Literal unfinished bridges provide negative value to all users, and stand as a monument to government incompetence, degrading the will to invest in future infrastructure.
Short bike lanes provide positive value to at least some users. They stand as a monument to the promise of a substantial, interconnected bike grid. They incrementally increase people’s propensity to bike. They push the city toward a new, bike-friendly equilibrium. The same is true for mass transit generally when the components that have been built work well. Portland ought to be thinking about its population-level utility over the long run, not your personal utility now.
As such, I think that “unfinished bridges” is a misleading metaphore for the S-curve phenomenon you are talking about, and “beware” is probably not the right take when it comes to the idea of incrementally moving along S-curves. In fact, when the S-curve is the payoff for incremental steps toward a desired goal, “take heart” seems more correct. Incremental moves along an S-curve bring you closer to saturation faster than it would seem, judging by linear extrapolation of the marginal gains of each incremental step. I added labels to Tiuto’s plot that reflect this change in interpretation.
Edit: There are multiple reasons all the incremental steps toward saturation of the S-curve aren’t always taken at once. In the case of bike lanes, availability of funds, land, and political will are sporadic. Incremental opportunities must be seized where possible over the course of years or decades. In other cases, there may be uncertainty in how to design the buildout to maximize the level of saturation that becomes incrementally resolved over time, such as a startup that’s trying to find product/market fit or a politician who’s trying to determine what platform would maximize their vote share by gauging the public’s reaction to a sequence of political appearances.
Literal unfinished bridges provide negative value to all users, and stand as a monument to government incompetence, degrading the will to invest in future infrastructure.
Short bike lanes provide positive value to at least some users. They stand as a monument to the promise of a substantial, interconnected bike grid. They incrementally increase people’s propensity to bike. They push the city toward a new, bike-friendly equilibrium. The same is true for mass transit generally when the components that have been built work well. Portland ought to be thinking about its population-level utility over the long run, not your personal utility now.
As such, I think that “unfinished bridges” is a misleading metaphore for the S-curve phenomenon you are talking about, and “beware” is probably not the right take when it comes to the idea of incrementally moving along S-curves. In fact, when the S-curve is the payoff for incremental steps toward a desired goal, “take heart” seems more correct. Incremental moves along an S-curve bring you closer to saturation faster than it would seem, judging by linear extrapolation of the marginal gains of each incremental step. I added labels to Tiuto’s plot that reflect this change in interpretation.
Edit: There are multiple reasons all the incremental steps toward saturation of the S-curve aren’t always taken at once. In the case of bike lanes, availability of funds, land, and political will are sporadic. Incremental opportunities must be seized where possible over the course of years or decades. In other cases, there may be uncertainty in how to design the buildout to maximize the level of saturation that becomes incrementally resolved over time, such as a startup that’s trying to find product/market fit or a politician who’s trying to determine what platform would maximize their vote share by gauging the public’s reaction to a sequence of political appearances.