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Comment by rplst8 | Hacker News Reader

I think in some major metro areas, the road capacity is vastly behind what is needed. My commute is is 26 miles of limited access highway that occurs at nearly 1/3 to 1/2 of the posted speed limit.

The only reason there is induced demand is that the infrastructure is too small to support the way our cities and metro areas have evolved. Maybe the way they have evolved is a product of the Eisenhower Interstate highway system, but we're already invested in that infrastructure. It would take an inordinate amount of money, resources, and effort to relocate and redesign our cities than to just build the correct size (and number) of highways to support the population.

In addition - one thing that it seems highway planners rarely plan correctly for is growth. The population of the Washington DC metro area has grown from about 3 million in 1980 to over 6 million currently. Many of the highways are nearly the same size over that span.

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DC actually did plan for growth when they build the metro. Everyday it transports a staggering number of people which would be intractable for ANY highway system if these same people drove.

What they failed to account for, however, is the growth of exburbs like Ashburn VA and other places even further out like Frederick MD.

These remote places are built by developers who literally put ZERO thought into infrastructure and what will happen to traffic and many other things when thousands of well-paid people move into their McMansions in the middle of nowhere.

They just buy up farmland from farmers who want to retire, sell a fake dream of idyllic rural living, plop down a bunch of cookie-cutter houses, then take the money and do all over again somewhere else. People have been finally getting wise to this anti-pattern (it was known in Maryland since the 90's) and the citylab article is an example.

The DC Metro has a daily ridership of about 700,000 trips. This is nothing to sneeze at, and it is impressive. However, I'm not positive how they calculate a trip, but my guess is that it's a card swipe entry and exit. Most people are traveling to and from work, so that is likely half that number in unique people. So say 350,000 - 400,000 a day. On the other hand, I-270 through Maryland sees about 200,000 cars daily. That's one highway - with at least some cars carrying more than 1 person. Interstates 66 and 95, US route 50, MD route 295, and VA route 267 all carry similar amounts of traffic. And lets not forget the other minor routes and streets that carry additional traffic. Your assertion that it "would be intractable for ANY highway system" to handle this is absurd - it already does.

While I too find some scorn for the McMansion culture, it is not really a local developers job or role to plan for medium to long distance infrastructure. I don't think it would even be legally possible for a private entity to take on a highway project that crossed multiple counties and/or states without a massive amount of support from local and state governments.

Also, I wouldn't call suburban and rural development an anti-pattern. Unless you want the cities to be double the density they already are, some people are going to have to live in the suburbs and rural parts of the country.

There's a more to a car trip than just going through a highway. Trips have endpoints. If you increase the size of your pipe into the city, you also have to increase the volume of the parking within the city. That means parking garages, lots of them. In addition to more costs for everybody, you're then deteriorating the urban fabric and making drivers within the city miserable in process (whether they recognize it or not).

As far as # of daily metro rides. My point is that if the metro were shutdown, the highways in and around DC would be a nightmare and people would not enjoy travelling in or through it. Getting around in DC, without the metro, would BE INTRACTABLE.

As for developers, while it is not "their job" to plan for infrastructure, it is very disturbing that they can simply buy land for cheap, put down and sell thousands of homes and walk away while forcing the nearby cities to deal with the mess they made. In response, many localities are now pushing "smart growth", we simply can't allow developers to make short-term selfish choices and pass the long-term costs onto everyone else.

Note that developers pay very large development fees to cities. In many cities, those fees are their primary source of revenue. These fees are supposed to pay for infrastructure: water, sewer, roads, schools, parks, et cetera.

The biggest problem with these fees is that they are "local". Bedroom communities use these fees for local infrastructure, whereas a portion should be paid towards metro infrastructure.

We all pay gas taxes too. Those are supposed to go toward highway infrastructure.

> On the other hand, I-270 through Maryland sees about 200,000 cars daily.

Daily... so one commuter to work and back home counts as two? So the road enables 100,000 commuters, or somewhat less than that, if we subtract people who drive through during other times than commute hours.

The 200,000 is a "summary" at best. The traffic counts are measured between intersections. Some are higher, some are lower, and some people could be getting off before the next intersection, etc. I'm not exactly sure how the traffic counts work - if they are just the on and off ramps, then the highway itself carries a hell of a lot more cars than 200,000.

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