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You analysis is logical in a short term context but it glosses over the underlying reason why roads keep getting widened.
Why no mention of relentless population growth that keeps cramming more cars onto roads? The charade of Smart Growth has played out in most metro areas and suburbs. After a point (like decades ago) you have to admit it's a numbers game. High paid planning* professionals of course want to make it seem more complicated. "We must keep the population growing to keep the economy growing...to keep the population growing..." ad infinitum.
Traffic volume can also come from miles away as other cities grow like weeds and/or commuters find a bypass in your area. But it still comes down to numbers.
*(planning for endless growth, not sanity)
Population growth is an issue, but your comment glosses over expansion of transit as a more efficient
solution than constantly building more roads and road lanes. Take the BART. Removing 400,000 car trips a
day from bay area roads puts a good dent in the traffic congestion. As bad as the road congestion is over there,
it would be even worse with 400,000 more cars a day added to it. But transit is not enough. Transit is most effective
when you have density, and >90% of the bay area is suburban sprawl, as it is in pretty much >90% of North America.
The underlying problem is too much suburban sprawl which has a tendency to quickly overwhelm any
potential solutions to the transportation problem.
A BMW is superior to a Hyundai...obviously. But that's assuming you have the bank account to support having the BMW. All other things equal, driving is going to be superior to mass transit, obviously. But that's assuming you have enough available capacity on the roads and also in terms of parking. Which we don't any more in many growing US cities. And that's assuming that everyone can own and operate their own car. Which many can't for various health and financial reasons. Otherwise you have people who are "stranded" at home instead of contributing to society and the economy (working, shopping, ect.). (OK, technically some of those people could ride a bike, but that will get you killed in many US cities...)
So even if driving is superior, you do need some form of public transportation in any populated area due to the latter social considerations. And once traffic congestion and parking issues get to a certain level, you really do need to focus more on the mass transit system in order to accommodate future growth, which any desirable city will inevitably experience (or else you need to start reducing the population...Detroit, anyone?). Once you reach that critical mass, that level of congestion, it is exceedingly difficult (and expensive) to reduce congestion in the long term by expanding highways (let along to maintain all of those roads indefinitely...), but mass transit allows that many people (well over half in NYC) can still go about their daily business despite the highway congestion and limited parking. Mass transit can get crowded too, and at that point you really do need to increase frequency of service (usually budget issues get in the way).
Of course a substantial number of people will have to drive no matter how much mass transit you have, and for those folk solutions do exist, like congestion tolling and "smart" grids and probably some more efficient automation of driving in the future (although these do little for the parking situation...).
The underlying problem is too much suburban sprawl which has a tendency to quickly overwhelm any potential solutions to the transportation problem.
Suburban sprawl was not the driving factor, but the result of the driving factor.
The streetcar suburbs of the 1900-1920s were still more compact than the automobile centric sprawl of the 1950s+.
. . .
In the event that petroleum is no longer 'cheap and plentiful' the obvious solution would be to utilize modes of transport that do not depend on it. But due to the sprawl, there is tremendous demand to keep subsidizing the automobile / petroleum / pavement hegemony. Just look at the mad rush to extract shale oil or drill offshore. No one considers that consuming an irreplaceable resource is unwise. We can't wait 65 million years for a refill.
To best utilize electric traction rail based transport, and minimize stops, suburbs would have to transform into compact villages, making point to point service reasonable. Something not unlike old fashioned villages in Europe and Asia, that are surrounded by farmland and whose farmers live in the village and commute to their fields.
It's unlikely that there will be sufficient political will to so drastically change the landscape. Too many entrenched interests and influences will muck things up.
One picture does not show the story. if rail can make a profit or even pay for itself I fares then it would be common. It can't; most people who support rail want subsidized travel plain and simple.
One picture does not show the story. if rail can make a profit or even pay for itself I fares then it would be common. It can't; most people who support rail want subsidized travel plain and simple.
Roads can pay for themselves if you account for the development they can encourage. Same for well-designed transit lines. In Tokyo and Hong Kong the metro actually makes money--but not from fares, they make their money through real estate development, which is not allowed for transit agencies in the US. Face it--even private airlines don't make money from passenger fares!
Public transit is not private business. It can but doesn't have to be profitable.
Like any kind of transit, passenger rail works best when you have density
which helps explain why Amtrak is profitable in the Northeast but nowhere else in the US.
Throughout Europe and Asia passenger rail is often very profitable. The TGV high speed rail service of France
for example averages around a billion euros in annual profits.
Here's an example where a transit agency like South Florida's Tri-Rail could make money, if it were allowed to invest as a private business:
"Developer sees huge ‘transit village’ at West Palm Beach train station" Developer sees huge
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