# I have a solution for traffic - what do you think? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 2, 2016, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-a-solution-for-traffic-what-do-you-think/767536 "2016-10-02T22:24:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Textual\_Innuendo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/898d66/32.png) [@Textual\_Innuendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Textual_Innuendo)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2016, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-a-solution-for-traffic-what-do-you-think/767536/21 "2016-10-03T00:52:50Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > Pay a buck to text while I’m sitting at a stoplight? What if the light changes while I’m texting? Now I’m part of the problem, not part of the solution. Besides, I can just wait until I get to my destination, call the street department and bitch for free. It’s my right as a taxpayer! Well, as you point out, you can wait til your destination just as easily. I agree - texting while driving isn’t ideal, or even legal many places. Texting while at a complete stop in traffic or at a stoplight is different, and if you put your car in “Park”, even legal in many jurisdictions. > [@kunilou](#): > > What if I’m the traffic engineer in charge of east-west flow on the north side of town, and I program all the traffic so that the north-south traffic gets clogged, then the north-south engineer gets huffy and gives priority to the cross streets, and the gridlock extends to the east-west streets on the south side of town and pisses off that traffic engineer? Again, they are directly incentivized to communicate and cooperate because of exactly what you point out - if they don’t coordinate and communicate with abutting zones, it gets worse for _everyone_, and everyone loses money. > [@kunilou](#): > > Why does the OP think finding the “optimum balance” between main and side streets will eliminate complaints. People who live on side streets complain constantly that they’re being screwed. And guess what - those people are the ones who vote for the city council and mayor. Attention must be paid to them. In my scenario, attention WILL be paid to them, to exactly the extent they put their money where their mouth is in their complaints. The engineer is directly incentivized to take their complaints into account and find the optimum solution. ---
**Author:** ![Textual\_Innuendo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/898d66/32.png) [@Textual\_Innuendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Textual_Innuendo)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2016, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-a-solution-for-traffic-what-do-you-think/767536/22 "2016-10-03T00:55:20Z")
> [@BeepKillBeep](#): > > . Can a traffic engineer fix that through their own efforts? That seems unlikely since to fix it is likely to involve constructions costs, something which a traffic engineer cannot approve. Unless you also want to give them budgetary approval. Yes, per my OP, I posited allocating road upgrade budgets by zone to the engineers, to spend at their discretion. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2016, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-a-solution-for-traffic-what-do-you-think/767536/23 "2016-10-03T01:01:45Z")
> [@](#): > > How many times have you cursed poorly timed lights, nonsensical lane closures, or flagrantly stupid infrastructure setups while driving? Traffic engineers have essentially zero incentive to maximize traffic flow. And there’s basically no one who’s accountable to poor design when it comes to traffic flow - the only folk who suffer are the ones driving on the roads. And yet, I routinely drive on streets that are beautifully engineered. How do you explain that? Obviously some traffic engineer somewhere did see a reason to do a good job. What were his incentives? Is there any reason we can’t extend that guy’s incentives to all the other traffic engineers? ---
**Author:** ![Textual\_Innuendo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/898d66/32.png) [@Textual\_Innuendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Textual_Innuendo)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2016, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-a-solution-for-traffic-what-do-you-think/767536/24 "2016-10-03T01:08:42Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > And yet, I routinely drive on streets that are beautifully engineered. How do you explain that? Obviously some traffic engineer somewhere did see a reason to do a good job. What were his incentives? Is there any reason we can’t extend that guy’s incentives to all the other traffic engineers? If you truly never have to deal with bad traffic and get to take joy in the sensibility and seamlessness of your commutes, I applaud and envy you. This proposal is not for you, or the city you live in. I would guess it’s a combination of good luck, optimism, and living in a lower density city that has allowed you to attain this fortunate status. But for a large proportion of the urban population in the US, traffic is bad and getting worse, particularly in large cities. The average person used to spend 16 hours in traffic per year in 1982, and now spends 42 hours. In cities like LA, Honolulu, and SF, the average is closer to 60 hours. Plainly, something isn’t working when it comes to traffic optimization in those cities. And although we do some things to optimize flow, and I’m sure the engineers did the best job they could at the time of building, as the years progress and growth takes place, ongoing optimization becomes necessary to do any better. I’m simply proposing a solution where the incentives are aligned that could accomodate this in these larger cities. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2016, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-a-solution-for-traffic-what-do-you-think/767536/25 "2016-10-03T01:09:22Z")
You solution is remarkably low-tech. And not in any good way. Drivers texting complaints to the DOT is inefficient and dangerous. Especially when traffic data is readily available, real time, through cell phones and mapping software. In fact, I was at a Big Data Meetup last year where a representative from one of the large telecom companies was describing how they use anonymized cell phone data to determine regional traffic patterns for municipal planning purposes. Also, an individual traffic engineer has little impact as to whether a route suffers excessive traffic volumes. Traffic is a regional issue. One final thought. Since your extremely short-sighted plan only compensates based on traffic flow, you’ve basically created a perverse incentive for traffic engineers to design all roads as 6 lane highways with spaghetti junctions of 4-level stack interchanges. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2016, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-a-solution-for-traffic-what-do-you-think/767536/26 "2016-10-03T01:10:30Z")
> [@Textual\_Innuendo](#): > > If you truly never have to deal with bad traffic and get to take joy in the sensibility and seamlessness of your commutes, I applaud and envy you. This proposal is not for you, or the city you live in. I take a ferry to work.🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Textual\_Innuendo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/898d66/32.png) [@Textual\_Innuendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Textual_Innuendo)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2016, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-a-solution-for-traffic-what-do-you-think/767536/27 "2016-10-03T01:26:54Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > You solution is remarkably low-tech. And not in any good way. > > Drivers texting complaints to the DOT is inefficient and dangerous. Especially when traffic data is readily available, real time, through cell phones and mapping software. In fact, I was at a Big Data Meetup last year where a representative from one of the large telecom companies was describing how they use anonymized cell phone data to determine regional traffic patterns for municipal planning purposes. My solution didn’t actually say _anything_ about technology either way - it instead posited putting smart people in charge and directly incentivizing them to do the best they can, and they would then use whatever the best tools at their disposal are to do that. I think I know the data source you are speaking of - I am a data scientist, and I actually use this data set, or one very much like it, called Airsage in the course of my work. I may even know the conference - I myself just got back from the Strata conference in NYC, and that sounds like a venue in which they would present. I would not personally use that source heavily for traffic optimization as proposed, but it could certainly become a part of your models. The texting component is less about information, and more about aligning incentives. I assume the engineers would use whatever sensors and data will allow them to best optimize given those incentives. > [@msmith537](#): > > Also, an individual traffic engineer has little impact as to whether a route suffers excessive traffic volumes. Traffic is a regional issue. This is why as posited, the plan is about improvement over today’s baseline, with higher compensation targeting a 20% improvement in flow. I’m aware overall volume available is a macro function of a number of things in an area - this system is about being able to optimize without regard to those macros, building from what people have in terms of traffic and roads today to a more optimized end state. > [@msmith537](#): > > One final thought. Since your extremely short-sighted plan only compensates based on traffic flow, you’ve basically created a perverse incentive for traffic engineers to design all roads as 6 lane highways with spaghetti junctions of 4-level stack interchanges. What would you suggest compensating on, if not flow? And if 6 lane highways with junctions is what a given volume of traffic is best served by, why _shouldn’t_ we have those? ---
**Author:** ![igor\_frankensteen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/839c29/32.png) [@igor\_frankensteen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/igor_frankensteen)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2016, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-a-solution-for-traffic-what-do-you-think/767536/28 "2016-10-03T01:28:36Z")
The greatest flaw in your proposal, is that it isn’t based on your having first researched to discover why traffic congestions occur. You are ASSUMING that they are a result of insufficient effort by traffic engineers, to make best use of existing roads. Things you have not taken into account include: - lack of training in optimum driving practices by all drivers (studies have shown that many long traffic delays would NOT occur, if EVERYONE knew to drive at a certain pace and maintain a certain distance between themselves and all other vehicles, and adjust constantly for speed variations); - weather conditions, which even when predicted, are not uniform throughout any driving area; - wide variation in vehicle capabilities, which prevent even uniformally trained drivers from behaving in uniform ways on the same roads; - thousands of constantly shifting traffic influences (shopping center sales and store schedules, meetings called by large companies at irregular times, variations in entertainment attractions; etc) - politics of road design and building (example recently here: a large government building was approved, and then the government changed it’s mind on occupancy levels, and dramatically expanded them. The roads were not adjusted at TREMENDOUS ADDITIONAL COST to account for this, so a brand new regular traffic jam now occurs every day, which no engineer could work around until and unless the people are removed from the building). You appear to have decided in advance, that traffic jams are the result primarily, of people being lazy, or not being punished for allowing tie ups to occur. As others have said, nothing could be further from the truth. You have tremendously UNDERESTIMATED the actual costs of implementing your idea in any functional way, since in order to make it POSSIBLE for planners to control all, or even enough of the variables in order to effect significant improvement, both local and federal laws would have to be changed, billions spent on road changes, entire cities redesigned and rebuilt…oh, and the Constitution would have to be rewritten, in order to empower the engineers to order all citizens to drive in specifically constrained ways. It is more likely that we will have all automated driverless cars first, which WOULD permit traffic jams to be prevented, because upon entering a city, the traffic computers controlling all vehicles would coordinate them. But that’s a bit of a ways off. ---
**Author:** ![Textual\_Innuendo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/898d66/32.png) [@Textual\_Innuendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Textual_Innuendo)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2016, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-a-solution-for-traffic-what-do-you-think/767536/29 "2016-10-03T01:44:36Z")
> [@igor\_frankensteen](#): > > You appear to have decided in advance, that traffic jams are the result primarily, of people being lazy, or not being punished for allowing tie ups to occur. As others have said, nothing could be further from the truth. If this is what you have taken away from my OP, I apologize - I haven’t meant to imply or state that traffic engineers are lazy, shiftless bums who put zero effort into things. All I mean is they put little ongoing, consistent effort into optimizing traffic, and that congestion can be improved 10% or 20% or some measurable amount by being more intelligent about how we optimize and make decisions. I then posited a framework where traffic engineers would be incented to do that ongoing optimization and decision making. > [@igor\_frankensteen](#): > > You have tremendously UNDERESTIMATED the actual costs of implementing your idea in any functional way, since in order to make it POSSIBLE for planners to control all, or even enough of the variables in order to effect significant improvement, both local and federal laws would have to be changed, billions spent on road changes, entire cities redesigned and rebuilt…oh, and the Constitution would have to be rewritten, in order to empower the engineers to order all citizens to drive in specifically constrained ways. I disagree that it would require rewrites of the constitution, billions spent on road changes, entire cities being rebuilt, and so forth. You point out some things outside of the engineers’ control such as weather, people not maintaining consistent speeds or following lengths, and so on. Yes, these are not directly under control, but they can still be reacted to - real time speed limit signs, public awareness billboards, and who knows what else could be tried, and that’s just off the top of my head. The important part is, we would have smart people directly incented to do so actually TRYING these things and doing their best to optimize traffic flow. All I have posited is that it is possible to do better with regard to ongoing optimization. The DOT Federal Highway Administration seems to agree with me, per my earlier cite. I further posit that if we could improve traffic flow 10% or 20% via these efforts, it would be worth directly incentivizing traffic engineers to pay ongoing attention to doing so. ---
**Author:** ![BeepKillBeep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9e8a1a/32.png) [@BeepKillBeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeepKillBeep)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2016, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-a-solution-for-traffic-what-do-you-think/767536/30 "2016-10-03T01:49:57Z")
> [@Textual\_Innuendo](#): > > I further posit that if we could improve traffic flow 10% or 20% via these efforts, it would be worth directly incentivizing traffic engineers to pay ongoing attention to doing so. Why not assume 50%? 75?%? 99%? What justification is there for picking 10% to 20%? What if it is only 0.01 to 0.02%? Again, these are the sorts of things that need to be proven to support your suggestion. ---
**Author:** ![purplehearingaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@purplehearingaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehearingaid)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2016, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-a-solution-for-traffic-what-do-you-think/767536/31 "2016-10-03T02:07:43Z")
"Part II: On the other side, at each stoplight and strategically placed within the route, you have a number to text where people can pay $1 to text to _complain_ about the current traffic flow, and each complaint deducts $2 from the traffic engineer route-owner. " You’ll be paying for than $1 to make that text ! It’s illegal to text and drive in most cities and towns and could end up costing you $100 or depending on your city ! This idea is insane ! ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2016, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-a-solution-for-traffic-what-do-you-think/767536/32 "2016-10-03T02:23:24Z")
First, congestion is not a good single point of assessment for a road. Sometimes eliminating a lane of traffic and making it a bike lane or dedicated bus lane might dramatically improve commute times overall, at the expense of people who drive to work alone. Second, people’s subjective experience of whether they feel like they are waiting too much or not enough is a terrible measurement tool. Most drivers don’t have the patience to actually come to a stop at a stop sign, and you think they are a good assessment of whether traffic could be improved? ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2016, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-a-solution-for-traffic-what-do-you-think/767536/33 "2016-10-03T02:31:59Z")
The solution to relieve traffic congestion is to pour more concrete … add lanes. ---
**Author:** ![Textual\_Innuendo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/898d66/32.png) [@Textual\_Innuendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Textual_Innuendo)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2016, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-a-solution-for-traffic-what-do-you-think/767536/34 "2016-10-03T02:37:32Z")
> [@BeepKillBeep](#): > > Why not assume 50%? 75?%? 99%? What justification is there for picking 10% to 20%? What if it is only 0.01 to 0.02%? Again, these are the sorts of things that need to be proven to support your suggestion. It’s a ballpark, and I believe a reasonable one. Here’s a cite from the DOT Federal Highway Administration again, on the measured extent of congestion reduction for Portland: [1. An active traffic management program in Portland led to 10% reduction in travel time and 21% reduction in crashes.](http://www.ops.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/fhwahop16032/fhwahop16032.pdf) Or this one on ramp metering in Georgia: [Travel times became faster and more reliable after the ramp meters were turned on. The time penalty for traveling in the peak period declined from about 80 percent to 60 percent.](http://www.ops.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/fhwahop10032/fhwahop10032.pdf) Or from the same document on an HOV lane project in Miami: [Evening transit travel times decreased from 25 minutes to 8 minutes.](http://www.ops.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/fhwahop10032/fhwahop10032.pdf) And there are more, similar stories in those cites. 10% - 20% sounds eminently reasonable, especially as these are typically citing ONE change only, and the engineers posited in my OP would be actively attempting as many changes as keep optimizing the flow. If a single change can drive 10%-20% improvements, then an intelligently deployed network of changes should be able to do still better. ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2016, 8:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-a-solution-for-traffic-what-do-you-think/767536/35 "2016-10-03T08:08:03Z")
[Here is CGP Grey’s solution to traffic.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHzzSao6ypE) While I don’t agree with everything he says, it’s true that all traffic problems are caused by monkey drivers. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2016, 10:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-a-solution-for-traffic-what-do-you-think/767536/36 "2016-10-03T10:19:56Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > :rolleyes: > > A totally lame idea, for so many reasons. They’re not even worth going into. This being Great Debates, however, your better options are to either provide a reason or refrain from posting rather than making snide remarks without actually contributing to the thread. [/Moderating] ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2016, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-a-solution-for-traffic-what-do-you-think/767536/37 "2016-10-03T11:07:42Z")
> [@Textual\_Innuendo](#): > > This isn’t controversial at all, and I’m surprised anyone would assert that traffic IS optimum. This. I live in Corous Christi, which is only a medium sized city, not a traffic nightmare like San Francisco, LA, or New York, but we do have our problems and several of them can be easily fixed, while others are fixable if the people were willing to support some doable infrastructure road changes. One easily fixable problem is street construction. I’m not sure how long it takes in cities where traffic is optimized, but here a typical road overhaul lasts years. I’m not talking about major construction on the freeway, building new overpasses, or expanding the exit or on ramps, I mean simple surface street construction. We have one major street downtown that has been under construction for at least 3 years. Most of the time when I drive by, there is no work being done. I don’t mean that the workers are standing around, I mean that there are no workers present, just a bunch of heavy machinery sitting around. I see this situation at all times, morning, afternoon, weekends, weekdays, holidays and regular days, good weather and bad, it’s a rare site to see anyone actually doing work on the street. I can list several others, but I don’t want to bore everyone with my specific traffic complaints :p. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2016, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-a-solution-for-traffic-what-do-you-think/767536/38 "2016-10-03T13:25:38Z")
For starters, engineers will simply refuse to take a job where the constraints are such that traffic problems are unavoidable. The more work you do on a project, the greater risk of losing your shirt. You could come up with a great design that works, then someone builds a mall and it’s a disaster. Sorry but these types of central planning schemes don’t work. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2016, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-a-solution-for-traffic-what-do-you-think/767536/39 "2016-10-03T13:58:05Z")
Actually, there ARE some straightforward ways of reducing traffic without adding infrastructure. They’re just politically difficult. The easiest way to reduce traffic is to enable more people to live closer to where they work, or at least closer to good mass transit to where they work. What stands in the way is zoning regulation. If you could eliminate or modify regulations that make it hard to build dense residential development in cities - parking requirements, setbacks, all that stuff - you could put a lot more housing within walking distance of where people work. Similarly, suburban subway stops shouldn’t be the sites of huge park-and-ride lots. Even if you can park a couple thousand cars there, what you want is dense development around the subway stops where five or ten thousand people, or more, can live within walking distance of the subway stop, because that’s how you get the most people off the roads entirely, which is the best outcome of public transit. (Getting them off the road for part of their commute is way better than nothing, but still second best.) But like I said, the politics of doing these things is somewhere between extremely difficult and downright impossible. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [October 3, 2016, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-a-solution-for-traffic-what-do-you-think/767536/40 "2016-10-03T16:37:45Z")
I see 3 major problems with the OP: 1. This puts all the onus on the “traffic engineer,” and rule out any solutions that the “traffic engineer” has no control over. For example - providing incentives for flexible work hours, public transit, laws to limit suburban sprawl, investing in redevelopment of city centers, changing zoning laws to allow more people to live closer to work, etc. 2. This assumes that an “efficient traffic” is one that results in most complaints called in. This is not always the case. For example, often times when the traffic pattern is changed, people complain just because it’s different from what they’re used to. 3. The “traffic engineer” has no incentive to make the roads safe. What if many people call in to complain that the speed limit is too low? Under the OP’s scheme, it would be in the traffic engineer’s interest to comply, even if the road has blind corners that make it unsafe to drive faster. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-a-solution-for-traffic-what-do-you-think/767536.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-a-solution-for-traffic-what-do-you-think/767536.md?page=3)