Adding freeway lanes doesn't fix traffic. Why does California keep wasting billions on it?
Another unfounded belief is that adding lanes to highways reduces traffic congestion. But unlike simple superstitions, adding freeway lanes is incredibly expensive, in terms of public tax dollars and the time spent on construction, and ultimately doesn't fix the problem.
Worse, highway officials charged with improving mobility keep perpetuating the myth that adding lanes alleviates congestion. Countless studies — including those used by Caltrans for highway planning — have documented 'induced demand' for driving, meaning that adding new highway lanes in the hope of reducing traffic only encourages more drivers to use the road, which results in higher levels of congestion.
The poster child project for this effect was the $1.6 billion Interstate 405 expansion in Los Angeles that began in 2011. After drivers suffered through years of mind-numbing construction closures, the new lanes were opened with great fanfare, and traffic congestion was worse than ever on Day 1.
Right now, the California Transportation Commission is set to vote on half a dozen of these lane widening boondoggles that will widen highways in Los Angeles and Riverside counties, the Central Valley and the Bay Area at a cost of $1.25 billion in our limited tax dollars. It's well past time to put a stop to this.
Not only will these highway widening projects do nothing to relieve traffic congestion, they will encourage more people to hit the roadways and push California further away from its goals for greenhouse gas reduction at a time when investment in our public transit systems would be far more effective.
One thing that is not a myth, according to 99.9% of scientific experts, is that human beings are causing climate change through activities like driving gasoline-powered cars. Yet, the California Transportation Commission will vote to expand car infrastructure just weeks after the Trump administration blew up California's clean car rules, a move that will slow the transition to electric vehicles. Given this horrible development, one would think the state would look for alternative ways to reduce climate emissions from transportation. Widening freeways will only result in more smog, more congestion and more housing displacement.
While all six of the projects that the commission is set to approve this year are classic money-wasters, one stands out: the 'interim' lane expansion of notoriously jammed Highway 37 that connects Solano and Marin counties. Caltrans and local policymakers have brushed aside concerns about endangered wildlife by advancing a bill this year that would exempt the project from California Endangered Species Act rules and dedicated nearly $500 million to this project — including $73 million that will be awarded by commission this week, all with the knowledge that sea-level rise projections anticipate that the entire corridor could be underwater as soon as 2040. The only traffic the project will ever relieve will be duck traffic.
Let's talk about another myth, the one that says that thanks to the rise in the number of electric vehicles on the road, we don't really need to worry as much about climate change. Unfortunately, our electric future is in jeopardy with the Trump administration planning to eliminate incentives for EV purchases and striking down California's mandate to phase out gasoline-powered cars by 2035. But even if our renewable energy dream were to come true, that alone wouldn't come close to achieving our climate goals, and it certainly wouldn't alleviate traffic congestion.
There are other projects the state could embark on if it really wants to get cars off the road and improve our quality of life. Our public transit systems are struggling to maintain service. Our existing streets and highways are crumbling due to poor maintenance. We also need major investment in the charging infrastructure for zero-emission trucks and trains that could reduce diesel pollution in communities near freeways. A broader solution would call for a holistic approach to housing, jobs and transportation that would eliminate the need for people to live so far from where they work.
While some supporters of adding more lanes to freeways will counter that many people love to drive, many others simply are forced to do so due to a lack of better options.
Although the California Transportation Commission has made some progress on driving alternatives in recent years, the idea persists that its primary mandate is road building and widening. That's simply not true. The mandate is to invest in a multimodal transportation system that includes rail, transit and active transportation to help us move through the world to work, school and elsewhere efficiently and improve our quality of life. Some will choose to do that in a car, but some want faster, cleaner options — and it's the commission's mandate to provide that.
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