[sustran] Re: Indian roads - planes, cows, elephants, mosques

[Markus Sander]

Hi Martin,

> I just have my doubts about the claim that traffic will expand
> to fill the available road space is true. There are thousands of miles
> of virtually empty roads even here in the UK. It seems to me that

Of course it's not true for every road everywhere. It occurs where
traffic problems are solved by making traffic 'faster', e.g. by reducing
idle times, increasing speed, etc. This is just 'curing symptoms' and
worseing of the causes. Idle times are an *effect* of traffic problems,
not the *cause*.

If you eliminate idle time, the road capacity will be higher. Short term
local effect: less congestion, shorter traveling time. Long term global
effect: Congestion at the next bottle neck, longer ways.

The winners are supermarkets and employer - they can centralize into
shopping centres and business parks. The losers are people that life
between residential area and those centres. Also all commuters 'lose',
because they have to pay for their car, the roads and so on that
otherwise would be unnecassary (= if there was a 'walkable'
infrastructure).

-- 
 (c) markus