Listener Clapback #1: AKSHUALLY, Road Diets Are Delicious!

You people are crazy, but you brought the hyperlinks, and I’m too drained (literally!) to argue.

Heyo, sorry for the radio silence in this space, blah blah. Lest you begin to doubt my work ethic, please note that at the tail end of the last Members Only podcast, MY RIGHT EARDRUM LITERALLY BURST, leaving the next morning’s pillow (which the boys cannot unsee) to resemble most closely Jeffrey MacDonald’s pajama top. The things we do for love (oh-oh).

So, I knew the following would happen, just as sure as if I had made a throwaway normie comment about how “Letting junkies shoot up on the sidewalk is bad for everyone who isn’t a dealer,” or “Rush’s best album was Moving Pictures”—the Well, ACKshually crowd came gunning for me after I threw some stammery, late-episode shade in #363 at the peculiar transportation-policy fad of “road diets,” in which vehicular lanes in a given burgh are shrunk in order to theoretically provide systemic improvements to safety and even throughput. There are many policy subcultures in this world that can tolerate the sound of snickering, but I can testify, after a quarter-century of sporadic argument, that transit geekdom ain’t one of ‘em.

“The huge correction needed here,” listener Edward writes re: #363, exuding the subculture’s signature confidence, “is actually Matt’s obligatory, fully drunk, parting rant about road diets and eliminating traffic lanes. I won’t even bother you with links, you can just Google ‘Induced Demand’. There are very few analysts that don’t accept the ‘Iron Law’ of induced demand but at least two of them are at Reason so maybe it’s a libertarian thing? Regardless, they are both massively wrong about it.”

In the Christian spirit of turning the other cheek (so that I can aim my gushing ear at your face??), I will tack on a couple of allegedly wrongthought links of mine & the Reason Foundation’s at the tail end of this post. But first, let us indulge a couple of Fifdom Road Dieticians as they wax at hyperlinked length about how constricting the most popular mode of transportation makes for good transportation policy. First up, Kurt!

I often think about writing in but never do.  Love the show and have been listening for over 5 years now...can't believe it's been that long!  Sad to report I'm not drinking...currently sitting at my desk at work where I'm working on a site plan for a multi-block development that is nudging some architects and developers to propose two 10' roadway lane widths (the minimum most fire departments will accept) instead of two 12' roadway lane widths.... where could the rest of this email be going???

At the end of the last episode I began experiencing the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect at the end of the last free episode when you guys stumbled into the topic of road diets.  It struck me, these guys, who I like and respect their opinions and observations on many other topics, have no idea what they're talking about here! 

So that seemed reason enough to write a few words in defense of the 'term of art.'  

I'm a landscape architect - which you may think is a profession strictly focused on trees, shrubs, and backyard patios - but a healthy number of us think a lot about larger urban development issues.  I've worked on a handful of projects over the years that have focused on narrowing road widths - road diets.  Aside from the development project mentioned earlier, I am also working on a couple other projects in which we're narrowing lane widths, reducing pedestrian crossing distances, and finding space to plant more street trees.  All of this with the intent to reduce vehicle speed and create a safer and more inviting pedestrian environment.  

You guys are surely familiar with how different Times Square is today as to how it was about 10-15 years ago.  What happened?  In short NYC DOT instituted a road diet.  Reduced the number of travel lanes down Broadway and expanded the pedestrian realm.  Everyone, including taxi drivers, seem to be much happier with how it works now than before.  You guys may also be familiar with the Prospect Park West bike lane.  Again, that's a road diet.  That used to be a three lane one-way street which was reduced to two with a protected bike lane - much to the chagrin of Chuck Schumer and Marty Markowitz, who both fought it like hell.  What other reason would one need to like a road diet other than knowing Schumer and Markowitz hate it?!  

The larger issue that Matt was brushing up against in whatever he was referring to in LA with road diets is the concept of 'induced demand.'  Induced demand: "is the phenomenon whereby an increase in supply results in a decline in price and an increase in consumption."  I first came upon this concept in reading Edward Glaeser's Triumph of the City.  The price to use roadways is held artificially low and the result is overconsumption, i.e., congestion and traffic jams.  Which the conventional wisdom of normies, old school transportation engineers, and politicians on both sides says 'Hey! Obviously we didn't go big enough!  We need to add even MORE lanes!'  This is how you end up with 2, 4, 6, 8+ lanes of gridlock.  Glaeser and many others argue we should begin charging people more for their use of the roads through tolls and congestion pricing, and in some scenarios remove lanes (road diets), and others still remove entire highways.

Another outlet that's producing excellent content and doing good grassroots work is Strong Towns who's founded by a civil engineer, Chuck Marohn, and they approach the insanity of constant highway and road building expansionism from the financial solvency strain it puts specifically on local municipalities.  Chuck Marohn on Econtalk; Glaeser on Econtalk.

Anyway!  This whole thing got me thinking that Edward Glaeser was my entry point into free market economics and libertarianism - he's a Chicago school economist.  Before reading him I was very very left of center - as many urbanists are.  I didn't know anything about his political persuasion while reading the book.  As I read page after page my mind was awakening to free market concepts as it pertained to urban development and perils of government control and regulation (I was also living in NYC at the time so it wasn't hard to suddenly see EVERYTHING anew).  

One more tidbit...I first learned about Glaeser from my religious watching of the Daily Show, on which he appeared to promote the aforementioned book in 2011.  I can't imagine there are too many libertarian-leaning people out there who were converted via the Daily Show.  In my case that guest backfired on Jon!

Ok, all that to say, in my estimation road diets are good ackchyually and induced demand bad!  

I mean, points for actually including the ackchyually. Last but not (e-)least, here’s Eliza!

This was my first time listening to the Fifth Column podcast. I am a frequent listener to the Reason podcasts but stumbled onto this show completely independently.  

I really appreciated much of the analysis; particularly the in-depth constitutional discussions. You also happened to graze a topic about which I am both knowledgeable and passionate. 

Your team spent a good bit of the podcast talking about how real, complex problems require better, more nuanced thinking instead of campaign slogans and then proceeded to blithely oversimplify transportation proposals in the last few minutes of the show. I get it. Some stuff isn't intuitive, like the fact that banning e-cigarettes creates a black market that kills people or banning drugs doesn't stop people from consuming them. Transportation has similar counterintuitive realities. 

The problem of induced road demand is something that is counterintuitive to most people but should be pretty obvious to a libertarian. Free (or under-priced) government goods distort markets and roads are an example of a free government good. If you give people free goods, then they will overuse them. Most roads are free to drive on so people drive on them more than would be optimal based on how much they cost to build, the value of the land on which they are built, and the scarcity of the lane miles in the right locations. Even if fuel taxes covered all the construction and maintenance costs (they don't), they wouldn't address that scarcity varies by location and time. The rational way to deal with this scarce resource would be variable tolling charging more to drive in congested areas during congested times though this becomes practically rather difficult to apply to all roads without creating mass surveillance and is politically impossible in most of the U.S. except for some new highway construction. (The most congested district in the country in Manhattan has been struggling to get congestion charging in place for over a decade.) Even if you had endless construction dollars, land, especially land in valuable places, is a scarce resource, so you can't just keep widening roads . (Governments do widen roads at the cost of knocking down economically productive buildings or usurping yards although they're increasingly getting pushback on this). 

Furthermore, to ration this scarce, underpriced resource (road capacity), local governments suppress other viable economic activity (construction of housing and commercial buildings) through zoning thus dramatically distorting the entire land market. Go to any local government zoning hearing and the number one topic is traffic. Usually this is after the local government has already cleared internal policies limiting new development based on computer models of traffic projections. 

Alternatively, while for almost a century American governments have provided pretty abundant free space for people to drive on, they've been much more stingy with walking and biking facilities and so (surprise, surprise) people don't have a lot of incentive to walk and bike. The aforementioned distortions in the land/building market also disincentivize alternatives to driving because everything is further apart ("horizontal" is the term Matt used). One can make an argument that the market says people want to drive but the market is so distorted by free roads and government land use policy and the lack of meaningful economic feedback mechanisms that it is hardly a measure of individual free choices or desires. 

Sadly, most local governments see no alternative but to continually double down on this treadmill of building and widening roads at great cost with no end in sight. The alternative is to question this constant building of "free" roads (inducing yet more demand) and in some cases to go the other direction. 

Road diets aren't primarily about saving the planet. They are about fitting more people into the same amount of space when (or preferably before) you've hit the limits of road widening. The geometry is simple: People walking or biking (or on buses) take up less space than people in cars. Diversifying transportation options makes it possible for more people to travel in the same space (and supports continued economic growth or in some cases reverses decline). Also as a practical matter, many 4->3 road diets (4 travel lanes to 2 lanes plus a turn lane) don't reduce motor vehicle capacity much or at all because 2 of the 4 lanes were already acting as de facto left turn lanes (which are rather dangerous to boot). 

Here's an excerpt from an Urban Land Institute case study of a road diet in Florida: "Because of this project, College Park’s main street has become a thriving corridor. Safety greatly improved after the project: total collisions dropped by 40 percent, injury rates declined 71 percent, and traffic counts briefly dropped 12 percent before returning to original levels. Pedestrian counts increased by 23 percent, bicycling activity by 30 percent, and on-street parking—which buffers the sidewalks from automobile traffic—by 41 percent. In addition, the corridor has gained 77 new businesses and an additional 560 jobs since 2008. The value of property adjacent to Edgewater and within a half mile of the corridor rose 80 percent and 70 percent, respectively.”

http://uli.org/wp-content/uploads/ULI-Documents/Edgewater-Drive-Orlando-FL.pdf

If you want to see these issues from a less lefty perspective, check out Strong Towns. Also the American Conservative (setting aside some of their culture war nonsense) has done some good articles on these issues. Here's both in one package: 

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/urbs/slow-the-cars/

Another great in-depth economic perspective on market distortions associated with driving is "The High Cost of Free Parking."

I also feel compelled to note that Cato's analysis on these issues is rubbish. 

If you've made it this far I appreciate your intellectual rigor and willingness to engage. I'd be happy to guest on the podcast(s) any time or recommend a few economically-literate people who can talk intelligently about these issues. 

We appreciate the thoughtful engagement, and will leave it to the commentariat to duke out the particulars. For the derided (yet annoyingly knowledgeable!) libertarian perspective, I always recommend Reason Foundation Transportation Policy Director Robert Poole (in 2017 and 2019), as well as Senior Transportation Analyst Marc Scribner in 2022.

I am both a longtime fan/consumer of non-automobile transit, and critic of those many, many, many, MANY governmental policies, popular in places I tend to live, and usually quite expensive, that treat with suspicion demonstrated consumer transportation preferences (including for buses, by the poor!), and otherwise aim to Get People Out of Their Cars. Some relevant writing of mine with thoughts slightly more drawn-out than a late-show belch:

“Once I Took the Railroad…,” L.A. Times, Oct. 3, 2007

“Let's See, California Has No Money, and the Freeways Are Lousy and Clogged, So….,” Reason, June 16, 2009

“What Does Opposition to Government Rail Projects Have to Do With Individual Liberty?” Reason, Aug. 25, 2011

“Transportation Bill (Including Ex-Im Resurrection) Is Everything That's Terrible About Congress,” Reason, July 27, 2015

“New York's Subway Boondoggles Illustrate How Governments Bungle Infrastructure,” Reason, Dec. 29, 2017