Quote:
Originally Posted by GullFoss
Historical and Modern Road Planning rests on a lot of assumptions that aren't true in many instances
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FYP.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgJ9...nty%7CCityNerd
Which isn't too say the active mode planning is a perfectly data driven science, because it definitely isn't. But we fail the critical thinking element beyond the spreadsheets:
The business case for road expansion is usually pretty dubious before event factoring externalities (almost all negative), subsequent project costs, or even factoring the delays caused by construction into the analysis. OTOH, the business cases for transit and active mode may not be similarly dubious on a simple balance sheet, but the externalities are almost all positive.
Transit/etc often do a decent job of quantifying spinoff benefits - e.g. the corresponding reduction of traffic
accidents crashes and expected costs for response/public property damage (though rarely does a municipal study extend into healthcare costs, productivity losses from injured/dead citizens, personal property damage, general insurance premiums, etc). From what I've seen these analyses don't typically make it into the public balance sheet for a given project, but are essentially footnotes.
I've definitely never seen the expected INCREASE for all of those costs considered in a road expansion project, even as a footnote.