Originally Posted by
Daniel4
I ran across a r*dd*t subforum in r/f*ckc*rs called "This weekend 18.000 people in #Muenchen kindly demonstrated to decision-makers how to easily optimize throughput. Traffic engineers, you're welcome!"
It took 18,000 people on bicycles to clear a specific section of a highway approximately 1 hr.
I asked if there were any data showing how long it would take for 18000 people in motor vehicles to clear the same section of the same highway. I got a discussion involving assumptions that would go into traffic models. However, since this is an existing highway, I would be certain there should be real-life data for what I was asking.
there are many factors at work but for an uncongested freeway the guidelines in california estimate 2,200 vehicles per lane per hour. at an occupancy of 1.25 that means you need almost 7 lanes in each direction.
at more common service levels it’s 1,500 per hour, bringing you up past 10 lanes.
a single 8’ wide heavy rail metro line can easily exceed 50,000 people per hour with computer control, long trains, and very short headways, although more typically the upper end is around 30,000, making it “only” about 20 times more space efficient than freeways, and that’s BEFORE you figure how much land the tens of thousands of cars take to park.