Comments on A lot rides on how USDOT defines "congestion" - Greater Greater Washington

Comment by ceefer66

Fri, 17 Aug 2012 14:29:05 EDT

"Starbucks would never build a second café next door so that it could move the line faster at 9:00 a.m. and then have it sit empty the rest of the day."
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They most certainly have!

There are intersections in Manahattan where there's a Starbucks store at or near each of the four corners.

Comment by Matt

Fri, 17 Aug 2012 13:40:50 EDT

"Starbucks would never build a second café next door so that it could move the line faster at 9:00 a.m. and then have it sit empty the rest of the day."

>>>Sure they would. There are many instances of Starbucks opening multiple stores *very* close to each other to handle the high demand. Grocery stores install extra check-out lanes to create more capacity for higher demand periods. Many businesses plan their "capacity" for the peak "demand" period. So do transportation agencies.

"Building more roadway capacity to handle peak-of-the-peak traffic makes just as little sense"

>>>>Why? Support the argument. How should transportation agencies plan for demand? Metro plans for peak periods in the design of their stations for people movement, as well as the capacity of their ROW infrastructure (the rails). Metro is currently limited on the capacity of the Orange Line due to a constraint at the Potomac River tunnel. They have high demand during two periods of the day (AM and PM) on weekdays. Metro plans their service around peak periods. Why should this not be done for our raodways as well?

Comment by movement

Thu, 16 Aug 2012 14:09:42 EDT

I agree that the notion of measuring "congestion time" by itself is ludicrous. The measuring stick should be commuter-hours. If you want to be all green about it then measure total emissions. Of course none of this means squat if the proposed alternative is too expensive (gas, tolls, parking, and/or fares) so user cost should be measured too. What is less clear to me is how to balance the three. There you go, economists, have at it.

Comment by drumz

Thu, 16 Aug 2012 13:08:42 EDT

Thank you for pointing out that transportation doesn't exist in a vacuum and that it is intrinsically tied to our place-making and land-use decisions.

It's tough because DOT's job is transportation and it can be difficult to get those officials to realize that transportation is only a piece of a larger puzzle. Helping coming up with measures that take this into account is a good first step.