Found here: https://twitter.com/CarsRuinedCity/status/1677005785862406144?t=Xolo43mUk4GnegFQE19q3g&s=19
Caption: Photo collage of a beach in Alexandria, Egypt, showing a progression in 3 images:
- Alexandria “Problem” - empty beach + walking street + 6 lane road with medium traffic + dense mid-rise buildings (likely housing)
- Alexandria “Solution” - empty beach (doesn’t seem to matter) + narrower walkway or sidewalk + 10 lane brand new and empty road + tiny sidewalk + the same buildings
- Alexandria “Results” - crowded beach + crowded beach walkway + traffic jam on the 10 lane road
Egypt’s admin is cities skylines mayor in real life.
The real problem here is that Egyptian cities are grotesquely overpopulated. Cairo is the poster child for urban hell.
if they’re overpopulated, shouldn’t they focus on higher-capacity transportation options?
They absolutely should, however as with most people in power they use cars and therefore see only the traffic jams. And of course everyone knows the best solution to traffic is just building one more lane.
just one more lane bro that’s going to fix it for good
“iMpROvEMenT”
Looking forward to the Lemmy post in 60 years when this is restored
If we’re lucky, the highway will be underwater by then.
!remindMe 60 years.
Oh wait, no, we don’t that that here, do we.
@[email protected] 50 years
@match Ok, I will remind you on Thursday Jul 6, 2073 at 11:15 PM PST.
widening roads increases traffic. always.
Anyone should intuitively understand this if they’ve watched people try to merge. More lanes, more god awful merging and bottlenecking at exits.
But I guess everyone forgets this intuitive wisdom when they start asking for more lanes.
Not if all people that would possibly go on the road can fit on it. And I’m 100% positive that this one extra lane will accomplish that, trust me broo!
Well yes, but no.
An infinity wide road has no traffic, but the first time you try to connect your magic highway to real exits and local streets, you are stuck again.
By this I’m pointing out that it isn’t the road itself causing traffic in isolation, it’s the real world bottle necks anywhere this new highway connects to things.
Add in induced demand (people taking new trips) and now you have more people trying to fit down the same offramps, local streets and parking lots than you did in the first place.
An infinitely wide road couldn’t be effective unless it was also infinitely long. Cars enter and edit at one edge, and transferring lanes reduces capacity, so adding lanes had diminishing returns.
Indeed, but the width of the highways doesn’t create that effect, the logic surrounding “exits at the edge” does. Totally agree with the diminishing returns
More capacity on the roads will make driving a more attractive option to more people, both for journeys they previously made by other means and those that they wouldn’t have taken, which leads to more cars on the roads until the congestion is as bad as it was before.
I’m aware of induced demand, but the issue with more drivers simply isn’t them inhabiting the new lane, it’s the increased population of the highway still trying to use the same offramps, local streets and parking.
It’s both.
all you’ve illustrated is that the only place my statement doesn’t apply is in a theoretical (and impossible) fantasy, but you do then go on to explain the means by which what I said is true.
so… thanks?
It’s a conversation bro. We agree about some parts and have other thoughts about other parts.
It’s not the width of the highway that CAUSES the traffic alone, it’s the bottlenecks and access. It’s not the induced demand alone that causes the issue, it’s the offramps and local streets that ruin the new highway.
It’s not the width of the highway that CAUSES the traffic alone, it’s the bottlenecks and access. It’s not the induced demand alone that causes the issue, it’s the offramps and local streets that ruin the new highway.
I’m pretty sure I thanked you explaining how my initial statement was correct.
It’s a conversation bro. We agree about some parts and have other thoughts about other parts.
and I’m enjoying the conversation, bro. your “other” thoughts seem to be an explanation of how my statement is correct and why.
Ok
Wild
that’s how civil engineers get revenge on the world
I like to explain this phenomenon as the free cake effect.
Say you set up a food stand with a sign “free cake”. It doesn’t matter how many cakes you baked, people will keep showing up until all the cake is gone.
and the science gets done and you make a neat gun for the people who are
still alive
Classic
Well, we do what we must because we can
Wonder how bad the noise level is on that beach. Must have to shout to be heard “IT’S REALLY RELAXING HERE!” “What?!”
Damn, this is uggly AF…
Adamsomething has a few videos on this
Also Not Just Bikes
Playing factorio has given me a deeper appreciation of how much adding lanes doesn’t help traffic.
Adding an extra conveyor belt to your factory line won’t help you process materials any faster. You have to add more processing elements, widening the belt lines does absolutely nothing!
Please don’t say the F word around me; I need to sleep tonight :')
City Skylines is where i learned plentiful with so much fun. Soon City Skylines 2 will be released with even more enhancement/ improvements.
I cant wait to buy every single feature as an overpriced dlc.
Does learning from games like city skylines make you infuriated when you see real life examples of poor layouts and planning?
Why’s there no one on the beach in the “problem” pic? Kinda seems like one was taken in the slow season and the other was taken in peak rush hour of the busy season.
Does it matter? It didn’t solve traffic so adding the lanes did nothing
Yeah, I think it matters. I don’t think inaccurate memes as a form of propaganda are acceptable regardless of whether or not I agree with the original topic. There are plenty of stats, studies, and examples that show the benefits of walkable cities and public transportation. This meme shows a not so busy road and a very busy road with more lanes, the only thing that can be inferred from it is that the pictures were taken on different days, nothing else.
My point stands, adding lanes did nothing
No it doesn’t lol. You have no idea what adding lanes did or didn’t do, because all this is is a single still image. That’s my point.
Someone on here posted the picture of a toll road which again, functions very differently to a motorway, so the comparison is unfair
I don’t think it really matters how busy it was before, because the road clearly didn’t solve the problem and now there’s just as much congestion as there could’ve been on a busy day before, but with more pollution.
Completely agree, that’s something I noticed as well. Seems like an apples-to-oranges comparison.
There’s a few good mini-documentaries on YouTube starting from 1950s America through to now and how the USA is a robust, evidence-rich, long-term case study of why this is bad infrastructure. It’s basically a modern no-brainer now. Thanks to the US we know not to do this. US cities are now slowly trying to undo decades of deep-rooted bad infrastructure choices based around reliance on big road networks.
Surprise, surprise, car manufacturers were a big player in influencing the initial decision 🤣
Could you please share the link or the name of the documentary?
I would suggest starting with the Strong Towns playlist from Not Just Bikes: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJp5q-R0lZ0_FCUbeVWK6OGLN69ehUTVa
I’d love for my car to be the inconvenient option but we’re just miles and miles away from that. Sure I could take the metro, it’d cost me more and I’d still need the car to drive to the metro station. Add an hour or so to what any given journey would have taken by car, throw in a handful of sweaty, rude and aggressive co-travelers and you have the answer as to why I drive everywhere.
Yeah, that’s the poor infrastructure summarised right there. There are minimal alternatives and they’re shit ones. It forces the car to be the only choice, which is fucked if the roads are fucked because there’s no other option to go with.
Yeah, but thats exactly the problem. We know stuff like that is bad, but American cities were built so fundamentally flawed, that we cannot fix the car dependency without completely rebuilding them, which is obviously not an option
What was the name of the documentary? I’d love to watch it.
I don’t understand how the middle and right pictures compare. There are ten total lanes in the middle picture, but only six in the right picture.
The right-side pic only shows one direction. There’s a middle separator and another set of lanes in the other direction (not visible). I think this is the area: https://www.google.com/maps/@31.2207203,29.9301834,3a,75y,224.65h,97.18t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sAF1QipMJJwta1iFu8TyB9UUb6xVX6fjj30Ph2Z0UGKs!2e10!7i5760!8i2880?entry=ttu feel free to look around, I’m not sure how up to date the photos are.
The whole comparison is stupid without time and date stamps. First looks like it’s an early morning before most people are out and about. Third looks like there’s an event at the beach. Second is strange, maybe the road was just completed or shut down or the cars were edited out.
That’s just sad
