Road widening and traffic congestion

Part 3 - Moving people

Our article about the Braess' Paradox last week raised a lot of queries from friends, mostly the non-technical ones. The engineers, especially the civil and electrical ones, or those into mathematics, wouldn't have any problem understanding it. In its simplest form, it says, "Building new roads can increase traffic congestion…closing existing roads can decrease traffic congestion." Or in short, road widening does not SOLVE congestion, it might even worsen it. And the internet is awash with studies about that.

Then what does? The answer is nothing, really, it all depends on choices. There is no optimum road capacity which prevents congestion, unless you reserve half our land area to roads and nothing else. If everyone wants to drive their own cars, then we will have congestion, regardless of how much you expand. One highway lane can carry 2,000 people on cars per hour, but it drops to 1,000 in the city because of intersections. If we change one lane to mass transportation such as the BRT, it can carry to as much as 15,000!

The real issue here is very ancient and deals with the concept of ideology. Everyone only thinks of what's good for himself/herself and no one else. That's the reason for Braess' Paradox and why it happens when it is counterintuitive. If all people think about the good of others and everyone else, we could get better efficiency. Selfishness breeds inefficiency. Everyone knows the solution to our transportation problem is public mass transportation. But when one lane of a road is transformed into a BRT lane, the 1,000 people howl and protest why the 15,000 benefit. The capacity of one road lane increases 15 times and that's bad?

So, for whom do we build transport infrastructure for? Do the government build roads so that our cars can rush to our offices, or so that people from all walks of life can have decent mobility from their homes to their places of livelihood? ALL WALKS OF LIFE! Are we building for cars or for people? So, if for people, then we make sure that our roads can carry as many people as possible. What is wrong with making a road lane carry 13,200 passengers per hour instead of 1,000 car owners? Ah, you say, the 1,000 car owners are rich, special, and deserve better service than the 13,200?

The root of the issue is the sense of entitlement of the rich over the poor. Of the car-owner over those who ride jeepneys. Technical studies have shown that the travel time of cars after the dedication of a lane to BRT decreases a little because of the shift to bigger capacity vehicles for the riding public. But they won't hear of it. Here lies the demand for road-widening, but we're forgetting Braess's Paradox and all those proven experiences all over the world --not by private people but by official government transportation agencies. Road-widening induces more road congestion!