Taunter Media

Traffic. The ultimate local issue. Mayoral campaigns are supposed to hinge on it. We spend hundreds of billions of dollars building roads to deal with it. The stimulus bill is predicated on the idea that there is a near-infinite need for construction at ever-increasing prices, despite environmental and neighborhood concerns that make it more difficult than ever to get things done.

Are we sure we are using our existing roads wisely?

Let’s take New York as an example. There are three main obstacles to being able to get crosstown above a walking pace:

• Pedestrians. Since green lights and walk signals are aligned, when it is green for cars to go straight it is also time for pedestrians to cross. This means any car that is turning has to stop and wait for a gap in pedestrian traffic, delaying the car behind it. Partially addressed by the creation of turn lanes, but the turn lane itself fills easily.
• Parking. When New York began to have motor vehicles, there was some debate as to whether citizens should simply be able to leave them stopped on public roads, or should have to get them off the road when not moving. For whatever historic reason, the decision was made that parking on public roads is acceptable. Difficult to turn that back, but it transforms three-lane roads into one-lane roads.
• Bunching. You actually can navigate somewhat reasonably at 2:00am. It’s 8:45am on a weekday that is infuriating.

All of these problems lend themselves to fairly easy solutions. Yet the best efforts of everyone since Robert Moses have not been sufficient to implement them.

On the pedestrian front, the solution requires only looking as far as London…or, for that matter, Fifth Avenue and 50th Street: move the crosswalks to mid-block, and fence the corners of the blocks so people are not tempted to jaywalk. In this scenario, the cars and the pedestrians are separated at green lights – cars turning get to go halfway to the next block before stopping, providing plenty of space for other cars to get by. Meanwhile, pedestrians are not at risk of cars that are in the process of turning; by the time the car gets to the crosswalk, it is directly perpendicular to the flow of people and has a clear view.

Indeed, the fencing idea also addresses the parking issues. During the business day, fence at least one side of each street, corner to corner (except the mid-block crosswalk, obviously). On that side, there would be no parking whatsoever, and enforcement would be easy – anyone who decided to park there would have to walk all the way to the midblock crosswalk in the middle of a street. Leave the other side open for cabs, etc. Call it a vigorous version of alternate side of the street parking – odd numbered days, close the north and west sides of the streets, on evens, reverse it; it should be possible to modify the trucks that lay zipper lanes to pull the fences up and down – and right there, you have doubled the throughput of the entire street system. Actually, more than doubled it, since two lanes have more than twice the capacity of one.

As for bunching, a funny thing happened on the way to congestion pricing: resident of Brooklyn and Queens, who generate an enormous percentage of the daytime traffic in Manhattan, decided they did not want to pay to go into Manhattan. Since a holdover of the Moses era and the subsequent near-bankruptcy of the city is that every agency known to man needed to be consulted, nothing got done.

There are some economic concepts that people don’t quite seem to understand – rent control and congestion pricing being the two most obvious. No matter how well economists try to explain them, people just cannot see the embedded cost. Fair enough. Show them.

Instead of trying something politically complicated, like creating a zone at 96th street, just stick with the obvious one that already exists: the island of Manhattan, which only has a few access points as is – and most of those have tolls anyway.

Don’t discuss congestion pricing. Just increase the tolls. A lot. Make it $10 to cross. It’s a bad economy, city has to raise money somehow. Watch people go ballistic.

Then say fine, you hear people, you’ll make them a deal: it’s only fair that someone who isn’t taking up space or requiring human interaction should get a discount. Fine. If you use EZ-Pass and enter Manhattan before 7:00am or after 7:00pm, you can pay $5. Put up an electronic sign before the toll plazas: “EZ Pass Discount” and lights for “ON” and “OFF”. People would insist on it every toll increase, embedding the charge – and then you could offer more subtle versions.

And NY is probably the most thoughtful city in the US in terms of traffic. Phoenix has a grid system, but never seems to have considered the idea of making all streets one way. So every intersection of major roads needs a convoluted system of left turn signals when the whole problem could simply vanish. LA’s surface streets have Phoenix’s issues without even the saving grace of left turn lights. San Francisco seems to have set its traffic pattern once and forgotten about it: for absolutely no good reason, the west side of 3rd Street between Mission and Howard has parking, requiring a massive lane shift and constant traffic jam to get perhaps a dozen extra parking spaces – and this, mind you, is right next to the convention center, which among other things has a parking lot.

Why hasn’t the governor of California – ever the one for a challenge – simply announced the Traffic Cup, an annual challenge to the company with the best mobile-enabled traffic algorithm. An Angeleno enters his destination and the company that can best route him through freeways and surface streets is the winner. Do you think Google, Yahoo, and Nokia would ignore the opportunity to get a silver bowl from the Governor? They would push the product to everyone…and maximize the efficiency of the given roads for less than it costs to fix a pothole.