I mean theoretically adding a lane or two should allow more cars to flow through, or would bad drivers still cause bottlenecks/gridlock despite the added capacity?
In: 28
It’s a really good question and I’m going to answer it in two parts.
1. Induced demand. Someone is going to bring this up. But I don’t think it is quite in the direction of your question. Induced demand is basically that as you add more lanes, you make driving faster, then more people drive, and you get traffic again. I don’t think that is actually in line with your question. But I put in there regardless as someone is going to mention it.
2. I think you should only have a maximum of 3 lanes (+exit/onramps) on road/highway. Theoretically more lanes give you more throughput. However, people changing lanes, bad drivers… tend to slow down traffic. Not to mention if there is an accident on the highway, it’s not the case that only 1 or two lanes are impacted and the other lanes all flow smoothly. The whole highway grinds to a halt as people try and change lanes… This is why I say a highway should have a MAXIMUM of 3 lanes. I’d rather see two 3-lane highways than one 6-lane highway. YOU KNOW accidents are going to happen. YOU KNOW people don’t drive smoothly and change lanes imperfectly. YOU KNOW construction is going to happen. Better to have the redundancy of another highway.
Latest Answers