent a good thing. While no one likes sitting in traffic, congestion rations heavily-used, high-demand space.
 
smkettner said:
Check your statistics on 80 years of population growth. More people need more roads.
Sure, but the issue is increases in VMT per capita. What happens when more lanes are built, temporarily reducing congestion? Developers build homes further out on cheaper land (pre-meltdown often McMansions), boosting sprawl, which just causes congestion to increase as people drive further to their jobs, adding more time, energy and resource use.

Which is why, to take one example, the Bay Area leads the country in the % of Mega-commuters, people whose one-way commute is more than 50 miles and 90 minutes (Super commuters meet either one of those criteria, and we also lead the country in that category). It's also why, during the mortgage meltdown and concurrent spike in the price of gas, towns in the central valley that had become bedroom communities for the Bay Area had the highest rate of mortgage foreclosures in the country, as people saw their gas bills (for the large SUVs they'd bought when gas prices were low) jump to $600/month, which combined with job losses and/or reductions was unaffordable. Would anyone describe this as sustainable practice over the long-term?

As the economy picked up, housing prices closer in rebounded to their current ridiculous levels and the trend is once again towards bigger and heavier vehicles. We're probably a bit short of midway in the next such cycle, and despite new HOT/HOV lanes the congestion is worse than before, extending ever further outward. This is largely due to the lack of affordable housing closer in, as Nimbyism as well as developers slow or prevent much housing construction in the cities. This is slowly changing, as zoning rules are being altered (usually after a major political battle) to allow/require AHUs ('granny flats'*) and higher density generally, plus there seems to be a greater recognition among the politicians that they simply can't afford to continue business as usual, e.g. https://www.citylab.com/transportat...reform-transportation-budget-homeless/580192/



*I live in just such a unit, formerly a garage and converted to an apartment. I'm two blocks from the heart of downtown, and all routine errands and a rapid mass transit station are within 6 blocks, i.e. <=10 minutes walk. Like most Americans, I've lived in places where every single one of my errands would require a car, but for the past 18 years I can and do easily walk to the bank, barber, grocery store, hardware store, drugstore, dry cleaners, post office, library, dentist, audiologist, plus dozens of restaurants, a movie theater multiplex etc. And now I'm off to walk to my local brewpub to watch the Warriors/Rockets :D
 
GRA, keep in mind that not everybody is like you, and WANTS to live in a high density neighborhood. Some of us don't want to be cheek-to-jowl with our neighbors. Some of us don't want the noise associated with having a lot of people crammed into a small area.

Even the Millennials, the ones targeted for all the high-density mixed-use construction in city centers, are moving to the 'burbs. As one commenter said, "Look, they're turning into their parents!" It's fun when you're single, or DINK, but not so convenient to live in an apartment when now you have rambunctious kids of your own. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-04-03/millennials-moving-to-suburbs-will-change-economic-development

Fortunately I live in an area where there's a limited number of multi-family units, so it's not too crowded and (although I don't need it as I have my own garage) street parking is not ridiculously difficult. Yet I am just a 5 minute walk from a bus stop that can take me basically anywhere in LA County where Metro has lines, including a one-seat ride all the way to downtown LA. I would be opposed to making my neighborhood more densely populated than it already is.

I think an effective solution is to build Park and Ride hubs, with frequent service, so you don't have to take your car all the way to the city center. But that still allows you the larger relative space of living in lower-density neighborhoods.
 
RonDawg said:
GRA, keep in mind that not everybody is like you, and WANTS to live in a high density neighborhood. Some of us don't want to be cheek-to-jowl with our neighbors. Some of us don't want the noise associated with having a lot of people crammed into a small area.
Never implied that everyone is like me or wants to be like me, but those who wish to live a car-dependent suburban lifestyle should realize the full societal costs of that choice, in energy, resources, environment etc..

RonDawg said:
Even the Millennials, the ones targeted for all the high-density mixed-use construction in city centers, are moving to the 'burbs. As one commenter said, "Look, they're turning into their parents!" It's fun when you're single, or DINK, but not so convenient to live in an apartment when now you have rambunctious kids of your own. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-04-03/millennials-moving-to-suburbs-will-change-economic-development

Fortunately I live in an area where there's a limited number of multi-family units, so it's not too crowded and (although I don't need it as I have my own garage) street parking is not ridiculously difficult. Yet I am just a 5 minute walk from a bus stop that can take me basically anywhere in LA County where Metro has lines, including a one-seat ride all the way to downtown LA. I would be opposed to making my neighborhood more densely populated than it already is.

I think an effective solution is to build Park and Ride hubs, with frequent service, so you don't have to take your car all the way to the city center. But that still allows you the larger relative space of living in lower-density neighborhoods.
Thanks very much for that link. The major question has been whether or not the Millennials would opt for the suburbs as they moved into higher earning years, aged and started families, especially since so many of them grew up in the 'burbs and hated them. That's the first info I've seen that the trend may be changing, and although it seems to be nascent now, it's definitely something to watch. Here in the Bay Area, though, AFAIA no such trend is yet evident, and housing prices are the highest in the country owing to high demand and low supply, e.g.
Burned shell of a home sells for more than $900,000 in San Jose
https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/04...-home-sells-for-more-than-900000-in-san-jose/

This same 'home' was recently put back on the market in the same condition, with the asking price even higher. The market's cooled a bit now as people have hit (exceeded) their affordability limit.
 
smkettner said:
So traffic is really a zoning issue.
Partially, but the major cause (in the U.S. and other car dependent countries) Is due to so many people using four or more passenger vehicles to transport just themselves: https://www.core77.com/posts/8015/car-bus-bicycle-taking-up-space-in-the-same-place-8015

Not that putting more people in mass transit will reduce congestion, because all the lane-miles freed up by buses, bikes etc. will make travel easier in the now temporarily less congested lanes, so more people will opt to drive solo in them, soon reaching a new equilibrium (the old one).

I think we've got a few options if we wish to remain car-dependent - one would be bans on non-HOV vehicles in congested areas. Alternatively, we can increase capacity of existing lanes by going over to car-shared AVs which are just one person wide (4'). In a 12' wide freeway lane, this will allow two such vehicles to travel side-by-side with 2 feet of clearance to either side. They will have to be AVs, because humans need those wide lanes owing to their erratic driving. These vehicles would hold one person (some would hold two in tandem). While this would still allow current patterns of low-density single-use zoned sprawl to continue for a while, it's still far more resource and energy-intensive than mass transit, walking and cycling in high density mixed-use areas.

In the shorter term, I think we need to get serious about HOV lanes, getting the SO PEVs out of them (we can give them other perks like entry into zones prohibited to non-ZEVs, as long as they can't compete without subsidies/perks with ICEs), jacking the fines and providing massive enforcement. I'm not a fan of HOT lanes, as they offend my egalitarian sensibility and do nothing to encourage a reduction of energy use.

Converting one or more lanes to HOV costs little, and given we mostly aren't willing to pay to maintain existing road infrastructure, building even more makes no sense. As the speed and cost difference between HOV and non-HOV lanes increases, more and more people will be encouraged to get out of their personally owned single-occupant cars and adopt some form of intermodal mobility as a service instead. But this only works if we decrease the number of lanes allocated for SO vehicles while increasing those allocated to HOVs/mass transit. Many of the freeway rights-of-way in the LA area were originally regional electric rail, so some of the freed-up lanes can be rededicated to that. Those people who insist on driving solo to/from work will have to live with congested lanes as a cost of their personal choice, along with high parking costs, congestion fees etc.
 
GRA said:
Many of the freeway rights-of-way in the LA area were originally regional electric rail, so some of the freed-up lanes can be rededicated to that.

The only freeways I know of that utilized an existing railroad right of way is in two places: the stretch of the Foothill (I-210) Freeway between roughly Lake St and Rosemead Blvd, and the San Bernardino Freeway (I-10) between Highway 101 and El Monte . And it didn't utilize it so much as Caltrans bought up lots of property for hundreds of feet alongside. Both rail lines itself are currently in use, the former as part of Metro's Gold Line light rail, the latter is part of Metrolink's line out to San Bernardino. The rail line next to I-10 were also made into combination bus/HOT lanes that runs from Union Station out to the El Monte Bus terminal, leaving just a single track for Metrolink.

Many of the former Red Car rights of way were actually re-converted back to rail starting in the 1980's when light rail came back to LA. The first was the Blue Line from downtown to Long Beach. The most recent is the Expo Line going out to Santa Monica. But others were neither converted to freeways nor turned back into light rail, but rather filled-in for residential and commercial development.
 
RonDawg said:
GRA said:
Many of the freeway rights-of-way in the LA area were originally regional electric rail, so some of the freed-up lanes can be rededicated to that.

The only freeways I know of that utilized an existing railroad right of way is in two places: the stretch of the Foothill (I-210) Freeway between roughly Lake St and Rosemead Blvd, and the San Bernardino Freeway (I-10) between Highway 101 and El Monte . And it didn't utilize it so much as Caltrans bought up lots of property for hundreds of feet alongside. Both rail lines itself are currently in use, the former as part of Metro's Gold Line light rail, the latter is part of Metrolink's line out to San Bernardino. The rail line next to I-10 were also made into combination bus/HOT lanes that runs from Union Station out to the El Monte Bus terminal, leaving just a single track for Metrolink.

Many of the former Red Car rights of way were actually re-converted back to rail starting in the 1980's when light rail came back to LA. The first was the Blue Line from downtown to Long Beach. The most recent is the Expo Line going out to Santa Monica. But others were neither converted to freeways nor turned back into light rail, but rather filled-in for residential and commercial development.
Thanks, it's been quite a few years since I was last in SoCal, and the re-use of rail rights-of-way for rail either hadn't yet started or was just getting underway (I forget which).
 
GRA said:
Thanks, it's been quite a few years since I was last in SoCal, and the re-use of rail rights-of-way for rail either hadn't yet started or was just getting underway (I forget which).

The last new freeway to be built within the Los Angeles County limits is the Glenn Anderson Freeway (I-105), formerly called the Century Freeway, which runs between I-605 in Norwalk to LAX. The right of way was bought up starting in the 1960's and remained a big empty swath of land until the 1980's when construction finally started. AFAIK that was never part of a railroad right of way, though a light rail line (Metro's Green Line) now runs down the center, and only because that was a compromise to allow Caltrans to actually complete the freeway (which was heavily opposed).

The last new freeway to be built within the 5 county metro LA area was the extension of I-210 from La Verne, past I-15, and to an existing stub (formerly called Highway 30) that ran between I-215 and Highway 330 in San Bernardino. That too was never part of a railroad right of way; most of it displaced the former Highland Avenue. That happened sometime in the early 2000's.

Other than these two freeways, new freeway construction in the greater LA area basically halted in the early 1980's with the completion of the last segment of the Glendale (2) Freeway at its northern end (the southern end is STILL incomplete, and Caltrans abandoned that in the 1960's), and a segment of I-210 over the Tujunga Wash (for some reason it took FOREVER for Caltrans to finish this bridge). CHiPS and other shows/movies were filmed on these segments as they were nearing completion.
 
Back
Top