[SCRAPPED] Arterial Congestion

[The Democratic Republic of the Empire]

Giv criticism on new version issue please.

Title: Arterial Congestion

Description: Travel times are at an all time high as more and more people are driving on the highways. People flock to your office to give their opinions on the matter.

Validity: Nation must have cars

Option 1: "This is outrageous!" Says avid car hater and environmental enthusiast @@RANDOMNAME@@. "The cars on these roads are taking away from the beauty of @@NAME@@, and traffic jams make it impossible to get anywhere. I believe we should ban the usage of cars, both for the country, and the environment."

Effect: Traffic jams in @@NAME@@ are filled with bicycles

Option 2: “There are too many cars on the road and there’s not enough road to hold us!” Says local street racer @@RANDOMNAME@. “If we widen our highways by adding more lanes, then we’ll have more room to rac- I mean drive. We could also build highways to every town so there will be no more traffic jams.”

Effect: the sun is always eclipsed by highways in some neighborhoods

Option 3a: "I DO agree that we need more highways, but I think that COULD cause another problem." Mentions CEO of Fraud™ @@RANDOMNAME@@. "If we make TOO many highways, then we might NOT have ENOUGH cars on them. So, I propose that you FUND my company and we'll BUILD cars ON the road to ensure everyone ALWAYS has access to both open highways AND cars."

Validity: Capitalist

Option 3b: "I DO agree that we need more highways, but I think that COULD cause another problem." Mentions the Vroom Vroom Minister @@RANDOMNAME@@. "If we make TOO many highways, then we might NOT have ENOUGH on them. So, I propose that you FUND my ministry and we'll BUILD cars ON the road to ensure everyone ALWAYS has access to both open highways AND cars."

Validity: Socialist

Effect: the same red sedan is seen all across @@NAME@@

Option 4: “If we have such a big problem with cars on the roads, maybe we need more options.” Says bus driver @@RANDOMNAME@@ while @@HIS@@ son plays with a toy airplane. “We need buses, trains, and even planes to every town, that way there will be no problem getting around.”

Effect: entire neighborhoods are demolished in favor of massive airport networks

Option 5: KABOOM! You hear as a massive hole is blown in the wall of your office and a car with a bulldozer-like front bumper is seen within the aftermath. "Oh, uh, oops?" Says the man in the bulldozer car, @@RANDOMNAME@@, as he puts his car in reverse, "Hope you didn't need that!"

Effect 5: citizens go about their lives in cars that are beginning to look like Monster Trucks.

Co-written with Zerphen
1st Draft:

Title: Vehicular Overpopulation

Description: People have recently been complaining about the extreme excess of cars, so much so that even the average @@DEMONYM@@ has more than one car and traffic is at an all time high. People flock to your office to give their opinions on the matter.

Validity: Nation must have cars, must have high automobile manufacturing industry

Option 1: "This is outrageous!" Says avid car hater and environmental enthusiast @@RANDOMNAME@@. "These cars are taking away from the beauty of @@NAME@@, and making it impossible to get anywhere. I believe we should ban the usage of cars, both for the country, and the environment."

Effect 1: there is now an excess of bicycles within @@NAME@@

Option 2: “We don’t need to be that radical.” Argues @@RANDOMNAME@@ from across the room. “These cars clog our streets and fill our skies with smog, but they are still very important. We just need to cut down on how many cars we are making. We make plenty of cars as it is, what’s a few less?”

Effect 2: citizens that wish to buy a car must apply for a purchase months in advance

Option 3: "May I pitch an idea?" Butts in dark hooded United Federation government official @@RANDOMNAME@@, who no one has any idea how @@HE@@ got past security, "If you have so many cars that it's becoming a problem, we'll take some off your hands! Free of charge to you, we'll make sure you have no more cars than you need within the borders of @@NAME@@."

Effect 3: all trades with @@NAME@@ come with a free of charge supercar

Option 4a: "Personally I think this is a great development for my compan- I mean the people!". Mentions CEO of Fraud™, @@RANDOMNAME@@, a large car manufacturing company within @@NAME@@. "I actually believe we need to put MORE cars on the road! In fact, if you give us the funds, we'll BUILD them on the road! Ensure everybody has access to cars at all times!"

Validity: Capitalist
Effect 4: people are constantly late for work due to empty car pile ups

Option 4b: "Personally I think this is a great development for @@NAME@@". Mentions your Minister of Vehicle Manufacturing, @@RANDOMNAME@@. "I actually believe we need to put MORE cars on the road! In fact, if you give us the funds, we'll BUILD them on the road! Ensure everybody has access to cars at all times!"

Validity: Socialist
Effect 4: people are constantly late for work due to empty car pile ups

Option 5: KABOOM! You hear as a massive hole is blown in the wall of your office and a car with a bulldozer-like front bumper is seen within the aftermath. "Oh, uh, oops?" Says the man in the bulldozer car, @@RANDOMNAME@@, as he puts his car in reverse, "Hope you didn't need that!"

Effect 5: citizens go about their lives in cars that are beginning to look like Monster Trucks

[Steelfeather Rapture 1]

The current simulation crashes traffic density inevitably as far as I can tell. Per the beta. It's very hard to raise traffic issues in this game.

[Outer Sparta]

I don't think an excess of cars really is a problem, especially in countries that seemingly have two cars per person. A lack of public transit options or the way cities are built (sprawling suburbia, prohibition of zoning that allows mixed-development) is a bigger problem. The problem with traffic is not about the number of cars, it's about the number of roads, particularly highways, that are built and the way cities are designed. Los Angeles doesn't have a problem with the number of cars, but by how the city is built with sprawling freeways everywhere you go and a complete lack of public transit options and bike lanes.

[The Sherpa Empire]

I don't think an excess of cars really is a problem, especially in countries that seemingly have two cars per person. A lack of public transit options or the way cities are built (sprawling suburbia, prohibition of zoning that allows mixed-development) is a bigger problem. The problem with traffic is not about the number of cars, it's about the number of roads, particularly highways, that are built and the way cities are designed. Los Angeles doesn't have a problem with the number of cars, but by how the city is built with sprawling freeways everywhere you go and a complete lack of public transit options and bike lanes.

Building highways does not cause traffic.

Counter-example to your stuff about LA: When I lived in Shijiazhuang, traffic was terrible, to the point where people would occasionally use the sidewalks as an extra lane if the sidewalk was clear enough to do so. 10 years later, I went back to visit. They had put in a bunch of elevated highways and it solved the problem. The population grew dramatically -- I think it was from 2 million to 9 million, but I am too lazy to double check those figures -- and they still had fewer traffic jams because of the new highways.

Badly designed roads/highways are a problem. Too many roads/highways is not.

[Outer Sparta]

I don't think an excess of cars really is a problem, especially in countries that seemingly have two cars per person. A lack of public transit options or the way cities are built (sprawling suburbia, prohibition of zoning that allows mixed-development) is a bigger problem. The problem with traffic is not about the number of cars, it's about the number of roads, particularly highways, that are built and the way cities are designed. Los Angeles doesn't have a problem with the number of cars, but by how the city is built with sprawling freeways everywhere you go and a complete lack of public transit options and bike lanes.

Building highways does not cause traffic.

Counter-example to your stuff about LA: When I lived in Shijiazhuang, traffic was terrible, to the point where people would occasionally use the sidewalks as an extra lane if the sidewalk was clear enough to do so. 10 years later, I went back to visit. They had put in a bunch of elevated highways and it solved the problem. The population grew dramatically -- I think it was from 2 million to 9 million, but I am too lazy to double check those figures -- and they still had fewer traffic jams because of the new highways.

Badly designed roads/highways are a problem. Too many roads/highways is not.

Building more roads such as highways is a one-to-one relationship. If you build more of them, then more people will drive, which cuts down on commutes in the short term but in the long-term, it doesn't make a difference in reducing traffic. The Katy Freeway (I-10) in suburban Houston is a prime example: it was expanded to 23 lanes but congestion was even worse as a consequence. It's very prevalent in America simply because of how the cities are built and building freeways will clog those points more because they are the main arteries for road transport. I'm not sure how it is with Shijiazhuang and the most recent traffic data (2022), but at least in Chinese cities you have a lot of public transit access. Even cities like Beijing are trying to limit the number of cars on the road.

The OP could focus on highway building and the relationship it has to causing more congestion, which definitely would be a better angle than "too many cars on the road."

[Electrum]

I agree with Outer Sparta's analysis. Refocus the issue on the root causes of congestion -- it is certainly not because people own too many cars.

On the link between freeways and congestion, building more roads does not lead to a reduction in congestion. It's a non-intuitive application of induced demand or the Jevons paradox. The better you build something (i.e. supposed cuts in traffic), the more people use it, cancelling out the gains you would have originally gained.

[SherpDaWerp]

More than cancelling out existing gains - adding a new road can actually increase everyone's travel time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess%27s_paradox

[Zerphen]

Thank you all very much for your input. We are going to do a rewrite of the issue so it focuses more on highways and a lack of public transportation rather than just an excess of cars causing traffic problems. We currently aren't able to write anything just yet as my friend is away right now, but we will have something written up within a few days once he returns.

[Zerphen]

We have now changed the issue so it focuses on highways rather than a bunch of cars everywhere. More input would be greatly appreciated

[Tinhampton]

This issue is substantially the same as Vehicular Overpopulation, except that the options that say "make less cars" and "export surplus cars" have been replaced by options that say "build a road network that connects every town" and "build a public transport network that connects every town" - although the option to ban cars outright, for whatever reason, remains. This redraft is not exactly the hallmark of something that "focuses on highways rather than a bunch of cars everywhere." For all intents and purposes, it now focuses on a bunch of cars somewhere.

You do not appear to have engaged with the above debate about whether actually building more roads causes more traffic jams. Your new options are not particularly realistic, either: connecting every borough in London to literally every borough by any means would be woefully inefficient (not least to mention the headaches that would be caused by regularly-scheduled jumbo jet flights from Kingston-upon-Thames to Sutton... and to Croydon, where I grew up... and to Waltham Forest, where I currently live... and to Hammersmith and Fulham, where my favourite football team play... and from each of those places to each other).

[Zerphen]

I recently found a site that allows people to look at all issues that have been made on certain topics, and it came to my attention that issue #100 was almost the exact same as what we were writing, minus the ban all cars and build cars on the road options. We've decided that it would be best to just scrap working on this issue and write another one. Thank you all for your debate and input on this issue.