Whoopsie! Sydney's road planners just discovered induced demand is a thing, after opening a new motorway.
For those outside Sydney, the New South Wales state government recently opened a new spaghetti intersection just west of Sydney's Central Business District.
It was supposed to solve traffic. Instead, it's turned into a giant car park:
"For the third straight day, motorists and bus passengers endured bumper-to-bumper traffic on the City West Link and Victoria Road. A trip from Haberfield to the Anzac Bridge on the City West Link averaged an agonising 44 minutes in the morning peak on Wednesday.
"Several months ago, Transport for NSW’s modelling had suggested traffic from the interchange would add only five to 10 minutes to trips on Victoria Road through Drummoyne and over the Iron Cove Bridge during morning peaks.
"Those travel delays have now blown out."
So what do motorists say when their shiny new road that was supposed to solve traffic instead turns into a massive traffic jam?
'Dude! Just one more lane!'
From the article:
"[Roads Minister John] Graham and his Transport boss Josh Murray appear reluctant to do what many motorists reckon is the obvious solution.
"That is, add lanes or make changes at the pinch-points that are causing the pain. A three-lane to one merge point from Victoria Road onto the Anzac Bridge, along with two lanes merging into one on the City West Link, are proving to be painful bottlenecks."
While the money sold have been spent on public transport, it’s a bit fucking premature to put this down to induced demand - the tangled mess has been operating for what - like 3 business days? People are getting confused and doing silly bullshit. It’s a problem, but it’s not induced demand.
Induced demand is a thing, and it’ll almost certainly be relevant here - there’s no need to lie about it - give it a minute to settle first. This is the benefit of being correct - there’s no need to be dishonest.
Are you sure the post is just a mistake or misunderstanding? Maybe it’s just dishonest. ‘You’re ignorant or stupid’ seems a bit much.
I’d be more willing to accept innocent ignorance in the replies - I assume that if someone is posting a new thread about a situation that includes a judgement on the cause of that situation, they at least have a passing familiarity of the thing they’re publically passing judgement on.
They’re very obviously wrong in a way that discredits the good ideas put forward by the participants in this sub - if they retract their post, I’ll happily retract mine.
Induced demand is (like I said) definitely a thing, and will almost certainly be a meaningful factor here, but to point to massive delays a couple of days after opening the most complex underground road network in the world, where loads of people are stopping after taking wrong turns (e.g. the side you access the Anzac bridge has switched) is obviously not induced demand.
Let the immediate adjustment period cool off, then take a look at it - I’m sure the induced demand will be there. There’s no need to point to teething issues immediately after opening and call that induced demand - it discredits the very concept.
I lived a few hundred meters from it, and currently live a few km from it - not that I think it’s relevant to this discussion.
Brevity isn’t your strong suit. I’ll keep this simple.
I assume you wouldn’t argue that the current delays will sustain for the foreseeable future. The induction drivers won’t disappear for the foreseeable future. With those 2 things being true, how could you say these delays are induced demand rather than temporary teething issues with opening?
I’ve been clear I think induced demand will be an issue here. There’s no dispute on that, but you’re refusing to bite the bullet on whether these more extreme teething issues (which I’m asserting aren’t induced demand) will stay.
If you say the delays will stay, I’m confident you’ll be proven wrong in fairly short order - the traffic will ease, proving it’s not induced demand. The scale of the induceed demand can be fairly measured at that point.
If you don’t think the delays will stay when the induction factors remain unchanged, you have to concede this isn’t induced demand - it’s short term teething, which is my position.
It’s been reported that the travel times are already dropping by 10%+ in the few days since opening… That sure points to these delays being mostly due to teething that’s beginning to ease already.