re: Widening Highways Never Fixes Traffic. But Darnit, It Did in Texas

it sure the frick didnt work on I-12 westbound...

before the widening, traffic would back up to denham or juban, and crawl in to airline.
after the widening, traffic backs up at denham or juban and crawls in to airline.

I think the widening lanes not working is bull shite. By the time planning forecasts the old growth for the widening and the new lanes are built they are already 10 years past the population they planned for in most cases

Maybe in a growing city that makes sense, but when the population is stable I wouldn't think there'd be that many new drivers. I can't imagine many people buying a car for the first time just Bc a certain freeway has less traffic than it used to.

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Widening Highways Never Fixes Traffic. But Darnit, It Did in Texas

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Most research like that has a caveat that widening highways eases congestion when there is a capacity constraint and there aren't other system inefficiencies.

Widening I-10 or Airline through Baton Rouge, for instance, would probably ease congestion. Widening a road with a 90 degree bend or traffic lights that are out of sync may not solve everything.

doubling the speed made the differece.

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Basically building new roads entices more people to drive that route, or not carpool, etc. Seems retarded but that's the concept.

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I don't think it seems retarded if you apply some basic common sense.

Widening Hwy 1 from Golden Meadow to Grand Isle will easy traffic congestion because it is the only feasible route you can take to get there, so it is the same amount of cars traveling the same road with twice the lane capacity.

Widening I-10 from Lafayette to New Orleans by 1 lane is an entirely different animal. You have people who take Hwy 90 from Lafayette due to traffic concerns that would now consider taking I-10 due to the new lane. Eventually that increased traffic will no longer be offset by the new lane, and, voila, you haven't eliminated the traffic problem after all.

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They said it'd be ready in time for the Super Bowl

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.but with more lanes, maximum road capacity is still higher

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In spots - this is particularly true if lanes are added to weak spots (they typically are).

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which means that more people are getting through the area

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Again, maybe. A highway system is just that - a system. The maximum capacity is still limited by the weakest point - typically an exchange or intersection - and if that is poorly designed or you have multiple problems in the area - dumping all this new traffic into the system makes the problem worse during your peak hours.

Your assumption this is a good thing is only valid if the area itself can support more people across the board - drawing more people into the area with an expanded (however flawed) traffic system might be a good thing, until all this new concrete causes flooding where you didn't have it before. But that's a discussion for another thread (*cough* Houston *cough*).

I can't wait until Verot is done being widened

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But what happens is new development further from the center of each city because it doesn't take as long to get, say 10 miles out of town. And the land out there is cheaper. This includes new residential as well as retail. So by making the hwy wider and more efficient, you eventually create more traffic to fill the new lanes.

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Yes, but the cars coming and going from these new developments were on the roads before the developments took place. They were just coming and going from somewhere else. There are a finite number of cars on the roads. Adding capacity adds capacity. It changes where and how the cars flow, but it does not change the number.

The number of cars is relative to job growth, which will happen whether or not the expanded highway is there. The expanded highway may influence where the new jobs are located and where the workers of those new jobs will live, but one is merely "robbing Peter to pay Paul" at that point. The traffic isn't arising out of nowhere, it's taken from somewhere else.
Plus, all of the capacity in one spot doesn't matter if it is still restricted by a choke point (say I-10 going down to 1 lane or a speed limit of 35mph on Staring).

The other issue is the time growth factor. Lets say you have a 4-lane highway in a rapidly growing area. Right now, it is overburdened as it needs to be 6 lanes wide. In 10 years, it is projected to need to be 8 lanes wide. Due to studies and thumb twiddling, 10 years goes by before they finish widening it to 3 lanes. Should anyone really be surprised that after the widening is over, the road still needs to be widened to 8 lanes to accommodate the traffic? Our system takes too long to design, permit, build, and finish major road projects causing them to often be over-burdened before ground has even been broken.

More capacity is better even if, in the end, it does not ease congestion on the road which was widened because while new cars flock to fill the increased capacity, those new cars aren't really new, they are coming from other places which will now likely see much less traffic.