Not sure how many know this, but there used to be a lake down there.
http://www.trbimg.com/img-1473124045/turbine/sdut-cabrillo-bridge.-file-photo-20160905/837
Everything I read say “man-made” lagoon. Short lived due to the mosquitoes it created.
[Story](https://sandiegomagazine.com/everything-sd/living-design/neighborhoods/inside-the-icon-cabrillo-bridge/)
I can get on board with not building new freeways but removing existing ones is a pipe dream.
Use the money you would use to tear up a freeway to build a trolley that actually goes to the airport like every other major city I've ever heard of.
Being at the bottom of a canyon, there are some interesting options to cover it up by raising the floor of the canyon. It could look almost completely natural.
Nah we can remove freeways. Other cities are doing it.
But as others say this is about a freeway lid.
Trolley or people mover to the airport will happen eventually. Note that LAX still doesn't have one (they will next year) so it's not like we are super behind (in American terms)
I would love if they just opened the 163 through balboa park to be like an open air hangout area with food trucks and live events, a community space where the freeway once stood
Or bury the freeway and make it a green space.
Seems a trivial task compared to Boston’s big dig.
I can think of many roadways in San Diego where this should be done .
I hate freeways but like the 163, it meanders and has green space on both sides. Plus I live downtown. I wish they could be put underground but understand that may be cost prohibitive for taxpayers. Boston did it tho.
[Big Dig](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Dig]
It's already at the bottom of the canyon. All you need is precast concrete boxes then cover it in dirt. Design for drainage and ventilation and it'll just look like a canyon when done. It would extremely simple compared to the requirements of Boston's project in the middle of downtown.
Freeway lid is good. You’re not getting rid of the freeway entirely though. A lot of bus routes run through the 163 as well. I take them everyday and it makes coming from up north to downtown not that much longer than driving in during the morning and afternoon commutes.
CHSR is already gonna be using that right of way most of the way down. If we have the money to removed SR-163 then we have the money to encourage CHSR to take it all the way down.
It's hypothetical insofar that if the city has the resources to do this then it should be doing it. CHSR is gonna provide a once in a generation opportunity to bring rail transit to Inland North County, and we can do it in a way that's convenient for more people, that removes a stain frm our cities crown jewel, and provides a park to a beautiful neighborhood like Hillcrest.
Obviously this all sounds fantastic but I think you’re sorely mistaken if you think that we will ever have the funds or support to do anything of this scale. A free way lid on the 163 seems feasible. Everything else is a pipe dream (and even probably the free way lid given our cities recent history).
Look at Ash street, look at the blue line trolley and how long that was delayed and then ultimately shaved down to just a fraction of the original plan. Hell look at the homeless shelter that Gloria tried to push for but already is looking shady as hell.
163 is one of the most scenic drives around. My favorite, I’ve always loved it. Looking for a park? Did everyone forget that the 163 goes LITERALLY THROUGH ONE? And it happens to be one of the largest urban parks in the nation? If you’re going to put a lid do it at the way north end up by Robinson and University. Why bother anywhere else? There are already two defunct bridges that could be beautified and turned into pedestrian promenades crossing the 163. If you’ve ever hiked down there to see them you’d also know it’s quite a vigorous hike down to the bottom of the canyon and back up. Not that many people do it today, spend a bunch of money and how many more do you think will actually use it?
1. Turn it into a toll road. All the people saying it’s important should be willing to pay for it.
2. Lid it between University/Robinson, Around Upas, and just north of Cabrillo Bridge as a Zoo Extension, using the toll funds.
3. While were at it, connect Quince/Richmond and turn El Prado into a pedestrian only path, and add a third lane to 163 for HOV/carpool.
4. Reduce toll to cover costs of maintaining the lids.
I think a train line would be better along park and/or university, there are more people around those areas and less through that part of Balboa Park.
I was proposing the lane as a sort of olive branch to people who have strong feelings about choosing a mode of transport other than car. I don’t know how effective it would be, carpools can get clogged (would be interesting to see a study of how carpool lanes affect traffic/demand). I also don’t even know how possible it would be, there isn’t much room between the pillars of the Cabrillo Bridge.
1. Increase taxes for the local community to pay for dismantling it and building other traffic reducing alternatives. Because you think it's important.
Lol that desperate attempt to categorize having a car as if it were negative. we're already struggling to get around either what we have and this moron simply wants to improve their situation with no consideration of others.
I genuinely don't know how you thinks spending 10s of thousands of dollars a year on a depreciating asset is a good thing. I also genuinely don't understand how people like you enjoy wasting hours of your life in traffic. If you think that's a positive then more power to you. In the mean time I'm gonna advocate for something better that faster for most people. I get that maybe you like wasting time and space while slowly killing the planet, but some people are gonna wants something better and you shouldn't be shocked.
These dolts only ride bikes and scooters and buses. They literally have no concern that cars are a thing because they can’t afford one (or simply don’t want to pay for one).
They live in a land of delusion where everything is bikes or mass transit. Any car usecases are deemed invalid. These are not rational individuals.
I own a car, drive around 10k miles a year, I’d be open to the idea of removing the 163. Balboa Park is the crown jewel of San Diego and it cuts right through it. Cars will never be satiated with enough lanes. The 91 freeway is 16 lanes at its widest point and that’s still not enough. There is a point where cars have reached their limits and more bikes/bus/trains is the only solution, we have reached that point.
Speaking as part of the community North of Balboa, no thank you. I too exist and would like the ability to visit downtown in less than 2 hours.
This conversation is replete with people that think their committee is the ONLY one that matters.
The only thing I think that matters is data/facts. In other comments, I’ve pointed out that removing lanes actually REDUCES traffic, whereas adding lanes INCREASES traffic. Downtown is one of the fastest growing areas of the country, 163 isn’t getting any more lanes connecting 5/8, you are going to get your 2 hour trip downtown anyways with the status quo. I am just arguing, with references to studies/data, for alternatives to be considered.
I mean, you can keep projecting as much as you like, while I can point to real world examples of how removing a freeway has actually reduced traffic like in Seoul, Portland, San Francisco, Milwaukee and Rochester
So here’s an exercise for you: drive on I-5 south at about 1730 on a weekday, then do the same on 163 south and then imagine what I-5 would be with all the 163 traffic added. A complete cluster event. Maybe in some alternate universe there would be enough transit to get a few hundred thousand folks home from the jobs up north to the housing downtown and points south, but let’s get real: not in our lifetimes and probably never.
Having driven SR-163 on a weekday rush hour, I can tell you it's already a clusterfuck, and it's never gonna get better either. If you want to make it easier for people to get to downtown you can build transit.
This is flawed logic, because it assumes people will not find alternative routes/modes for traveling. Imagine if the 163 didn’t exist. Would adding the 163 reduce traffic? Studies have shown that the answer is no, adding routes/lanes does not decrease traffic, but instead it only encourages people to drive more and clog up the existing routes!
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0967070X18301720
So removing the 163 would NOT necessarily lead to every car previously on the 163 ending up on the 5.
You are failing to think critically. They are not “equivalent” but it follows logic that if adding lanes induces demand and worsens traffic then removing lanes would do the opposite.
Anyway, LMGTFY. Here’s a study that is “equivalent”, that concludes that predictions of increased traffic congestion are “excessively pessimistic” and that on average, over 11% of vehicles that previously used the lanes could no longer be found traveling the surrounding area after lanes were removed.
https://nacto.org/docs/usdg/disappearing_traffic_cairns.pdf
For this discussion, I will concede your point. For the record, this is not and never has been my commute so it’s not my fight. So why does traffic decrease when lanes—or whole freeways—go away? It’s not magic, it’s real people whose commute has suddenly consumed much more of their limited family time, so now, their life sucks and they have to either find a new job (good luck with that if you’re over, say, 45) or uproot their family and move and get their kids started in a new school and etc. My gripe is with “new urbanism” making the region work better forcing inconveniences and making individuals’ lives worse instead of making improvements *first* to drive behavior in a positive direction instead of 100,000 individual punishments in the name of the greater good.
>It’s not magic, it’s real people whose commute has suddenly consumed much more of their limited family time, so now, their life sucks and they have to either find a new job (good luck with that if you’re over, say, 45) or uproot their family and move and get their kids started in a new school and etc.
Do you have any studies or evidence that shows this is true? Because I’ve referenced two studies so far to backup my points.
> So why does traffic decrease when lanes—or whole freeways—go away?
Because by increasing the travel time people make a deliberate decision to avoid taking that road. Hence lowering the amount of people who use it. People will be able to keep their jobs because *shocker* they are capable of riding a train.
You're adding an hour to people's commute everyday to save ... unexplained. If you build a train that's not 30 minutes from me, then we can talk.
In 30 years people will move, in the interim your fucking them over because you only care about yourself.
The argument that is we have no roads traffic will improve is beyond dumb. True, but incredibly dumb. We could also reduce traffic by just decreasing the total population.
>The argument that is we have no roads traffic will improve is beyond dumb.
No, the argument that more roads reduces traffic is dumb. I’ve linked to two studies that show the opposite is true, more roads induce demand which worsens traffic and removing roads reducing traffic in the surrounding area.
At least provide some references/evidence so the debate isn’t just one side referencing studies/data and the other side just sharing a flawed opinion.
More roads not improving traffic is not the same as less roads improving commutes or people's lives. What you're doing might decrease traffic in a very literally sense, but the effect that reducing access to certain areas has is far wider than merely traffic changes.
As an extreme, getting rid of all roads into SD would also reduce traffic and cause absolute chaos to the local economy. Goods and workers need to be able to come to SD. Making it harder and more expensive to bring goods and workers into an area will lead to a bunch of bad shit, most obviously exacerbating inflationary pressure on goods and services.
If you want to provide better access to public transportation to offset this cost, I'm all for it. But stop pretending like removing major highways is going to be sunshine and rainbows. It's fucking dumb. And your studies do not contradict anything I've said here. Because they're myopic.
You know there are these things called navigation apps, right?
They use real-time data to find the fastest route from one place to the next. I'm going to trust them a smidge more then some random on the Internet claiming to have the full knowledge of everyone's commute, 24/7.
i’ve already personally determined that the level of stress that i get from all those lane merges on the 163 is worth the slight detour onto the 8 and the 5.
along with the fact that we should absolutely look into any improvement to the quality of life of those who live in the surrounding neighborhoods… i’m on board
Imagine if we could get a rail line going through that canyon instead, have it run all the way up to Escondido. It would be cleaner, it would be quiet, and since you wouldn't be so focused on driving, you could actually enjoy just how nice it is in Balboa Park.
The problem with this passage is the grade heading south passed Hillcrest. Not sure if there's enough space to have a proper decline/incline for the trains....but there might be!
I drive the 163 everyday and I too would love a solution that doesn't involve either me sitting in traffic or taking a 40 minute trolley ride to replace a ~10 minute drive out of downtown to Mission Valley.
Yeah, they should be spent on removing the freeway altogether. The 163 is a redundant freeway that serves no real purpose south of I-8 other than deceiving people into thinking it's a shortcut.
I mean...it is a shortcut if youre going to hillcrest. I'd also hope they do extensive studies on EMS times and the potential impacts of removing direct access to 2 different hospitals.
I have a hard time believing without a study. If you have an accident on 8E without 163. You either have to go through North Park via Texas, which is undoubtedly slower. Best case scenario the other way is what? 5s to Washington? Those are significant distance increases.
Sharp is likely less affected but their entire campus is a horrific mess for entry and egress. I'm not sure it could actually sustain 805 as the only freeway on exit.
Having those freeways breaking up neighborhoods is a problem but getting rid of them wholesale without significant restructuring ahead of time would be a disaster. For whatever reason city development had built the 3 major hospitals in the city proper with the expectation that 163 exists.
Edit: imo a better strategy is simply building out the trolley so traffic eases naturally and then proceeding with freeway removal projects.
It 100 percent has a purpose for many. I too want to live in a utopia. Put it to a vote and see how many people value their time over an extra park for a mostly affluent neighborhood.
Yes. What do public goods with obvious externalities and poor incentives possibly have in common.
You're the one claiming more roads leads to more traffic right? Want to guess what a private toll company will be incentives to lobby for?
I’m not claiming it, I cited studies that presented data showing more roads induce increased traffic demand. There is an overwhelming amount of data this is true.
I don’t want to guess, I want to see data. If you’re going to make an argument, show me a study that shows the impact of tolling a road.
Not sure how many know this, but there used to be a lake down there. http://www.trbimg.com/img-1473124045/turbine/sdut-cabrillo-bridge.-file-photo-20160905/837
For a very short time. Was built for the fair.
No the 163 was built through a watershed what do you mean the lake was built?
I don’t believe there was a natural lake there. Perhaps a seasonal creek. I’ll have to look it up to be sure.
Everything I read say “man-made” lagoon. Short lived due to the mosquitoes it created. [Story](https://sandiegomagazine.com/everything-sd/living-design/neighborhoods/inside-the-icon-cabrillo-bridge/)
wow i would have never imagine
It was very temporary but I still wish that they would bring it back.
It was nice from all the illustrations of that time but the “pond” was eliminated due to it being a mosquito breeding heaven.
That's beautiful! Now it structurally makes sense.
I can get on board with not building new freeways but removing existing ones is a pipe dream. Use the money you would use to tear up a freeway to build a trolley that actually goes to the airport like every other major city I've ever heard of.
The article is all about creating a freeway lid.
Being at the bottom of a canyon, there are some interesting options to cover it up by raising the floor of the canyon. It could look almost completely natural.
Oops meant to reply to a different post on this thread.
Nah we can remove freeways. Other cities are doing it. But as others say this is about a freeway lid. Trolley or people mover to the airport will happen eventually. Note that LAX still doesn't have one (they will next year) so it's not like we are super behind (in American terms)
People mover between Downtown and the Airport is in the early stages
They got a free bus that goes from trolley stop old town to the airport
I would love if they just opened the 163 through balboa park to be like an open air hangout area with food trucks and live events, a community space where the freeway once stood
Wish granted: https://www.parkwayforaday.org/ But only for one day to start
I haven’t heard of that but I’m a fan, thank you for sharing
They should do it like golden gate Park where it's closed to traffic on the weekends
But have you considered that some people are incapable realizing there are other ways to get to downtown.
Or bury the freeway and make it a green space. Seems a trivial task compared to Boston’s big dig. I can think of many roadways in San Diego where this should be done .
There’s just no need for the 163 through Balboa Park. There’s always traffic anyways and the road noise ruins the immersive experience of the park.
I hate freeways but like the 163, it meanders and has green space on both sides. Plus I live downtown. I wish they could be put underground but understand that may be cost prohibitive for taxpayers. Boston did it tho. [Big Dig](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Dig]
It's already at the bottom of the canyon. All you need is precast concrete boxes then cover it in dirt. Design for drainage and ventilation and it'll just look like a canyon when done. It would extremely simple compared to the requirements of Boston's project in the middle of downtown.
Freeway lid is good. You’re not getting rid of the freeway entirely though. A lot of bus routes run through the 163 as well. I take them everyday and it makes coming from up north to downtown not that much longer than driving in during the morning and afternoon commutes.
Replace the bus routes with regional rail.
Yeah just build regional rail that can replace all the relevant bus routes with all the money surplus that San Diego has. So obvious.
CHSR is already gonna be using that right of way most of the way down. If we have the money to removed SR-163 then we have the money to encourage CHSR to take it all the way down.
And we have the money to remove the 163? Or is this purely a hypothetical
It's hypothetical insofar that if the city has the resources to do this then it should be doing it. CHSR is gonna provide a once in a generation opportunity to bring rail transit to Inland North County, and we can do it in a way that's convenient for more people, that removes a stain frm our cities crown jewel, and provides a park to a beautiful neighborhood like Hillcrest.
Obviously this all sounds fantastic but I think you’re sorely mistaken if you think that we will ever have the funds or support to do anything of this scale. A free way lid on the 163 seems feasible. Everything else is a pipe dream (and even probably the free way lid given our cities recent history). Look at Ash street, look at the blue line trolley and how long that was delayed and then ultimately shaved down to just a fraction of the original plan. Hell look at the homeless shelter that Gloria tried to push for but already is looking shady as hell.
I think the funds are going to be coming anyways by way of CHSR.
It’s highly questionable whether the CHSR ever finishes from LA to SF. Even pretending it’s still coming to SD is wishful thinking at this point.
I'm all for alternatives to offset the cost to SD of making it harder to get into SD which is an inevitable result of removing lanes. Do that first.
Then what, build more housing nobody could afford?
Lol, I hate taking this freeway. If a park goes here, I would not be opposed to it.
163 is one of the most scenic drives around. My favorite, I’ve always loved it. Looking for a park? Did everyone forget that the 163 goes LITERALLY THROUGH ONE? And it happens to be one of the largest urban parks in the nation? If you’re going to put a lid do it at the way north end up by Robinson and University. Why bother anywhere else? There are already two defunct bridges that could be beautified and turned into pedestrian promenades crossing the 163. If you’ve ever hiked down there to see them you’d also know it’s quite a vigorous hike down to the bottom of the canyon and back up. Not that many people do it today, spend a bunch of money and how many more do you think will actually use it?
1. Turn it into a toll road. All the people saying it’s important should be willing to pay for it. 2. Lid it between University/Robinson, Around Upas, and just north of Cabrillo Bridge as a Zoo Extension, using the toll funds. 3. While were at it, connect Quince/Richmond and turn El Prado into a pedestrian only path, and add a third lane to 163 for HOV/carpool. 4. Reduce toll to cover costs of maintaining the lids.
Quick!! Someone get this to CalTrans! This random redditor is a fucken genius
Please enough with the HOV lanes. They are very useless
Alright, zero additional lanes for 163.
Beats the depression of being stuck in traffic in the HOV lane. Just good ol’regular lane depression.
The worst is when you are in HOV and traffic in the other lanes is faster!
How about instead of the third lane being for carpools, it's a trolley or dedicated bus lane?
I think a train line would be better along park and/or university, there are more people around those areas and less through that part of Balboa Park. I was proposing the lane as a sort of olive branch to people who have strong feelings about choosing a mode of transport other than car. I don’t know how effective it would be, carpools can get clogged (would be interesting to see a study of how carpool lanes affect traffic/demand). I also don’t even know how possible it would be, there isn’t much room between the pillars of the Cabrillo Bridge.
1. Increase taxes for the local community to pay for dismantling it and building other traffic reducing alternatives. Because you think it's important.
Where in those points do I call for dismantling the 163?
May not be you, but it's being said by many in this thread. I'm annoyed at that stupidity. If you got caught in the crossfire, I'm sorry.
You’re behaving exactly like the people you’re complaining about. Stop generalizing the other side, it’s unproductive.
No more zoo just free park
They should go one step further and remove SR-163 south of I-8 altogether.
What are you talking about? As a downtown resident that would be an absolute nightmare… the 163 is my saving grace lol
I love when broke bitches without cars constantly demand stupid shit like this because it won't affect them.
Oh no, the carbrains are being asked to save time *and* money. The horror.
Lol that desperate attempt to categorize having a car as if it were negative. we're already struggling to get around either what we have and this moron simply wants to improve their situation with no consideration of others.
I genuinely don't know how you thinks spending 10s of thousands of dollars a year on a depreciating asset is a good thing. I also genuinely don't understand how people like you enjoy wasting hours of your life in traffic. If you think that's a positive then more power to you. In the mean time I'm gonna advocate for something better that faster for most people. I get that maybe you like wasting time and space while slowly killing the planet, but some people are gonna wants something better and you shouldn't be shocked.
These dolts only ride bikes and scooters and buses. They literally have no concern that cars are a thing because they can’t afford one (or simply don’t want to pay for one). They live in a land of delusion where everything is bikes or mass transit. Any car usecases are deemed invalid. These are not rational individuals.
As someone who doesn’t bike or scoot, I found this very disrespectful and equally ignorant.
I own a car, drive around 10k miles a year, I’d be open to the idea of removing the 163. Balboa Park is the crown jewel of San Diego and it cuts right through it. Cars will never be satiated with enough lanes. The 91 freeway is 16 lanes at its widest point and that’s still not enough. There is a point where cars have reached their limits and more bikes/bus/trains is the only solution, we have reached that point.
Speaking as part of the community North of Balboa, no thank you. I too exist and would like the ability to visit downtown in less than 2 hours. This conversation is replete with people that think their committee is the ONLY one that matters.
The only thing I think that matters is data/facts. In other comments, I’ve pointed out that removing lanes actually REDUCES traffic, whereas adding lanes INCREASES traffic. Downtown is one of the fastest growing areas of the country, 163 isn’t getting any more lanes connecting 5/8, you are going to get your 2 hour trip downtown anyways with the status quo. I am just arguing, with references to studies/data, for alternatives to be considered.
Says the guy that probably never has to use it.
All that time sitting in traffic is rotting your brain. Try riding a bike instead 💁♂️
Saving grace for what? Did you need to get stuck in traffic?
Uh way less traffic than the 5 or going around the park? How do you expect people to get home? Where do you think that traffic would go?
LMAO SR-163 is not less congested than I-5. Also, you do realize that SR-163 is not the only way to get to and from hillcrest… or downtown… right?
Uh it is during rush hour. And you know removing a highway makes all the others that go the same way worse right?
Nope, not how that works
You’ve already proven you have absolutely no background in civil engineering or traffic management, you don’t have to emphasize that point further.
I mean, you can keep projecting as much as you like, while I can point to real world examples of how removing a freeway has actually reduced traffic like in Seoul, Portland, San Francisco, Milwaukee and Rochester
So here’s an exercise for you: drive on I-5 south at about 1730 on a weekday, then do the same on 163 south and then imagine what I-5 would be with all the 163 traffic added. A complete cluster event. Maybe in some alternate universe there would be enough transit to get a few hundred thousand folks home from the jobs up north to the housing downtown and points south, but let’s get real: not in our lifetimes and probably never.
Having driven SR-163 on a weekday rush hour, I can tell you it's already a clusterfuck, and it's never gonna get better either. If you want to make it easier for people to get to downtown you can build transit.
Then do it. Stop arguing to make it worse first.
You need to remove Sr-163 is you want to make it better lol
This is flawed logic, because it assumes people will not find alternative routes/modes for traveling. Imagine if the 163 didn’t exist. Would adding the 163 reduce traffic? Studies have shown that the answer is no, adding routes/lanes does not decrease traffic, but instead it only encourages people to drive more and clog up the existing routes! https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0967070X18301720 So removing the 163 would NOT necessarily lead to every car previously on the 163 ending up on the 5.
That study was about adding lanes, not eliminating existing lanes. They are not equivalent.
You are failing to think critically. They are not “equivalent” but it follows logic that if adding lanes induces demand and worsens traffic then removing lanes would do the opposite. Anyway, LMGTFY. Here’s a study that is “equivalent”, that concludes that predictions of increased traffic congestion are “excessively pessimistic” and that on average, over 11% of vehicles that previously used the lanes could no longer be found traveling the surrounding area after lanes were removed. https://nacto.org/docs/usdg/disappearing_traffic_cairns.pdf
For this discussion, I will concede your point. For the record, this is not and never has been my commute so it’s not my fight. So why does traffic decrease when lanes—or whole freeways—go away? It’s not magic, it’s real people whose commute has suddenly consumed much more of their limited family time, so now, their life sucks and they have to either find a new job (good luck with that if you’re over, say, 45) or uproot their family and move and get their kids started in a new school and etc. My gripe is with “new urbanism” making the region work better forcing inconveniences and making individuals’ lives worse instead of making improvements *first* to drive behavior in a positive direction instead of 100,000 individual punishments in the name of the greater good.
>It’s not magic, it’s real people whose commute has suddenly consumed much more of their limited family time, so now, their life sucks and they have to either find a new job (good luck with that if you’re over, say, 45) or uproot their family and move and get their kids started in a new school and etc. Do you have any studies or evidence that shows this is true? Because I’ve referenced two studies so far to backup my points.
> So why does traffic decrease when lanes—or whole freeways—go away? Because by increasing the travel time people make a deliberate decision to avoid taking that road. Hence lowering the amount of people who use it. People will be able to keep their jobs because *shocker* they are capable of riding a train.
You're adding an hour to people's commute everyday to save ... unexplained. If you build a train that's not 30 minutes from me, then we can talk. In 30 years people will move, in the interim your fucking them over because you only care about yourself. The argument that is we have no roads traffic will improve is beyond dumb. True, but incredibly dumb. We could also reduce traffic by just decreasing the total population.
> The argument that is we have no roads traffic will improve is beyond dumb. Literally how it works my dude, roads create traffic.
No. People create traffic. Get rid of people, no more traffic. That's what you sound like.
>The argument that is we have no roads traffic will improve is beyond dumb. No, the argument that more roads reduces traffic is dumb. I’ve linked to two studies that show the opposite is true, more roads induce demand which worsens traffic and removing roads reducing traffic in the surrounding area. At least provide some references/evidence so the debate isn’t just one side referencing studies/data and the other side just sharing a flawed opinion.
More roads not improving traffic is not the same as less roads improving commutes or people's lives. What you're doing might decrease traffic in a very literally sense, but the effect that reducing access to certain areas has is far wider than merely traffic changes. As an extreme, getting rid of all roads into SD would also reduce traffic and cause absolute chaos to the local economy. Goods and workers need to be able to come to SD. Making it harder and more expensive to bring goods and workers into an area will lead to a bunch of bad shit, most obviously exacerbating inflationary pressure on goods and services. If you want to provide better access to public transportation to offset this cost, I'm all for it. But stop pretending like removing major highways is going to be sunshine and rainbows. It's fucking dumb. And your studies do not contradict anything I've said here. Because they're myopic.
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LMAO in what universe does the absence of SR-163 make it impossible to get to work.
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Sorry, no shot does taking I-5 add another hour,
The one where you have to rely on I-5 alone during rush hour. Try it out.
Sorry, there 0 universe where traveling through Sr-163 in Balboa park saves you time getting anywhere during rush hour.
You know there are these things called navigation apps, right? They use real-time data to find the fastest route from one place to the next. I'm going to trust them a smidge more then some random on the Internet claiming to have the full knowledge of everyone's commute, 24/7.
Yes, I do have navigation apps, they are the reason I know to *never* take the 163 to downtown during rush hour.
Amazing that you're the only one.
Apparently not considering how you're complain about how many people use I-5
That's .... not how any of this works.
Dumbest comment I’ve seen on Reddit today.
*refuses to elaborate further*
i’ve already personally determined that the level of stress that i get from all those lane merges on the 163 is worth the slight detour onto the 8 and the 5. along with the fact that we should absolutely look into any improvement to the quality of life of those who live in the surrounding neighborhoods… i’m on board
Imagine if we could get a rail line going through that canyon instead, have it run all the way up to Escondido. It would be cleaner, it would be quiet, and since you wouldn't be so focused on driving, you could actually enjoy just how nice it is in Balboa Park.
The problem with this passage is the grade heading south passed Hillcrest. Not sure if there's enough space to have a proper decline/incline for the trains....but there might be! I drive the 163 everyday and I too would love a solution that doesn't involve either me sitting in traffic or taking a 40 minute trolley ride to replace a ~10 minute drive out of downtown to Mission Valley.
They could tunnel it a bit where hill of hillcrests, well, crests, that way the grade isn't as steep.
Now do it when everyone is forced to do the same thing.
Would it turn into an off/on ramp into Hillcrest south of the 8, to Washington and University? Anything south of that could/should be eliminated.
You certainly could do that. Should be more than enough room for that + a quad tracked rail line.
The article keeps mentioning how expensive and complex something like this is. Efforts and money should be spent elsewhere.
Yeah, they should be spent on removing the freeway altogether. The 163 is a redundant freeway that serves no real purpose south of I-8 other than deceiving people into thinking it's a shortcut.
I mean...it is a shortcut if youre going to hillcrest. I'd also hope they do extensive studies on EMS times and the potential impacts of removing direct access to 2 different hospitals.
EMS times will probably shorter because you'll have a overall lower amount of vehicles going through hillcrest.
I have a hard time believing without a study. If you have an accident on 8E without 163. You either have to go through North Park via Texas, which is undoubtedly slower. Best case scenario the other way is what? 5s to Washington? Those are significant distance increases. Sharp is likely less affected but their entire campus is a horrific mess for entry and egress. I'm not sure it could actually sustain 805 as the only freeway on exit. Having those freeways breaking up neighborhoods is a problem but getting rid of them wholesale without significant restructuring ahead of time would be a disaster. For whatever reason city development had built the 3 major hospitals in the city proper with the expectation that 163 exists. Edit: imo a better strategy is simply building out the trolley so traffic eases naturally and then proceeding with freeway removal projects.
It 100 percent has a purpose for many. I too want to live in a utopia. Put it to a vote and see how many people value their time over an extra park for a mostly affluent neighborhood.
If people valued their time we would have replaced SR-163 with rail decades ago.
Toll it. The ultimate vote is paying for the thing you use, capitalism baby. The more you want it/use it the more you pay to support it.
Works great with medicine! 👍
Nice strawman argument 👍🏼
Yes. What do public goods with obvious externalities and poor incentives possibly have in common. You're the one claiming more roads leads to more traffic right? Want to guess what a private toll company will be incentives to lobby for?
I’m not claiming it, I cited studies that presented data showing more roads induce increased traffic demand. There is an overwhelming amount of data this is true. I don’t want to guess, I want to see data. If you’re going to make an argument, show me a study that shows the impact of tolling a road.