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His usual genial the suburbs are falling apart any day now post - got us a response about slugging being related to good urban planning (an HOV lane). Which got to somehow discussing whether slugging was good urban planning or whether HOV lanes were good urban planning, but with the implicit assumption that slugging was their dominant use.

I think its clear

A. the suburbs where slugging is widespread are not in danger of a suburban death spiral anytime soon (or at least most of them are not - woodbridge, Im not sure).
B. There has to be some residential density level thats high enough to justify highways with carpooling and express bus, not heavy rail
C. whether building such residential areas is a good idea, is debatable
D. But its likely that barring the use of zoning to ban such areas (generally not the GGW approach), they would have been created in the market conditions prevailing from 1965 to 1980 in the areas under discussion (and to some degree already existed in 1965).
E. Given the existence of I395 in its current width, its good two lanes are HOV
F. Given the existence of the HOV lanes, its good they are used by buses and carpoolers
G. There may be some incremental benefit to having a carpooler switch to bus
H. Its not clear how many carpoolers would switch to bus if carpooling were discouraged
I. Its not clear how much difference there is between the sluggers and conventional car poolers

by AWalkerInTheCity on Jun 13, 2012 4:45 pm • link • report