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.”
#roads #traffic #cars @fuck_cars @sydneytrains @urbanism #urbanism #UrbanPlanning #motorways #fuckcars
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.
I came here to point this out and love the way you stated it. Confusion, hesitation and unnecessary lane changes are what create traffic. There has never been a major highway development in history that didn’t cause at least some short term issues. We should give city planners a bit more credit than that
No, volume of cars is what creates traffic.
Edit: you’d think that in a fuck cars community, of all places, we’d all be able to agree on this basic principle. We’re apparently infested with six idiot trolls who think cars don’t cause traffic and that induced demand isn’t real.
The volume of cars is a scale factor that determines the impact of traffic causing behaviors and conditions for free flowing highways (no traffic lights, stop signs, etc.). Following too closely and improper lane changing are two specific behaviors that actually create slow downs. There are numerous models that simulate this.
Yes, yes, I’m well aware of how it works (I’m a former traffic engineer IRL). Although it’s true the behaviors trigger the slowdowns, it’s the traffic volume that creates the conditions where switching to the congested flow regime becomes possible.
In other words, if high traffic volumes aren’t present, those behaviors don’t have that consequence, and moreover, if high traffic volumes are present, the free-flow regime is such an unstable equilibrium that some kind of event (even one as minor as a driver briefly tapping their brakes) triggering a shift away from it and to the congested regime is inevitable. It’s the volume that’s the essential condition, not the behavior.
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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.
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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.
@WaxedWookie @AvonVilla I fundamentally disagree that induced demand isn’t at play here.
That’s because this spaghetti intersection isn’t a standalone project. It’s part of WestConnex.
For *years* before it opened, the state government promised that WestConnex would deliver faster travel times from Western Sydney to the CBD. They promised faster travel times from the southern suburbs to the city. This was going to end traffic congestion on Parramatta Road once and for all.
This is directly off the WestConnex website:
"The New M4, opened in July 2019. The WestConnex M4, including the 5.5km New M4 Tunnels, connects Haberfield to Parramatta and the M4. Motorists on this section of WestConnex are saving an average of 35 minutes on their westbound peak time journey compared to Parramatta Road.
“The M8, opened in July 2020. The 9km twin tunnels connects the M5 at Kingsgrove to a new interchange at St Peters, with 6ha of new open space, built on a remediated former landfill site. The tunnels cut up to 30 minutes off a trip between Liverpool and the southern CBD.”
https://www.westconnex.com.au/explore-westconnex/about-westconnex/
Here’s a direct quote from Gladys in 2018:
"If you’re coming from Liverpool you’ll save about half an hour, if you’re coming from [Oatley area] you’ll save about 15 minutes.
“When this project has finished, not only will you have less traffic on local roads, because traffic will be underground, but you’re also going to be given open space you didn’t have before.”
And people made decisions about where they would live and how they would travel based on WestConnex.
That instead of being stuck on Parramatta Road, they’d get a nice quick commute down the M4 to the city. Or that they’d be able to take the M5 through the new M8 motorway tunnel to the city.
And a lot of that traffic is now heading straight to the Anzac Bridge:
“Before the Rozelle interchange opened, seven lanes merged into four on the Anzac Bridge. Now, 10 lanes are merged into four with the extra lanes from the spaghetti junction.”
““It is a forever problem because the system is funnelling too many people into a road that is too small. They assumed the Anzac Bridge could support more cars than was physically possible,” [Sydney transport expert Mathew Hounsell] said.
"“Trying to shovel a motorway into the middle of a city was never going to work. The previous government and the roads department stuffed it up. They didn’t want to listen to anyone who would tell them it was not going to work.
“The former Coalition government stated repeatedly that traffic flows on Victoria Road would be reduced by 50 per cent when the interchange opened, a “claim that is laughable now” [Inner West Council mayor Darcy Byrne] said.”
@WaxedWookie @AvonVilla When the prime minister, the state premier, and the transport Minister all hype up an infrastructure project by promising less traffic to the city, many people will make transport decisions accordingly.
That’s the big picture here.
Here’s an example of the hype the federal and state governments were building for *years* around WestConnex and the Rozelle Interchange:
"Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the $16.8 billion project was cutting travel times and supporting thousands of families with work as Sydney and Australia were reopening from COVID lockdowns.
"“This breakthrough isn’t just for a tunnel, but it’s a breakthrough for getting people home sooner and safer and helping workers to move around,” the Prime Minister said.
"“As well as the 9,000 jobs this project has been delivering, the tunnel is going to make it easier for people across Sydney to pick up work and jobs that just wouldn’t have been possible before with traffic.
"“As we reopen Sydney and Australia, projects like this bypass and our record $110 billion infrastructure investment are going to give our economy even more of a boost.”
"New South Wales Premier Dominic Perrottet said the third stage of WestConnex is now another step closer to forming a western bypass of the Sydney CBD.
"“This project will change the lives of thousands of people, bypassing dozens of sets of traffic lights and allowing an uninterrupted drive from the Blue Mountains to Rozelle,” the Premier said.
"“As part of the New South Wales Government’s record $108.5 billion investment pipeline, WestConnex is already easing congestion, creating jobs and connecting communities, right across our city.
"“Our Government has its eye to the future and this breakthrough will complete a ‘missing link’ between the new M4 Tunnels at Haberfield and the M8 at St Peters.”
"Federal Minister for Communications, Urban Infrastructure, Cities and the Arts Paul Fletcher said the Commonwealth Government had co-funded WestConnex from the outset with a grant of $1.5 billion and a concessional loan of $2 billion.
"“This is a major milestone in what is one of the most significant road infrastructure projects in the country, which is already delivering major benefits for Sydney commuters by reducing travel times, easing congestion and improving safety,” Minister Fletcher said.
"“When opened to traffic in 2023, the M4-M4 Link Tunnels and Rozelle Interchange will complete the WestConnex project, providing improved links between key employment hubs and local communities.”
"NSW Minister for Transport and Roads Rob Stokes said 22 of the 33 kilometres of WestConnex would be underground, including the 7.5 kilometres that make up the M4-M5 Link Tunnels.
…
““The M4-M5 Link Tunnels will remove tens of thousands of vehicles from surrounding streets, including Parramatta Road, and will help slash up to 40 minutes from an average peak journey between Parramatta and the Sydney Airport.””
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@ajsadauskas @WaxedWookie @AvonVilla The Anzac bridge has been close to capacity in peak as long as I can remember and I’ve lived here 15 years. Even if there were two Anzac bridges, then what? You’d need two CBDs for all those cars to enter.
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More lanes won’t help, but what the hell are those pinch points? 3 lanes down to 1? Did they never drive in a car?
The American Dream circa 1962 is alive and well in Australia
Why don’t they just move people’s houses closer to where they work, or vice versa?
You mean mixing businesses and residential units in the same walkable neighborhood like we’ve done for thousands of years? That would never work! We must maximize commuting distances in order to reduce traffic and commuting times.
You really need to put a sarcasm tag on that. I almost got whiplash.
My city is doing the same thing. They let developers build out exclaves around the city and then ask the city to annex it. There seems to be no limit to how stupid the city council is about this. The latest one is on a hill with no water, police, fire, or school services that got annexed. Now the city has to build out everything. The ROI to the city is in the range of centuries based on the tax revenues. Add in that it’s 100% commercial district free and now we’ve added an eternal car snake on a tiny two lane road into town.
We’ve gotta start building some mixed use density or all of this infrastructure is going to collapse.
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@ajsadauskas @fuck_cars @sydneytrains @urbanism There is a specific CATEGORY of threat to humanity’s operations, that needs systematic countering:
The counter-intuitive.
Things like “add more roads, they’ll de-congest” are *natural* assumptions, and *wrong*.
But there are many counter-intuitive things,
and it is *incompetent* to pretend that every manager, authority, whatever, everywhere, is going to somehow, magically, independently discover that they are counter-intuitive & need to be managed *backwards* to one’s unconscious “reasoning”.It’s like trying to get somebody to understand countersteering…
Until they *understand* that you’re literally riding the bike on the *side* of the tire, it can’t make any sense.
Counter-intuitive functions need to be catalog’d, organized, and systematically defeated by school-kids, or in job-training, or ANYthing.
The costs of *not* doing-so are compounding too much.
-–
Perhaps a Required Lessons for each domain, & each job within that domain…
SOMEthing, though, and we need it yesterday.
_ /\ _
It’s like trying to get somebody to understand countersteering.
Yep.
Until they understand that you’re literally riding the bike on the side of the tire, it can’t make any sense
Wait, what? Countersteering is about manipulating the contact patch relative to the center of gravity. The side of the tire has relatively no relevance.
@sping From my perspective as a bicyclist, it is the key to understanding counter-steering:
When one is riding the center of the tire, one is in normal steering.
However, when one is riding the *side* of the tire, then counter-steering is happening, and one is *climbing* on the side-ish part of the tire.
That matches the experience.
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Experience is misleading and not only is what you describe not countersteering, it’s also not how bicycles steer. The primary input is the angle of turn of the handlebars. The complication is that on a balanced vehicle like a bicycle you can’t just point the wheel where you want to go or you’d just fall over to the outside of the turn. So, before you steer where you wan to go, you have to point it in the opposite direction to initiate a lean.
Many people get quite heated, insisting they do not do this on a bicycle, and believe all sorts of other things. But the fact is this is what everyone does and it’s the only way to steer a bicycle, it’s just that it’s quite possible to ride without realizing this is what you’re doing.
@sping I now know that there are *2* different, distinct, phenomena, both called “counter steering”, that have nothing to do with each-other.
What you describe is what some call counter steering.
What I’m talking about is when you are in the lean, if you lean the bike a bit more, while steering a few degrees *out* from the turning you are doing, while “climbing through the turn on the sidewall”, the bike goes 'round like it’s on rails, while keeping its center-of-gravity low.
That is what *I*, and some others, mean when talking about “counter steering”.
It has nothing whatsoever to do with what one does with the steering when the bike is upright.
And it wasn’t the Fornine vid I was remembering, so I’ve no idea who it was who also means what I mean.
What a shoddy mess that is: the same label for distinct different phenomena, that are similar.
That is the wrong way of making language “work”.
Cheers.
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What you describe is what some call counter steering.
You’re certainly tenacious - an entire Wikipedia page telling you the definition, not including your definition, and telling you it’s how bicycle steering works doesn’t slow you down!
I think rather than arguing with me you should correct Wikipedia and see how far you get. You should also attend to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_and_motorcycle_dynamics, that weirdly doesn’t seem to mention your special facts on how bicycle steering works.
@sping I only found counter-steering worked when on road-tires, & leaned waaay over, and from what I’ve seen of Fortnine, he countersteers waaay leaned over, too.
The turn of the handlebars only is primary when you’re upright, not when you’re as-near-horizontal-as-you-can-get.
*shruggeth*
It’s been many years since I bothered with road-bikes, and arguing it is pointless, obviously: what I’m talking about you aren’t describing.
Cheers.
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I have a feeling you’re mixing up the direction of the force you have to apply with the angle of the wheel. Also, countersteering is about how you change the radius of your turn, not about what angle you hold on a steady-state turn.
The effects of the round tire profile are a factor that alter the steering angle for a given turn - conceivably even against to the direction you turn, but as you can see from the Wikipedia page linked that’s not what the term means.
And ultimately, it’s the only way you initiate a turn, no matter how much many people disbelieve it. As the page says “While this appears to be a complex sequence of motions, it is performed by every child who rides a bicycle. The entire sequence goes largely unnoticed by most riders, which is why some assert that they do not do it.”
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@ajsadauskas @fuck_cars @sydneytrains @urbanism
I think it’s more a case of this whole interchange has been built for western harbour tunnel. ie the more lanes are coming…in 5 years.
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@jedsetter @ajsadauskas @fuck_cars @sydneytrains @urbanism
Not even that; the additional lanes already exist, they’re just signposted so confusingly that people are avoiding them and instead crowding onto what’s now intended to be a local road@jedsetter @ajsadauskas @fuck_cars @sydneytrains @urbanism
To be clear—The tunnel sign-posted as “City, Port Botany ✈️ [toll]” goes to Anzac Bridge, toll-free. If you’re used to taking Victoria Road to Anzac Bridge, you should take the tunnel.
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@jedsetter @ajsadauskas @fuck_cars @sydneytrains @urbanism
Seems more like it, I would expect induced demand to be more prominent on the longer time scales.In particular, I recall a simple graph example where you’d have two parallel roads with some traffic on them. And then you create a link between them, aiming to improve the situation. However, the link gets jammed and the overall situation gets worse
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@ajsadauskas induced demand is a stupid concept. If adding options increases traffic that means your.city is not serving residents. The point of a city is all the places people can get in them, if you have no place to go then move to Montana or someplace else with noplace to go. Note that I didn’t say add more lanes, lanes are not very cost effective’
The reason adding one more lane is wrong is by the time slowdowns occure people are already packing cars in 6 times more dense than is safe and so you need not one more lane but 6 times as many lanes. That is expensive no matter how you look at it. (And probably requires layers of bridges and tunnels)
you need not one more lane but 6 times as many lanes
@fuck_cars @sydneytrains @urbanism @ajsadauskas That is about the right level of freeway for a city (entire MSA) of about a million people. I believe that the picture is for a city population of 7 million.
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The point is, if you spend the money on other modes of transport you can serve those residents without the negative externalities that come along with more traffic.
