TRANSIT in OKC

[HOT ROD]

BRT typically does have reduced number of stops.

I'd place BRT in the heirarchy as follows, most stops to least:

local bus -> streetcar/tram -> BRT -> light rail -> metro/subway -> Commuter Bus -> Commuter Rail -> Express Bus/Rail

with OKC implementing will have the three modes with the most stops but BRT tends to be a stop every half mile or so, or think of one stop for an entire district. The idea is the bus is rail like, so BRT is very similar to light rail in stops/frequency but obviously will tend to have more given the lower cost.

Oh, and BRT requires dedicated platforms that are significantly different than local bus; again, think of a light rail platform but a bus comes by instead of a train. Finally, typically BRT has tap on/off at the station platform.

In congested areas, BRT will have dedicated lanes. I don't think OKC really needs dedicated lanes other than maybe along Classen. There will be dedicated lanes to/from platforms, this is usually sufficient for an OKC style BRT (and much less expensive to implement, meaning MORE miles/longer route).

This is all to help expedite the trip, like riding a light rail train.

I totally agree with you about the bike lanes, your vision is exactly how I envision Classen, not so much NW Expressway though as you'd really want grade separated bike lanes there.

[BoulderSooner]

BRT typically does have reduced number of stops.

I'd place BRT in the heirarchy as follows, most stops to least:

local bus -> streetcar/tram -> BRT -> light rail -> metro/subway -> Commuter Bus -> Commuter Rail -> Express Bus/Rail

with OKC implementing will have the three modes with the most stops but BRT tends to be a stop every half mile or so, or think of one stop for an entire district. The idea is the bus is rail like, so BRT is very similar to light rail in stops/frequency but obviously will tend to have more given the lower cost.

Oh, and BRT requires dedicated platforms that are significantly different than local bus; again, think of a light rail platform but a bus comes by instead of a train. Finally, typically BRT has tap on/off at the station platform.

In congested areas, BRT will have dedicated lanes. I don't think OKC really needs dedicated lanes other than maybe along Classen. There will be dedicated lanes to/from platforms, this is usually sufficient for an OKC style BRT (and much less expensive to implement, meaning MORE miles/longer route).

This is all to help expedite the trip, like riding a light rail train.

I totally agree with you about the bike lanes, your vision is exactly how I envision Classen, not so much NW Expressway though as you'd really want grade separated bike lanes there.

except OKC is not getting BRT ...... what okc is getting is more like enhanced bus

[Plutonic Panda]

I feel like they either need to reduce the number of stops or give the thing its own damn lane. It wouldn't be hard and I doubt it would cause any traffic woes. Might actually get a few cars off the road by becoming a more attractive option for some folks. Put up some vertical dilineators and allow bikes to ride there too. Kill two birds with one stone.

Mass transit doesn't reduce traffic congestion in a vast majority of cases and almost never in car dominant cities.

[GoGators]

Mass transit doesn't reduce traffic congestion in a vast majority of cases and almost never in car dominant cities.

Adding lanes to existing roadways does not reduce traffic congestion.

The only true way to reduce traffic congestion is to shorten commutes and increasing density.

[Plutonic Panda]

Adding lanes to existing roadways does not reduce traffic congestion..

Yes it does. Adding the proper number of lanes reduces congestion and it worked with the Kilpatrick turnpike and the crosstown.

It reduced traffic contention in SLC. https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics...udy-says-salt/

But nice changing the subject. Keep on spouting your induced demand bs.

You cling on to your last statement like it something that can't be accomplished without borderline near totalitarian tactics but your wishes are idealistic and won't ever happen.

https://www.washingtonpolicy.org/pub...and-toll-rates

But keeping your strongtown articles that cherry pick data from LA, Houston, NYC, and notoriously congestion metros that only added one lane each way on freeways that needed much more and call it induced demand because they didn’t do anything to reduce congestion. It doesn’t take rocket science to figure it out.

[jonny d]

Adding lanes to existing roadways does not reduce traffic congestion.

The only true way to reduce traffic congestion is to shorten commutes and increasing density.

DC is one of the most urban cities on Earth, and their traffic is ignorantly bad. As are Seattle and PDX, and their traffic sucks, as well. NYC is supremely dense, and their traffic sucks, as well. Boston, Philly, etc. Need we go on?

[BDP]

Mass transit doesn't reduce traffic congestion in a vast majority of cases and almost never in car dominant cities.

Am I reading this wrong, or are you saying that mass transit doesn't reduce road congestion in cities with mass transit?

I ask, because that would mean you think traffic congestion wouldn't increase in those cities if those systems shut down... how is that possible?

[BDP]

DC is one of the most urban cities on Earth, and their traffic is ignorantly bad. As are Seattle and PDX, and their traffic sucks, as well. NYC is supremely dense, and their traffic sucks, as well. Boston, Philly, etc. Need we go on?

But in those examples, you have a choice to sit in that congestion or not, because there are other ways to get around. Obviously, NYC is the best example. I don't know why anyone would get in a car in NYC below the park. I wouldn't do it anywhere in Manhattan before 8pm, but especially not in Mid Town or Downtown.

[GoGators]

Yes it does. Adding the proper number of lanes reduces congestion and it worked with the Kilpatrick turnpike and the crosstown.

It reduced traffic contention in SLC. https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics...udy-says-salt/

But nice changing the subject. Keep on spouting your induced demand bs.

You cling on to your last statement like it something that can't be accomplished without borderline near totalitarian tactics but your wishes are idealistic and won't ever happen.

https://www.washingtonpolicy.org/pub...and-toll-rates

But keeping your strongtown articles that cherry pick data from LA, Houston, NYC, and notoriously congestion metros that only added one lane each way on freeways that needed much more and call it induced demand because they didn’t do anything to reduce congestion. It doesn’t take rocket science to figure it out.

You got all that from my last sentence?

Also I don’t trust these cherry picked sources you are citing.

Look at the Katy Freeway for proof that lanes don’t help. Thing is 26 lanes wide and backs up on the reg.

[GoGators]

DC is one of the most urban cities on Earth, and their traffic is ignorantly bad. As are Seattle and PDX, and their traffic sucks, as well. NYC is supremely dense, and their traffic sucks, as well. Boston, Philly, etc. Need we go on?

The traffic doesn’t suck for the people who live close to where they are going :P

Like I said, density and short travel distances best way to reduce traffic congestion. If your not in traffic it’s kinda hard to be affected by traffic.

[BDP]

It reduced traffic contention in SLC. https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics...udy-says-salt/

Wait a second, from that article:

The study says Salt Lake City, Portland and New Haven improved for similar reasons: sophisticated traffic light optimization, expanded bike lanes and rental possibilities, and better transit options.

Are you referring to adding lanes by reversing some lanes at certain times of day, aka their "flex lanes"? If so, that wasn't cited as the only reason traffic congestion was reduced and it specifically cites transit as one cause of reduced congestion, and you had just posted that "Mass transit doesn't reduce traffic congestion in a vast majority of cases and almost never in car dominant cities."

I must be super confused on what your point of posting that article is.

[jonny d]

The traffic doesn’t suck for the people who live close to where they are going :P

Like I said, density and short travel distances best way to reduce traffic congestion. If your not in traffic it’s kinda hard to be affected by traffic.

But moving isn't cheap, either. Just saying. Might be easier to have the city spend money than requiring every citizen to move close to their work.

[GoGators]

But moving isn't cheap, either. Just saying. Might be easier to have the city spend money than requiring every citizen to move close to their work.

Not require them to move, just not cater to them not moving. When the city spends money, every citizen spends money. so right now we require every citizen to spend money so some people can move further away from work. And every lane we add trying to help congestion hurts the citizens between points A and B. No one wants to live next to an 8 lane road. So why we punish people who live where everything is in order to save 5 min of commute time for someone who wants to live 30 miles from work will always be lost on me. And to then to add insult to injury we make the people who now have to live next to an 8 lane nightmare pay for it.

No one would allow an 8 lane road be built directly through their housing addition, and yet we expect the people who live in Lincoln Terrace to be perfectly OK with it. It just doesn't make any sense to me.

[BDP]

So why we punish people who live where everything is in order to save 5 min of commute time for someone who wants to live 30 miles from work will always be lost on me. And to then to add insult to injury we make the people who now have to live next to an 8 lane nightmare pay for it.

Well, but in any economic growth model, access to work centers from lower cost of living areas or even just different living options will be needed. If you can live in a city close to where you work, part of the economic engine is fed by workers from outside of that area. There would have to be a large inventory of housing to keep living costs down to a reasonable level where everyone could live close to where they work.

Of course, that doesn't mean 8 lane highways are the only way to provide that access, but the person living close to where they work is always going to help pay for any publicly funded transportation infrastructure, and they do benefit from that economically, even if they don't personally use it.

[GoGators]

Well, but in any economic growth model, access to work centers from lower cost of living areas or even just different living options will be needed. If you can live in a city close to where you work, part of the economic engine is fed by workers from outside of that area. There would have to be a large inventory of housing to keep living costs down to a reasonable level where everyone could live close to where they work.

Of course, that doesn't mean 8 lane highways are the only way to provide that access, but the person living close to where they work is always going to help pay for any publicly funded transportation infrastructure, and they do benefit from that economically, even if they don't personally use it.

I absolutely agree. This IMO is why commuter rail, bus, BRT, Street cars and bike lanes become that much more beneficial. They can be utilized to enhance access to employment centers from these outer areas with a greatly reduced impact on the existing community. I just believe we need to take the impact these massive roads have on the neighborhoods they cut through. making it slightly easier for one area of town to drive into the city center at the expense of thousands of existing residents that lie in between just seems counterproductive to me.

[Plutonic Panda]

Am I reading this wrong, or are you saying that mass transit doesn't reduce road congestion in cities with mass transit?

I ask, because that would mean you think traffic congestion wouldn't increase in those cities if those systems shut down... how is that possible?

In Hong Kong their transit system was shut down and traffic congestion actually reduced. The reason I point that out is because it isn't as simple as you're trying to make it to be. LA is aggressively expand it's mass transit and the Expo line did nothing to reduce traffic congestion on the 10 a corridor it parallels. In most cases, no mass transit does not reduce traffic congestion as it encourages density and more density almost always means more traffic.

http://www.publicpurpose.com/pp57-density.htm

Admittedly, as with the prior link(which I will address in a separate post) some contradict or dismiss my points as not valid but that doesn't mean the premise of the article is correct. In fact I'm providing both sides of the story trying to be as fair as possible and you can draw your own conclusions.

Here is one of those:

https://www.citylab.com/transportati...erywhere/5149/

Why mass transit sucks and ultimately those who like it are in a small minority. The point is why ideas like those shared by GoGators are nothing more than fantasies they want to see happen that don't align with the realities of the world. My views are closer to middle in this case though I still support massive freeways. If me vouching for better mass transit and walkability in OKC as shown on this thread doesn't make that clear enough and my support alone for car based infrastructure makes you think I'm biased for one side of the equation I'd ask you rethink that view of me. Any rate here is this article which really sums up how me and many many others feel about mass transit and ultimately why it doesn't reduce congestion as most people might want it built but they won't use it: https://www.caranddriver.com/feature...AjZ052tVqcK7Ic

Case of the Expo line from DTLA to Santa Monica which Metro had billboards up claiming traffic times would be reduced on the 10 but in fact the complete opposite has been true. In fact many negative consequences has become known since its opening:

Light rail projects are booming around the United States. Reports from the National Transit Database show that between 1991 and 2012, light rail transit capacity increased from 27 million to 99 million service miles nationally. Light rail service, in fact, has grown at a higher rate than bus, subway, and other public transit modes. Los Angeles is part of this trend. LA Metro has the most ambitious urban rail transit development program in the U.S.: Projects worth approximately $8 billion are currently under construction. The first segment of the Los Angeles Expo Line, between Culver City and Downtown LA, opened in 2012 as part of this widespread recent investment.

One of the common justifications for investing in light rail is its potential to reduce roadway traffic congestion. Yet, little evidence exists to support this claim. There are many studies of the impacts of light rail, but few have examined its impacts specifically on traffic congestion.

- https://transfersmagazine.org/does-l...educe-traffic/

What we learned

Our research suggests that the Expo Line Phase 1 had a modest and highly localized impact on weekday peak-period roadway traffic system performance within the first 5 to 7 months of opening. The number of daily Expo Line trips was small compared to the total volume of traffic within the service corridor, so even if all Expo Line riders were previous car users, it is unlikely that the reduction in traffic volume would translate into significant improvements in speed and travel time reliability within the highly congested corridor.

and even with that article painting a rather neutral but pro LRT picture I'd still be suspicious of their findings as they have some inaccurate claims like travel times improving on Venice which anecdotally driving that road several times a day I can tell you is BS but the traffic counts which are up don't lie either.

https://catalog.data.gov/dataset/lad...nner_span=True

or this interactive map can be more helpful to find traffic counts on Venice to help you understand the rising traffic counts despite the previous articles claims of faster traffic which is NOT the case:

https://ladot.lacity.org/node/576

[Plutonic Panda]

You got all that from my last sentence?

Also I don’t trust these cherry picked sources you are citing.

Look at the Katy Freeway for proof that lanes don’t help. Thing is 26 lanes wide and backs up on the reg.

Yes I did.

Okay since you want to play that game name a freeway that was widened and traffic increased with higher end to end travel times and I'll give you two examples each of freeway projects are the country where they stayed the same. We are already at that since I gave you two examples of freeways that were widened and congestion didn't increase in OKC and you gave me an example of a freeway in a notoriously congested city that already had many of its freeways during rush hour congested just like I said you would in the same city I said you would so I will wait for you examples. The Katy freeway needs more lanes. It is as simple as that. X amount of cars move through there per hour and x amount of lanes can handle it. Cars won't magically appear out of thin air so the drivers can sit in traffic. Reality just doesn't work like that.

Cherry picked sources means I can give you plenty of examples of the hundreds of freeway widenings that have occurred over the last decade a small percentage of them are still congested and even smaller amount were just as congested as they were when they first reopened with more lanes AND an even smaller amount were more congested. The anomalies to that, once again, are in cities like ATL, LA, HOUSTON, NYC, etc. cities that are massive with millions and millions of people moving.

Your fantasy of placing people closer to where they work is bs and not happening.

Given the circumstances, the Katy freeway flows pretty good for much of the day though well below targeted speeds isn't nearly as bad with end to end travel times being much lower than many freeways with less lanes. Measuring traffic congestion with hours lost is easily skewed by a disproportionate modal share and thus, though beneficial in some ways, mainly used to show a freeway or its respective city suffers from nightmarish congestion without providing the entire picture. Better used for cities like LA to try and scream induced demand is real and not the case of NYC which has more freeway lane miles per person yet arguably worse traffic even though depending on the method of measurement you could make the case in the opposite direction. It is completely worthless to those who commute there and is a prime example of why empirical data can easily be spun to back up or dismiss induced demand.

http://freakonomics.com/2009/02/24/l...tion-freeways/

https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na...124-story.html

[Plutonic Panda]

Wait a second, from that article:



Are you referring to adding lanes by reversing some lanes at certain times of day, aka their "flex lanes"? If so, that wasn't cited as the only reason traffic congestion was reduced and it specifically cites transit as one cause of reduced congestion, and you had just posted that "Mass transit doesn't reduce traffic congestion in a vast majority of cases and almost never in car dominant cities."

I must be super confused on what your point of posting that article is.

Yes I read the article. The modal share of SLC is, like most cities, heavily in favor of the car. My guess would be, as in most cities, car ownership is rising regardless of mode share changes. UDOT is building a handful of new freeways in SLC and opening lanes left and right. It shows induced demand is BS. If it were true than all of those new lanes opening up would cause congestion to increase in SLC but that clearly isn't the case. Regardless of what the article claims, it shows congestion it becoming less prevalent in SLC in a time when projects like these are occurring:

YouTube page with a grocery list of projects U/C or recently completed: https://www.youtube.com/user/UtahDOT

It backs up my beliefs that induced demand is fallacy. It exists but to a small extent. Latent demand is the real issue but no urbanists wants to acknowledge that as opposed to induced demand, latent demand supports the theory of adding more lanes to a freeway.

[Plutonic Panda]

No one would allow an 8 lane road be built directly through their housing addition, and yet we expect the people who live in Lincoln Terrace to be perfectly OK with it. It just doesn't make any sense to me.

This is such a sorry argument. No one would allow a two lane train track to be built through their neighborhood. Please and examples you give I can you just as many with freeways being built through neighborhoods. Infrastructure has to be built. If you can't handle it move away from the city. Lincoln BLVD isn't an 8 lane being built through Lincoln Terrace. Unfortunately for them or those who have a problem with it their housing development sits in an area where this infrastructure is needed. Plenty of housing additions where it isn't. The world isn't fair. Some housing additions will be closer to large infrastructure and some will be further away.

[Ross MacLochness]

Mass transit doesn't reduce traffic congestion in a vast majority of cases and almost never in car dominant cities.

Here is a tweet from LA Metro - the transit authority in one of the most car dependent cities on earth - with a visualization on how public transport can move more people, more quickly than cars. This is not a streetsblog article, its the LA government. https://twitter.com/metrolosangeles/...229957632?s=20

[Plutonic Panda]

Here is a tweet from LA Metro - the transit authority in one of the most car dependent cities on earth - with a visualization on how public transport can move more people, more quickly than cars. This is not a streetsblog article, its the LA government. https://twitter.com/metrolosangeles/...229957632?s=20

I've seen that Tweet when it was first posted and I'm not sure what that has to do with what I posted. I said mass transit doesn't reduce traffic congestion. That Tweet backs up my claims.

FYI, that bus lane is a pilot program to ease the pain of the Blue Line closure which is to bring the overhead wires in the same new system the regional connector is used.

BTW, LA city is often full of sh!t. That isn't from the city of LA. It's from Metro which is the county's transportation authority. Per California's backwards ass law, CalTrans can't build projects at their own will. They have to be approved by local transportation authorities. I know you would likely be in favor of that but it makes regional planning efforts harder and arguably is partly due to the horrid congestion that plagues California.

Here is a study from LA Metro about the 405 widening reduced travel congestion for local street and improvements made from widening the freeway, this is from the city government: https://thesource.metro.net/2015/05/...epulveda-pass/

[Ross MacLochness]

That tweet is showing how many more people can travel along a corridor if there are bus specific lanes. Cars may not be able to move much faster, but people surely do (according to the tweet only)

The article you posted referenced a study which came out in 2015, only a year after construction was completed. I wonder how it's working for them in 2019? Here's some counterpoint:

Five years after Sepulveda Pass widening, travel times on the 405 keep getting worse
104
Average drive times through the Sepulveda Pass have stayed the same or increased at all hours of the day

"Metro argued in 2015 that the widening project had cut down overall hours of delay by 37 percent, compared to how long drivers would have spent in traffic if the project had never been constructed."

"For four years, from 2015 to 2019, Inrix measured the length of commutes along the widened stretch of the 405 during a four-week period between January and February. In that time, average commutes in both the north and southbound directions worsened or stayed the same during all hours of the day. Average vehicle speeds also dropped or stayed the same during both peak- and non-peak-hour periods."

"Drivers traveling north between 3 and 4 p.m. experience the most additional delay, with average speeds having dropped from 28 miles per hour in 2015 to 19 miles per hour in 2019. The result of that is an almost 50 percent increase in total travel time, from 23 minutes in 2015 to 34 minutes in 2019."

So yes, widening that highway seemed to help in the short term but it seems as though induced demand strikes again like it does almost every time.

[BDP]

Yes I read the article.

Didn't say you didn't.

The modal share of SLC is, like most cities, heavily in favor of the car.... UDOT is building a handful of new freeways in SLC and opening lanes left and right. It shows induced demand is BS.

No it doesn't. A study concluded that congestion went down because "Salt Lake City, Portland and New Haven improved for similar reasons: sophisticated traffic light optimization, expanded bike lanes and rental possibilities, and better transit options."

That doesn't really address freeway lane additions, let alone traffic counts on those free ways before and after the project(s), which is really the only way to measure any change in demand for use of that freeway, regardless if it's effective demand or induced.

If it were true than all of those new lanes opening up would cause congestion to increase in SLC but that clearly isn't the case.

Induced demand just means that when supply is increased, consumption increases. It doesn't really address whether the increase in supply was adequate for the subsequent increase in consumption. So, you can easily have some increase in "consumption" of a particular freeway after lane additions that does not result in increased congestion. That would just mean that, if induced demand caused an increase in counts after lane additions, the added supply that caused that demand was adequate or more than adequate to accommodate that increase without causing more congestion.

And, in this specific case, the reduced congestion was attributed to several variables, not the single variable of adding lanes on some highways. So, it's entirely possible that adding the lanes led to induced demand, but that was mitigated by all the other transportation infrastructure improvements. That also doesn't mean that induced demand did occur. You can't really make a conclusion based on that single variable, when multiple variables are at play.

Regardless of what the article claims, it shows congestion it becoming less prevalent in SLC in a time when projects like these are occurring

OK. But that doesn't show that "induced demand is BS".

And, to be clear, I'm not trying to make an absolute argument for or against more freeway lanes across the country based on the concept of induced demand in general or based on SLC's study. That'd be silly. Unless there's a way to control for all the other variables in SLC's transportation infrastructure model, you can't make any conclusion about the effect of those specific lanes resulting or not resulting in induced demand for those specific freeways, let alone dismiss the whole concept of induce demand entirely.

The only thing we can derive from it is just what the study said: reduction in congestion was a result of various types of infrastructure improvements.

[Plutonic Panda]

That tweet is showing how many more people can travel along a corridor if there are bus specific lanes. Cars may not be able to move much faster, but people surely do (according to the tweet only)

The article you posted referenced a study which came out in 2015, only a year after construction was completed. I wonder how it's working for them in 2019? Here's some counterpoint:

Five years after Sepulveda Pass widening, travel times on the 405 keep getting worse
104
Average drive times through the Sepulveda Pass have stayed the same or increased at all hours of the day

"Metro argued in 2015 that the widening project had cut down overall hours of delay by 37 percent, compared to how long drivers would have spent in traffic if the project had never been constructed."

"For four years, from 2015 to 2019, Inrix measured the length of commutes along the widened stretch of the 405 during a four-week period between January and February. In that time, average commutes in both the north and southbound directions worsened or stayed the same during all hours of the day. Average vehicle speeds also dropped or stayed the same during both peak- and non-peak-hour periods."

"Drivers traveling north between 3 and 4 p.m. experience the most additional delay, with average speeds having dropped from 28 miles per hour in 2015 to 19 miles per hour in 2019. The result of that is an almost 50 percent increase in total travel time, from 23 minutes in 2015 to 34 minutes in 2019."

So yes, widening that highway seemed to help in the short term but it seems as though induced demand strikes again like it does almost every time.

I predicted this response anyways and about the recent articles whining of the Sepulveda pass, they conveniently leave out the fact that a single lane in each direction was added to a road that needed 6 and there is defunct bottleneck at the 101. I already made this argument with GoGators about notoriously congested metros and the small addition of a single lane each way added. Shocker, every single road in this area is congested. Sepulveda, Beverly Glen, even local access roads like Roscomare Rd. I live in this in this area and am familiar with it.

I was basically being a smart ass by posting my comment and claiming the government said it so it must be true. Ironically, I was contradicting myself in doing so.

Induced demand didn't strike. Growth and congestion did. Calling it induced demand is a cop out. Why hasn't I-40 Crosstown become gridlock? Wouldn't induced demand cause that to happen? Or should we wait until growth adds more cars to the roads so you can use misnomers like induced demand?

[Plutonic Panda]

@BDP, I don’t recall saying I didn’t read that article. Perhaps I got it confused as I googled a couple articles and speed read. The SLC one I read as it was posted on SSP and I was interested in it. Same with the Car and Driver article. I will respond to your other points in a bit. Ironically the freeways are clear so I’m heading to midtown to check out the new food hall if it’s open. Induced demand on my part