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

quote:

---

An inefficient system with less cars will still move more quickly than an inefficient system with more cars. Plus, moving more cars from the inefficient system to the more efficient system increases, well, efficiency.

---

Fair enough. I guess the crux of the argument is whether or not there are enough lanes in the first place, and if there are, you should look into efficiency improvements before you jump to volume increases. Obviously there are a certain amount of lanes that are a requirement or I-10 would be 1 lane throughout.

If it's state workers it's just hourly pay, but if it's third party, you would think $60-100 an hour per truck idle time pay.

Adding capacity does increase MOEs such as speed and vph. But, it's only as effective as the next restriction "bottleneck" down stream. Capacity added to intersection approaches does help immensely.

The capacity addition westbound I-12 out of BR worked, but it goes back to the restrictions being further downstream and traffic volumes bleeding off along that stretch.

Eh, there are two small dams on the west side of town that were built in the 40's back when the west side of Houston was prairie