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mowotlarx t1_japh16l wrote

Reply to comment by Grass8989 in SHOCKER: Mayor's private BQE meeting could divide Brooklyn politicians by psychothumbs

Increasing lanes doesn't reduce traffic.

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Grass8989 t1_japh7oe wrote

This isn’t increasing lanes, it’s reinstating a lane that was/is already there and was reduced to two lanes.

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elprophet t1_jarknzq wrote

Reinstating those lanes will literally kill people when the increased loads lead to a collapse on that section.

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notlodar t1_jaroe31 wrote

Apparently, this is rebuild that is necessary so it doesn’t collapse? Hopefully

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elprophet t1_jars8o3 wrote

Yeah there's two conversations happening here- should the rebuilt section have three lanes or two? Three is what it had before and the rest of the BQE has three, so that's the status quo. While I personally push for lowering the entire thing to two it's entire length and replacing that with non-road alternatives, that's a massive undertaking and rebuilding of the city on the scale of the original highway system. I get that.

The other conversation in this thread is "just reopen those lanes now" and that notion is what I was responding to.

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notlodar t1_jaru0by wrote

The 3 lanes now already spill over to residential lanes - see Columbia and Park as an example. Add in the factor that the majority of this traffic is caused by Staten Island and New Jersey commuters, will have to work on the public transit in those areas first.

Any study that to any study that touts the benefit of public transit over additional lanes of Highway needs to be scrutinized and contextualized properly in order to compare it to the complex systems we have a New York City.

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elprophet t1_jas4kd5 wrote

Absolutely. SI and NJ are hugely transit underserved, as much as the outer borough loops. And then take in context of the risk of catastrophic structural failure of the current cantilever. The correct answer was "rebuild the entire thing in 2010" but there was one of those decadal "once in a lifetime" global recessions going on. We're long past that date, the current cantilever is somewhere between "likely to collapse" and "imminently collapsing".

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ThreeLittlePuigs t1_japorrb wrote

Out of curiosity why did reducing the lane dramatically increase traffic? Couldn’t you say induced demand is only true to a degree, as some people / professions / purposes require driving so there’s a minimum number of cars “necessary” at any given point?

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b1argg t1_jarfp0c wrote

It created a bottleneck causing larger traffic jams at more hours of the day. Demand stayed pretty much the same because there aren't many great options for getting to the Verrazano to leave the city for Brooklyn and Queens residents.

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StrictDare210 t1_jaqw1uj wrote

Traffic as in cars moving very slowly if they’re moving at all. Not just volume of vehicles.

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koji00 t1_jau9qrp wrote

Same number of cars, but now sitting idle for much longer. Great for the environment.

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b1argg t1_jarfanr wrote

It's already 3 lanes each way. The reduction was an emergency political football to buy time before the thing collapses, and has added a bottleneck causing massive backups at all times. Rebuilding with 3 lanes is maintaining the current size, not an expansion.

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NetQuarterLatte t1_jarrgza wrote

Yup, adding lanes induces demand. But it also benefits more drivers...

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