How can we stop rush hour traffic?
The Los Angeles and New York rush hour. Anyone who visits the largest cities on opposite coasts will no doubt experience it. A quite normal 45 minute drive can become a three hour bumper-to-bumper monstrosity. What makes the traffic even more shocking is that there’s almost always construction occurring on the highways, whether it’s through adding an extra lane or building a new connecting freeway. This begs the question, if more lanes are being added on the freeway and more freeways are being built, then why is the traffic perennial?
Tech giant Elon Musk is asking the same question we all are. His solution is to build a tunnel boring machine and create more roads and traffic networks underground. Surely having more roads underground and away from the large freeways (such as the I-405) will reduce traffic and overall travel time, right?
Enter Braess’ paradox. In short, Braess’ paradox states that adding a road to a congested traffic network could actually increase the overall journey time. Adding an additional road to the network causes a less-efficient Nash Equilibrium to occur. The selfishness of humanity, who all want to take the new “shortcut” is the cause of the less efficient Nash equilibrium. Should Elon Musk’s idea come to fruition and underground roads to be built, then we know who to blame while we wait three hours to arrive in Hollywood.
The best way to improve traffic flow is not to build more roads, but to have fewer vehicles on the road. The government, at both the national and state levels, should invest more money in public transportation, whether it is through building a subway system in major cities or having a better bus system.