[Straw]

This doesn't mention the most economically sound and complete solution to traffic: dynamic congestion pricing on roads.

Due to the effects described in the article, entering a road that's close to congested imposes negative externalities due to the delay on everyone behind you, even higher if you are pushing the road below optimal throughput. Push that externality into the price, and suddenly drivers will change their behavior in the desired fashion:

1. People will move their travel to less expensive times. Even if no other change occurs than people waiting for prices to fall, the roads operate at much higher throughput due to never getting into the region of diminishing throughput.

2. People will carpool/vanpool/mass transit- no need for any special treatment for transit, a bus with 50+ people can simply outbid most cars on the road for space, even accounting for the difference in road space taken by the bus. With the economic incentive in place, you'd even expect private buses/etc to pop up spontaneously. Right now, its rarely worth it to pool/bus- it adds extra time for you, but the benefit to the road you never see. With proper pricing, its still faster to take a car, but a lot more expensive- and the carpool/bus/etc is still probably faster than driving would be with congested roads.

3. Similarly, the high prices will incentivize alternatives such as biking, subways, etc, and give very good information on exactly what routes are in high demand when, estimates of how much an improvement would be worth, etc.

[lesuorac]

Naw, the most economic solution is to make bigger bumpers and let cars push each other forward.

Think about a hose. If you have it at a certain flow and then increase the flow the water doesn't go out faster because it wants it. It flows faster because it's being pushed.

Same thing with cars, as more cars get onto the highway you want them to go at a higher speed so that the throughput matches the on ramp. We just need to cut down the number of 4 lane highways so that we have space to put exit ramps on both sides of a 2 lane highway but the increased speed will make up for it.

[stetrain]

Yes, we should just make couplings so that a long string of cars can be attached together. The trailing cars could all follow the lead car. If you add some guide rails to the road you don't even need a fancy autonomous steering system. Swap the rubber tires for steel wheels on the guide rails and you reduce friction losses and eliminate flat tires. A centralized dispatch and signaling system could keep the system free flowing and enable high capacities.

[pessimizer]

This will only affect poor people. Rich people will continue driving everywhere they want as if it didn't exist.

[Straw]

At high demand times, you have to be very rich indeed to outbid a full bus without even thinking about it. There aren't enough people who can do that.

But say this does happen a lot-this means rich people pay enormous road use fees, which can then be used for road maintenance, construction, and improvement, as well as other transit infrastructure!

So, the rich willingly subsidize infrastructure for everyone? Seems like a win-win!

[bobthepanda]

There is a floor to this; there are people so poor they can't afford the ongoing expense of a car at all.

[wpm]

The poor are on the bus which is stuck in traffic it could outbid if the road were priced fairly.

[yesfitz]

The same can be said of any tax meant to curb a behavior (sin tax).

What traffic-reducing policy would you suggest such that all people are affected equally?

[y-curious]

How do you propose people find out the cost of traveling if the pricing is dynamic? People won’t check beforehand, and they’ll already be in their cars when they find out the cost

[tshaddox]

How do people find out how much traffic congestion there will be for an upcoming drive when they need to be at their destination at a specific time?

[Straw]

Navigation/maps providers like Google/Apple maps, etc, will incorporate price estimates as well as time estimates- they can even show multiple options if there are price-time tradeoffs available.

[bobthepanda]

This exists already and generally they post prices both online, and on digital signage well before the entrance ramp.