Transportation planning is heavily biased in favor of cars, at the expense of other road users. That is the not-very-shocking conclusion of a new UC Denver study:
America’s streets are designed and evaluated with a an inherent bias toward the needs of motor vehicles, ignoring those of bicyclists, pedestrians, and public transit users, according to a new study co-authored by Wesley Marshall of the University of Colorado Denver.
“The most common way to measure transportation performance is with the level-of-service standard,” said Marshall, PhD, PE, assistant professor of civil engineering at the CU Denver College of Engineering and Applied Science, the premier public research university in Denver. “But that measure only tells us about the convenience of driving a car.”
Marshall co-wrote the study with Eric Dumbaugh, PhD, associate professor at Florida Atlantic University and director of Transportation and Livability for the Center for Urban and Environmental Solutions and Jeffrey Tumlin, owner and director of strategy at Nelson\Nygaard Consulting Associates in San Francisco.
According to Dumbaugh, many people assume roads are designed with all users in mind when in fact they are dedicated almost entirely to the needs of motor vehicles.
“Transit, bikes, and pedestrians are seen as worthwhile only by how much they reduce delays or increase speeds for motor vehicles,” he said. “Regardless of how efficient they may be in moving people.”
Planners try to eliminate automobile congestion to increase economic competitiveness. But as Dumbaugh points out, that may be counter-productive:
In fact, a previous study by Dumbaugh revealed that as per capita traffic delay went up, so did per capita Gross Domestic Product. Every 10 percent increase in traffic delay per person was associated with a 3.4 percent increase in per capita GDP. That’s because traffic congestion is usually a byproduct of a vibrant, economically productive city, the study said.
Systemic Failure 
It sounds like rents: average rents are correlated with average incomes. Does this mean it’s wrong of governments to try to reduce rents? Of course not: high rents are a bad side effect of wealth.
Rents are no different from any other market-decided prices. If high rents are bad, then so are “high” prices of any good or service; but what does “high” mean? Unaffordable to whom? I think your analogy here is heavily flawed.
All levels of government have pursued a relentless strategy of trying to build out of congestion, but it doesn’t work. People respond to the incentives and environment that surrounds them. We see in a proposition now before San Francisco voters an attempt to legislate a “right” to free parking. Interestingly enough, the Republicans, supposedly against giveaways at taxpayer expense, support THIS subsidy. Funny that, given their opposition to transit on the basis that it is “socialism”.
Rising rents aren’t a bad side effect per se. Rising rents are only a bad side effect if median incomes aren’t keeping pace and the rents are becoming more unaffordable.
Governments often try to relieve congestion by building more and bigger roads, but in many cases the costs are greater than benefits gained from the construction.
[…] We Knew That Dept: The Bias In Transportation System Design https://systemicfailure.wordpress.com/2014/10/30/the-bias-in-transportation-system-design/ […]
auto traffic is great for auto related private profit but awful for public related loss which is becoming massive and race threatening..constant belief in market forces with little if any notice of humans – necessary to participate in markets: duh?- is leading us to social ruin even while still creating massive profit for some at greater loss to all..time for radical change? you bet..we need to put humans, not profits, first.