Headway unrealized until we slow down

We are in this planet toasting pickle because planners have designed cars into our forests, food, water and health systems. Now as a resource depleted planet asks for urgent solutions these same planners say we need to make transit an attractive alternative to get drivers to use it and stop generating green house gases. 30 minute headways are not really attractive. An axiom among transit planners is that 15 minutes is the maximum if you are going to seriously attract drivers. Transit systems must start a drive to double their service level to achieve the sort of ridership and other social benefits (air water health) we know them to be capable of delivering.

This expert way looks at headway (how fast a transit system goes between stops) and keeps the system in all its planet toasting glory and bring transit and other disadvantaged modes up to toasting par. Separated routes for bikes, grade separation for transit, etc to equalize headway with speed which surprising means more energy. But we end up with funding and NIMBY issues which result in incomplete systems and the O'Toole criticism of unfunctioning modalities stealing from drivers.

Another way is to take away planet toasting headway from drivers and share it with other modes. Road diets, bus only lanes, headway via intersection closures to automobiles for bike boulevards, fifteen and twenty mile per hour neighborhood and collector streets plus 25 mph arterials in the city limit, 50% of intersection closed to automobiles with pocket parks and play grounds that allow bikes and peds through in a system of traffic calming that's linked to the landuses of children and returns a sustainable return on investment of $2500 per resident in reduced road repair and stormwater mitigation, PAYD, unbundled parking, etc. are the types of solutions that share headway and cost across modes making choices more appealing.

This is not say that we end up like LA which proves that drivers can handle a infinite congestion, i.e. nothing the experts say for workable transit will work if autos continue to see expanded capacity. We need to realize that we in this mess because the experts don't know what they did and how to fix it. By slowing down traffic we can improve VMT (x=vt) and improve throughput since the carrying capacity is raised. It just takes a minute longer to go between freeways. But by seeing equivalent headway between modalities drivers can see an option that will have real financial consequences in the choices they make.