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We Don't Need More Highways
Hugh Pickens writes "When it comes to infrastructure, politicians usually prefer shiny new projects over humdrum repairs. A brand-new highway is exciting: There's a ribbon-cutting, and there's less need to clog up existing lanes with orange cones and repair crews. So it's not surprising that 57 percent of all state highway funding goes toward new construction, often stretching out to the suburbs, even though new roads represent just 1.3 percent of the overall system. Now Brad Plumer writes in the Washington Post that many transportation reformers think this is a wrong-headed approach and that we should focus our dollars on fixing and upgrading existing infrastructure rather than continuing to build sprawling new roads). UCLA economist Matthew Kahn and the University of Minnesota's David Levinson made a more detailed case for a 'fix-it first' strategy. They noted that, at the moment, federal highway spending doesn't get subjected to strict cost-benefit analysis, and governments often build new roads when they arguably shouldn't (PDF). And that's to say nothing of data suggesting that poor road conditions are a 'significant factor' in one-third of all fatal crashes, and cause extra wear and tear on cars."
do we really need more gas guzzlers chugging along a bunch of asphalt strips to no where?
But can we do this after the Memphis-Huntsville-Atlanta section of I-30 gets planned and built?
No, sorry, that's not nearly inefficient enough for the oil lobby. Only communists use buses.
Also why has the Slashdot logo been made into a cock+balls? YHBT?
Government is the reason we don't have more efficient transportation. Our politicians decided that everyone should drive, so they took our money and built lots of congested highways. Here is what we really need:
FREE MARKET TRANSPORTATION: DENATIONALIZING THE ROADS* by Walter Block. Department of Economics. Rutgers University, Newark.
Most people, when asked to choose between "has the probability of saving a few lives" and "will definitely shave five minutes off my commute" will opt for the latter in a landslide. That's why we get new roads.
Zoning determines "how much" house you can build on a property. Single family only? Up to 2-3 family? Apartment, 3 stories or fewer? Larger? Parking requirements? All of that is determined at the local level in most United States states. Highway money is typically spent by the states. They decide which projects get funding, etc. Additionally, most new highway projects aren't long distance projects -- they're circular ring roads or spokes into cities. The funding for the highway infrastructure is nearly all federal. The US Congress decides how much money to spend on highways.
As a result, there is very little coordination, and we end up with sprawl because of it.
Making matters worse, high speed rail is clearly state-to-state infrastructure in most cases (San Fran to L.A. notwithstanding). However, the rail infrastructure isn't federal -- it's state. That means if you want to improve a rail corridor along five states, you need five sets of funding, five sets of state decision making, etc. That's one federal gov't, five state gov'ts, and dozens of local gov'ts all getting in each others way.
Building new roads is easier. Costs more, wastes more, but there are fewer barriers -- fewer abutters adjacent the road to complain, less pain caused by orange cones and lane reduction during construction, etc.
For better or for worse, our very government structure is designed in such a way that makes road repair/expansion far more difficult and painful on both politicians and constituents.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
We don't need another highway!
We already have a way home.
All we want are roads without:
The thunder holes.
An interesting study shows how the cross-bronx expressway was almost instrumental in destroying the vibrant pre-war south bronx neighborhoods. Point being that they divide and destroy communities.
The problem is that the government made a huge commitment to interstate roads after the war (ww2) and basically put them everywhere without regard for communities. This was a failed government policy driven by lobbyists from oil companies/auto makers and misguided politicians who wanted to bring the autobahn stateside.
But if you look around the world you will see governments and communities thriving based upon public transport and planning that is not all automobile based. So the answer would be to vote in politicians that realize this and work towards more sustainable transport and planning.
Now to reform the wretched election laws in this country of ours....
Despite the rambling, the TFA made it's only salient point with the following:
Compared to repairing existing roads, new road construction is the cheaper option, even with the costs of additional steps such as planning and grading. Repairs are incredibly expensive and inconvenient for exactly the above reason; it's much harder, much more dangerous, and much slower work to repair a surface in active use, and in the meantime some fraction of that infrastructure is put out of use. When you do need to make significant repairs, what you end up with is Carmageddon, which users can't put up with for long periods of time.
Simply put, many of these major roads are too important and too busy to take out of commission for any period of time for repairs. Your best option quite often comes down to building a parallel track, at which point the original track becomes free for repairs (or more historically, decommissioning).
1. We have a population that is growing and yet, we do no demographic projections or analysis prior to building roads. We just build them because the existing ones get full and the voters complain.
2. We have urban planners and city fathers who let developers run the show. As a result, in most cities, you have to drive two miles to buy a quart of milk.
No one is tackling the crazy innefficiencies of WHY we travel as opposed to WHERE we travel. Do this and we'd have less, yet better roads.
*** Don't be dull.***
We love you, America, You make great movies, wonderful music videos. I hope America cures cancer so we can fill the world with more of the most carbon emitting lifeforms on the planet. Seriously, America, let's keep you guys around until we all choke to death. We really do care about you because you're the best.
Sincerely,
The rest of the world.
If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
Rt 222 in Pennsylvania between Reading and Allentown is a highly traveled road that's mostly all two lanes (one lane each way) with traffic lights and much cross traffic.
PennDOT's solution is building circles at some of the intersections instead of upgrading it into a wider highway. Circles may help with flow, though that's debatable when one throws lots of big rigs into the mix, but doesn't solve the volume problem - two lanes carries a lot less vehicles than a four lane, limited access highway.
Among the main reasons for highways being needed, seemingly, most everywhere is the lack of planning. Though many states are now encouraging regional zoning; communities need to look beyond their borders when approving new construction.
Much of the challenge in building new highways is the lack of money combined with excess regulation that often greatly inflates the costs. For example, it took 40 years to expand Rt 222 between Reading, Pa to the Lancaster County line roughly 7 or so miles away - and that was even in despite of most all the land needed for it already being condemned decades before - so that wasn't the hold up. It was strictly environmental combined with lack of funds.
A similar issue occurred with the Blue Route near Philadelphia - another road that was started in the 1960s and then stopped for lack of funds, then held up by environmentalists until it was finally completed (though not as designed, which has caused problems ever since - 3 lanes merging into 2 at a very busy section) around 1990.
Rambling on, but in a nutshell, reducing the standard of living, which many environmentalists seem to advocate, isn't the answer. New and/or improved highways in many places *are* needed.
Neil Degrasse Tyson said one of the most profound things I've ever heard. He said growing up he thought Congress was made up of Doctors, engineers and scientists. He was shocked to find out who was actually running the country. The point is how can a politician make a judgement call on an engineering project? How can a Congressman restructure Medicare when they don't know anything about medicine? What about the environment or NASA? The argument would be we invite in experts and have studies done. The truth is they invite in lobbyist for advice who are mostly retired politicians. They don't do reports on every project considered and most Congressional studies are biased and they lack the education to know the difference. The whole mess starts to make sense when you realize the country is being run by a bunch of non professionals. How many actual economist or even accounts are in Congress and they handle all the money! Do you know the most common profession Congressmen come out of? The law as in lawyers. Congress should be made up of an even mix from all major disciplines. We need experts running the country not people skilled in cutting deals!
It's symptomatic of our culture which is much more about "buying new" then "repairing old". This comes somewhat, I admit, out of economic reality: for most of our consumer goods it really is cheaper to replace than renew.
But the approach holds through larger purchases as well - homes and cars, for example. Few people have the skills or interest to fix them up to 'like new' condition, when it's easier (especially now in terms of housing) to get a brand new one dirt-cheap.
I live in a 100+ year old home, and it has its charms, certainly, but I'm well aware that (given my lack of construction skills/desire) it would have made more sense to just buy a new home instead. (Thank god my father in law is unbelievably skilled in construction, and that he loves his daughter apparently without limits.)
To the point, though, this is the accommodation (if not a driver) of urban sprawl. I live in the Twin Cities and if you drive around the perimeter you STILL see waves of new home construction - where are all these people coming from? Is this just urban flight?
It's one of the reasons I try to patronizing Dunn Brothers coffee as much as I can; I don't know if it's corporate policy, but around here they've deliberately placed their stores in really old buildings and paid the (high) cost to refurbish and bring them up to code, instead of grabbing a slot in the shiny new strip mall a half-mile down the road. In Eden Prairie, they even saved an historical brick home that the local preservationists couldn't afford to maintain/hold, turning it into really a terrific coffeeshop.
-Styopa
The current situation is due to our current political situation which is in turn due to our current social situation. New highway equals progress equals votes. Repairing existing heavily used infrastructure equals pain in the rear equals far less votes (possibly even negative votes as seen in Denver's T-Rex project [called the "T-wrecks" project by the natives]). Our society has become very stuck on instant gratification (which road repair will never be) and NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) thinking. Repairs cause inconvenience in the short term, and too many American voters are unwilling to deal with even short term inconvenience. So, many of these needed repairs get ignored until we get one of those few politicians who do not care about reelection and get it done. Sorry for my rambling, it is early and I haven't had my tea. The short of it is; until we as a people start realizing that short term inconvenience for long term progress is necessary and good, and start voting for politicians that are willing to take the hit to do their job right, this unfortunate trend will continue.
On a thread about the Interstate system this may be offtopic, but if the US wants to spend some money on road infrastructure upgrades then I think point one on the ToDo list should be many more roundabouts.
I drove a couple of thousand miles around the northeastern US this summer (I know, practically 'nipping out for a paper and some milk' in terms of distance for an American) and I really missed roundabouts. I used two the whole time I was there - one in Columbus OH and the other in NYC in Manhattan somewhere and it was like coming home. They're so much more efficient for keeping the traffic moving.
We have a situation relevant to this here in South Carolina.
Currently, Myrtle Beach is in the process of purchasing and developing right-of-way for a freeway connection to I95. As it stands, there are zero actual freeway connections to the town; we do have freeways but they're all local spurs and not connected to the rest of the system and, as such, are still signed as local roads. The primary connection into town is U.S. 501, which generally becomes extremely congested during the summer tourist season here, as the road that, at its greatest width, is two lanes each way handles an influx of traffic from the entire Southeast.
The problem is that the freeway in question is basically being entirely developed on top of wetlands. At least two rivers are being crossed along with over fifty miles of swamp. This has led to a little bit of local opposition but, truth be told, it's something that the area does desperately need. The issue could be solved by upgrading and expanding the prior-mentioned U.S. 501 (which would require a massive right-of-way buy, including a lot of imminent domain issues as the road has plenty of houses bordering it) or by finishing another connection to Wilmington (only 60 miles up the road, but in North Carolina, which apparently has no desire to fund a road which would draw tourists away from the state). As neither option has political support, it's beginning to look like Mother Nature is about to take another one for the team here in SC.
http://www.i73insc.com/
Is more public transport. The automobile and fossil fuels are a dead end. We (The USA) need to start putting out infrstructure dollars in repairing existing infrastructure as well as building out rail/light rail infrastructure. Commercial air travel has become less and less customer oriented and will eventually be for rich people only, on the airlines schedule.
"The Brady Bunch is back...working homicide"
Is that it needs to be maintained. Ten years from now we assume we'll have the money to repave that highway.
Or build a new town hall, and fifty years from now it'll need to be refurbed, and all the maintenance along the way.
We raise the money to build, and then foist the maintenance off on future generations.
Instead we ought to raise enough money to both build it and set up a trust to maintain it and replace it when it has fully depreciated.
It looks politically more flashy to open those new shiny projects than slapping pain on that same old wall.
Populism uber alles...
Circles, roundabouts, or whatever term is in vogue these days can be worthwhile, but aren't a cure all - they may increase capacity a little, but ultimately, the best way to increase capacity is adding more lanes / converting into a limited access highway.
With that said, Pennsylvania PennDOT agrees with your sentiments - they're on a "roundabout" building spree with many in the pipeline, including locations where they are not appropriate (ie. Rt 222 between Reading and Allentown) - that will likely result in a public backlash with many being ripped out in 20 years.
That's already happened in New Jersey with many ripped out. Though, ironically, adding them in other locations - NJ DOT planners don't seem to know what to do.
Many people in the U.S. hate "circles" (I know there are different terms depending on configuration and approach rules, but anyways I call them all circles) ... and it's not just because Americans are ignorant or whatever, there are some legitimate gripes with circles, one of which being they don't work well for multi-lane roads coming together with equally high levels of traffic and/or traffic that consists of many large full-size tractor-trailers and heavy, possibly even over-loaded, dump trucks.
I always find claims like "poor road conditions are a "significant factor" in one-third of all fatal crashes" highly questionable. Combined with 47%, alcohol related 56% speed related, 27% undocumented alien related, 30% texing and driving and 31% teen driver related, there must be a lot of fatal crashes caused by drunk, illegal alien speeders on bad highways while texting and driving.
I think it's entirely down to cultural issues, since we have many roundabouts that have heavy flow, multi lane traffic coming together also with large tractor trailers and they work extremely well. I see no reason why the sorts of "circles" we have here couldn't work in the US, other than people simply being unaccustomed to using them.
Some roundabouts here have 4 lanes on them, and 5 or more exits, although more typical is a 3 lane roundabout. Just get into the correct lane and follow the paint and everything keeps moving. Some of our busiest ones also feature traffic lights to allow lower priority roads to be able to get into the flow too - they're always on a short cycle to create enforced gaps of a few seconds which is all you need.
Some of our largest roundabouts are right off major highways (and along the routes of A roads, which would be the equivalent of a two lane state route) and they are much more effective than using traffic lights for crossing streets, even when that crossing street is of equal size and traffic flow.
Traffic circles cause a lot of accidents in the U.S. because (you pick, based on your biases) A) Americans aren't used to them, or B) Americans aren't bright enough to understand them.
Several around here have been taken out recently and replaced with stoplights for safety reasons.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
We need more light rail for public transportation. Instead we rip up the train tracks and turn them into bike trails. Even small cities like the ultra tiny one I work in, only 550,000 people, can use light rail to connect the miniscule 100,000 people communities that are 30-50 miles away to it. wo raillines side by side to allow a loop of two trains would give you a MAJOR difference. But no, let's support the Auto industry by building roads that ned to be repaired every year.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
If any of you were wondering why this suddenly came up out of nowhere, there is a political reason.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQWF0aNq2p4
A speech that Obama made 4 years ago recently surfaced and in it he says we don't need more roads to the suburbs. Roads to the suburbs are a racist thing to make it easier for the whtile man to come to the city and take the black man's job. He said it isn't fair to build these roads to let the white people live in their nice neighborhoods while taking the jobs from the poor blacks in the inner city. And, yes, Obama did make the claim that only whites have nice houses and roads to the suburbs are racists. This is just a covering story so when the rest of you hear his speech you have been properly "educated" so their spin will be more effective. This story is nothing by blatent DNC spin.
That is also the reason for the last couple years you have seen so many "Its actually better to rent than buy a house" Because the DNC has so completely destroyed the economy that the average middle class person can no longer afford or get a loan to buy a house. These storys are just to make them think they are making the smart decision instead of being mad at the government that had removed a choice from them from horrible economic policy.
Sorry, there is no validity to these stories. They are just attempts to cover up complete failures of federal policy and to make you cheer failure while not realising you have been brain washed.
What complete and utter nonsense. Congestion is the number source of poor fuel economy by far. It is such a big deal that every car sold in the US (and most other countries) comes with two different fuel economy numbers - Highway and City. For the overwhelming majority of cars in existence they get better fuel economy at highway speeds instead of city speeds. This holds equally true for tail pipe emissions / pollution / carbon output.
Congestion also is a leading contributor to poor health for a couple of really big reasons. First when cars are moving in congested roads they are polluting a lot more than highway roads. In aggregate this causes significantly more pollution (traffic circles which force people to slow down have to carefully select their flowers and fauna so that the additional pollution doesn't kill them).
The second problem is that when people are wasting time in traffic jams they are physically inactive and that is bad for your bottom line. When your spending 1-2 hours each direction getting to and from work, you simply feel too exhausted to go to the health club. Obesity is a public health epidemic and this is a significant contributing factor to it.
The problems continue at a very real level beyond simply pollution, fuel and public health problems. Stop and go traffic is very hard on cars with excess wear and tear and the figure (which I don't have time to track down right now) is very high in the billions of dollars per year. Maintenance issues cause cars to also receive poorer fuel economy earlier than they otherwise would.
When people are forced to live closer together you increase crime by increasing the surface area for criminals to exploit (more people = more opportunities). Higher population densities also decrease a lot of opportunities to participate in outdoors activities for kids which is reflected in healthier kids in the suburbs than inner cities.
The bottom line is that decreasing the funding for new roads has nothing to do with traffic congestion, pollution, or the public good. It has everything to do with trying to dictate the lifestyle that people live and this report is nothing more than pure social engineering.
"Federal highway spending doesn't get subjected to strict cost-benefit analysis"
You can take out the word "highway" and the statement remains true. Or rather, no cost-benefit analysis exists for the taxpayer. But every dollar spent benefits the permanent Washington insider class that rakes its profits off of an ever-expanding government.
Another true statement:
"Federal regulation doesn't get subjected to strict cost-benefit analysis."
And for the same reason.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
Wouldn't it be cheaper to provide free vasectomies and tubal ligations? Less people means less resources needed.
Why is our leadership so bad? Because it's based on appearance not results.
If you can fool 51 out of 100 people into thinking you're cool for a one-year period, you win.
Since intelligence (in all ethnic, racial, etc. groups) fits a bell curve, most people are on the left side of that curve, which is below the level required to understand college courses.
As society has gotten more complex, it has become clear that the herd doesn't make good decisions; it's questionable whether they ever did, which is why our founding fathers effectively limited the vote to land-owning males over 30.
Perhaps we should consider choosing people for their inward abilities instead of external appearance:
It seems like in so many cases, our society is unable to address problems until they explode in our faces, simply because it is unpopular to do so. Popularity is a poor metric of choice.
Futurist Traditionalism
There are many places where new highways/freeways are needed, and many places where expanding on existing roads makes more sense. To say that because YOU live in a place where there is no need for a new highway that it isn't a good idea to build new ones just shows the limitations in understanding that so many people have.
One thing that adds to costs of goods is the cost of shipping. If you have a very rural area that has small roads with only one lane in each direction, that means that transportation of goods will slow down, and that increases costs. The whole Interstate system in the USA was introduced to help deal with that issue, but there are still MANY places that have a horrible road system. There are also areas where you can NOT widen the existing highways due to limited space, or where it would help, but not do enough in the long run.
On the flip side, many people do not know what it is like to live in a small town in the middle of nowhere, and where you need to drive 30-45 minutes just to get to the nearest highway. If you did, then the idea that a new highway that connected your town to the rest of the world would be a really big positive, and would open the doors for more businesses to move into the area, which means more jobs. Adding highways to an area that already has one or more highways just does not sound like it would help, though it CAN.
The big thing is that people should not assume that their own personal experiences apply to EVERYWHERE. People in the Northeast USA really have very little comprehension of what life would be like in a small town in Kentucky for example, because it is going to be VERY different. Then again, most people have a problem with thinking outside the box, or assuming that knowledge of EVERYTHING around you will prepare you for anything that might happen. Isaac Asimov understood this very well, and reading the Foundation series(both the original trilogy as well as following books) will illustrate that idea. The more you think you understand everything, the less prepared you are for the unexpected.
It's the all about the proper planning and scheduling of maintenance. If that is done properly, the inconvenience issue goes out the window or is at least minimized, and you don't need to buy up land and hire civil engineers to plan a new road. Also, I would wager that the materials cost is much smaller when repairing an existing highway as opposed to building a new one. I presume one of the big red flags would be labor costs if you're doing the repairs at odd hours to minimize commuter inconvenience, but if you contract it out (ie don't have highway workers that are government employees) this becomes less onerous.
the us rail system is setup for freight and that ties up the tracks.
To add high speed will take a lot of building.
... the highway system. If you want to ensure a cost-benefit analysis is done, then sell off the highways to private companies. You'll reduce government involvement in something that should be in the private section, ensure that the highway system is properly capitalized, and it will be better for the environment because people using the highway will be required to pay for each mile driven. Once there are economic dis-incentives to using the highways, their use will naturally decline.
I was thinking, as I was bouncing along the (infamous, or the 2nd Matrix movie would have us believe) 405, that Google's new driverless care is a wonder. Image putting vertical accelerometers and millimeter precision GPS in the car. Then drive all night, every lane of the 405 at typical daytime driving speeds. It probably wouldn't take but a few days to drive the length of LA from the New Hall Pass interchange down to Orange county.
You'd have a accurate map of the best to worst parts of the road. The type of map that could be used to direct repair monies.
Remember this idea, assuming no one else has thought of it. Likely some genius at Apple or Microsoft will try to patent it.
For those who don't know why, look at this link http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policy/ohim/hs06/htm/nt5.htm
Average commuting trip length is about 14 miles in rural environments and about 10.3 in urban environments. Now that's short.
With such distances air transport is totally ridiculous, and rail transport is not viable. With one exception: when there are large numbers of trips that run parallel for the main part of the journey.
This is why most of the US is (deliberately or otherwise) impossible to serve by public transport: it's so spread out that you get almost nil overlap, and hence almost nil opportunities for public transport.
Exceptions are big cities (New York (subway), San Fransisco (Bay Area Rapid Transport), Boston) that have a structure that allows public transport to compete.
So: we're committed to cars and we'd better maintain our roads if we want to to use them.
China high speed rail is a cheap knock off the japan ones with less safety.
Honestly this is the big reason. The freight guys have control. When I took the commuter train to DC, we'd be sidelined because we had to wait on a freight train going by. Freight has a much higher profit than a bunch of folks riding the train to work and less hassle.
[John]
Shit better not happen!
but in the Chicago area commuters (scoots) have control over freights.
I mean near where I am there's a rotary and I've seen people literally stop in it to avoid missing the exit they wanted.(It's a fucking circle, go around, it'll take literally 10 seconds to get another shot.) Did I mention they'll also pass people while getting on or off the rotary.(It's one lane but it's wide and around here people will pass any time they can.)
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
As said by the guy who's been driving down a stretch of highway every day that's been marked as "Under construction" for several years now. Should I mention I have never once seen anybody actually working on the road? (I mean short of having the grass cut or convicts picking up trash but that isn't construction.)
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
No, we end up with sprawl because living the American dream includes a home with a yard and not high density housing. And even when planners are forced to create HDH to reduce or slow sprawl, Americans would rather continue to spread out to get their piece of the dream than live in a 'Pass the Sugar' neighborhood or HDH communities.
My wife and I have lived for years in a apartment in the middle of the city. It's not high-rises block after block -- but it's dense enough to have some of the most frequent bus service in the region outside of downtown proper and everything is walking distance. (Light-rail exists here, but for whatever reason does not flow through the core of the city. Makes no damn sense since the entire neighborhood was built in the 1910s as a Streetcar suburb, but whatever. On-street light rail would probably conflict with parking, which is all the business interests that run the show in this neighborhood here care about.)
Where we live now, we walk to any restaurant we want and have a $10 cab ride to downtown to catch baseball game or whatever else. There is a small market walking distance and the grocery store is a 10 minute bike ride through a very comfortable grid-patterned streets with 25 MPH speed limits. It is basically paradise for the carless.
Unfortunately in the United States, people do not know how to live in apartments in a civilized manner. Growing up, I assumed I'd be living in dense developments forever -- never was a fan of long drives and I've had an environmental streak. I enjoy being able to walk to grab a latte and running into people randomly in the streets, etc. But to do that, I have to deal with noisy neighbors constantly. The place where I live is not cheap -- the people that I live with are mature adults who are wholly normal people. But they have no respect for the impact of what they do on people that live 5 feet above/below their head. My upstairs neighbor loves having friends over to play Xbox connect on their wood floors with shoes on. They also love to run laundry at 11 at night.
Neighbors downstairs a few nights ago started BBQ with friends with the pit 10 feet below my bedroom window. This -- in a town going through a heat wave where no one has A/C. So I'm having to close the window and keep the house at 80 degrees because he wants to BBQ.
None of these things are anti-social behaviors. These are thoroughly normal people and if I asked them to cut off the BBQ'ing and the X-Box Connect because I want some peace and quiet, they would probably do it -- but it's awkward to walk down and ask. People in the US just don't know how to live dense.
So...we are now ditching the apartment life in this great neighborhood a 10 minute walk to anything to move to the other side of the city where buying a single family home is affordable. We can walk to exactly 0 restauraunts, our only option for a stroll for coffee is 7-11 brewed black coffee a half-mile away, and the closest grocery store 2 miles away. The bus theoretically runs through the neighborhood, but we'd be looking at four connections to get me to work. However, I will have some peace and quiet.
We are just back from short trip through Europe -- staying in a hotel for half the trip and with a friend in another. The guy we stayed with lived in one of the major "brand name" cities in a 10-story apartment building that your average 20-something with a job lives in. I swear -- we didn't hear a peep from others that lived there unless we were on the elevator with them. Later, we were on the train running through Germany and everyone whispered to each other, even on phone calls. Some cultures know to be polite with the understanding that someone is always within earshot -- we just don't have that sensitivity in the US yet.
High gas prices will probably fix that.
The US hit max vehicle miles in 2007. What seems to be happening is that 1) driving for social and communications purposes is down due to online social and working from home, and 2) driving for shopping purposes is down due to online shopping. Young people are getting their drivers licenses later. Higher gas prices are also an issue.
China, though, still has a lot of road building to do. They're building their inter-provincial expressway system rapidly. The interior provinces will benefit.
In densely populated areas provide mass transit that makes it easy and much cheaper for people to not use cars for routine trips. This means short walks, cheap taxis, or cheap bicycles between bus/train stations and destinations. It also means relatively inexpensive "guaranteed ride homes" for people who miss the last train or bus of the day.
In all areas, make it easy to use motorcycles on all roads and bicycles, motor scooters, golf carts, and the like on roads where people using these vehicles can keep up with automobile traffic. Where it makes sense to do so, provide dedicated lanes for very-slow-speed vehicles like bicycles and golf carts.
How do you make mass transit less expensive than a private car for a person who already has a car or who would buy one anyways?
* First, make mass transit dirt cheap, no more than a dollar or two per 10 miles traveled.
* Second, raise the per-mile cost of running a car, particularly one that pollutes or is heavy. Raise gas taxes. Tie auto-registration or annual-inspection costs to the miles driven in the last year and the weight of the vehicle, so compact cars pay less than heavy pickup trucks or SUVs and light drivers pay less than heavy drivers.
* Third, to discourage travel in congested areas, impose congested-area fees like they do in London, or impose a markedly higher parking tax in congested areas than in non-congested ones, especially during peak hours. Provide efficient, cheap transit from remote parking areas into congested areas with "guaranteed rides back" to the parking lot for those who miss the last ride back.
If road wear and tear and pollution aren't problems but peak-rush-hour congestion is, encourage employers to adopt staggered work schedules or shift work schedules around by an hour or two. Instead of a whole city working "9 to 5," if some employers worked "8 to 4" and some "10 to 6" this would spread the traffic load out and peak rush hour would be less congested. The downside is that this might actually discourage the use of mass transit overall and overall wear on the roads and pollution would go up a bit.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I seem to remember being taught that a constantly changing Citizen Legislature was the model pursued by the writers of the US Declaration of Independence and US Constitution. I also remember my late father, BS General Engineering and JD, saying, in a Bastitat tone of voice, man's Laws are created by the powerful to prevent others from obtaining any power over their own lives, GOD's / Nature's laws are as noted by Huxley, equally disrespectful of rank and priveledge as they are of stupidity and deliberate ignorance.
Oh, and as a working Engineer, I spent some time at an A/E firm devoted to sucking at the government Department of Transporation teat; they were TOTALLY disrespectful of their neighbor's interests and supported ANY and all "projects" which they could suck a few percentage points off for their own coffers, regardless of the actual "need". The government controlled airline or high-speed rail versus individual mobility issue seems to be lost on those, as noted by George Carlin, who just want THEIR own individual living and working spaces to be unaffected by the 'outside world' and could not care less about what is appropriate and necessary for any other individual person, or the group of people know as "them" not "us".
Then why does my commute so often have to wait for a freight train?
Metra runs on tracks owned by the freight lines. I'm sure that there are agreements in place about how to schedule the freights vs commuters, but the commuters do not "have control" over the freights.
Not in my experience. I've been on the Metra in Chicago and we've had to wait for freight trains to go by. It's not often, but it happens.
When driverless cars are in use we wont need more hiways. vehicles can run a foot apart instead of 60.
Random thoughts...
...Why the USA has lots of roads is because of fiat currency. The interstates came later--but the USA began building lots of roads in the WPA projects during the 1930's, after the 1929 stock market crash,,,, which was used to justify the change to fiat currency. When gold=money the govt couldn't just pull a bunch of it out of a hat to get people to do whatever they wanted. After they could just print money on paper, they could--and one thing they decided to do was build roads, because the roads would in turn encourage all sorts of other consumption. Like the proliferation of cars. "The oil companies" didn't really have much to do with this in particular; it was the wealthiest people in the nation that made these decisions, and they also happened to run a lot of the oil companies. ...And this doesn't mean that gold money is superior or not, it has pros and cons,,,, but for various reasons debating that now is rather pointless.
...So now that the US can print money and is always causing inflation by doing so, the govt has to keep pushing ever-greater amounts of money into circulation. So now, they DO NOT look for the cheapest ways to do anything (interstate highways costing $2-$7 mil per mile?). There is no point. The money needs to be spent into circulation for it to do any good. The solutions usually proposed very often are not greatly concerned about overall efficiency. The more money they require further down the line, all the better.
...The govt also isn't trying to turn profits on everything they do, since doing so would be counter-productive. It would mean that overall they took more money OUT of the economy than they had put in, and since they are the creators of money, that's exactly what they aren't supposed to do. Anyone arguing that public transit "fails" because it doesn't turn a profit, does not understand this particular circumstance. Public transit fails for other reasons, but losing money isn't one of them.
...Mass-transit is not advanced transit, sorry. The practical problems that exist with it can't really be solved. There is the peak-issue problem (busy during rush hours but much-less-used at other times) and the accessibility problem (more stops=more accessible transit, but slower transit times,,, resulting in lower utilization). The most-ideal transportation would be that which starts wherever you are and ends at whatever destination you choose, and can be used at any time you want but doesn't waste energy when you aren't using it. Cars could stand a lot of improvement--but they are much closer to that than any trains or buses are. An IHPVA/Battle Mountain style vehicle with a ~1 HP engine can cost only a couple thousand dollars, can hold one person and cruise at 50+ MPH while getting ~200 MPG--except that current laws do not allow such vehicles. There is no exotic technologies required, at all. One particularly outstanding example: http://thekneeslider.com/archives/2010/01/21/do-it-yourself-214-mpg-motorcycle-project/
I got it, I was just adding to the absurdity by pointing out that it is really only the US that doesn't like public transport.
No, it isn't really only the US that doesn't like public transport. There's another country/area with geographic characteristics like the US and unlike Europe or Japan of being geographically large and with a geographically dispersed population: Australia. Turns out their public transport is also sucky much like the US http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2012/10/how-to-use-public-transport-effectively/ and, also like the US, they've been talking about high speed rail for decades and haven't gotten anything done.
The US dislike of public transportation is not an absurdity, it is fiscally responsible when faced with these geographic layouts. If Japan had enough land for regular people to own 2 acre plots of land they would be in the same situation.
So if there's X amount of cars and in 5 years there's X * 1.05 cars because of new drivers and a population increase, eventually they need more physical space to drive on. So obviously the solution isn't to kill either side, it's to find both new construction AND repairs.
New highways? The county that my mother lives in just spent untold millions "widening" the main highway. (Visually, you can't even tell that there's a difference.) There is little to no traffic on those roads and they were in solid condition already. The only way that she can get online is by dialup or satellite, there are no other options available. (And the lines are muxxed so dialup is pretty much good for checking email only.)
Yay, USA.
I always thought of those countries as East Asian, then I read your link, and still think so.
They feared that it could be used to suppress protest or support unpopular rule.
so why not throw away old roads in favor of new, shiny ones? That IS the American way.
The freight companies typically own the tracks that Metra uses. In the case of the BNSF lines the freight company even runs the trains themselves, with Metra only providing customer-facing support.
On the CWNW line the freights wait or run on others tracks also at rush hour freights are not scheduled on it. Now you may need to wait at the cross overs points where other lines cross it. But at rush all 3 tracks are used for Metra.
High speed rail is optimal for line corridors with at least ten million people. Paris and Lyon were the two biggest cities in France, Japan is loaded up with people, so is China, and Spain's high speed rail loses money. The only places in the USA that can justify HSR are the Northeast Corridor and maybe California. The US is bad at making affordable subways and passenger rail. Spain, France, Japan and China do a better job. The state governments in the Northeast don't want to pay up to get high speed rail, and they are probably too incompetent if they tried. The replacement World Trade Center took several years before construction began. New York City is spending billions on building a single subway line. New Jersey Governor cancelled a New York-New Jersey rail tunnel that was to cost billions. California's HSR estimate was initially ~$30 billion, but that has jumped to $100 billion. Given Rick Perry, and David Dewhurst, I don't have much faith in the Texas Govt either.
Perhaps it is a good thing that the US has no high speed rail. The governments would screw it up if they tried.
We're past peak oil as well as peak cars, peak driver's license holders and peak passenger miles (at least in the US) so I think this is a case of "Duh."
thegodmovie.com - watch it
Yes, because the companies that own the rails are freight-shipping companies, and their traffic takes priority over Amtrak.
No they don't. Most of the Metra lines do happen to have low freight train traffic. But on the line between Waukegan and Chicago, had to wait for "signals" often, as it's a UP main line.
Still, taking Metra in to downtown Chicago from Grayslake was a total no-brainer. Even when I had to get from Union Station (near the Sears Tower) to the Art Institute. In the winter.
"Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads"
I am the unwilling control for my Origin.
Build new roads while being unable to maintain the ones you already have.
The freight companies own the tracks. Which is a moot point as far as high speed rail goes as the current tracks wouldn't be able to handle it anyways. You'd be looking at new infrastructure, tracks with tighter tolerances, more gentle curves, more banking on the curves and much, much better control of the hill side next to the train.
I still don't see why we can't just start building high speed rail in portions of the country with an eye to connecting it all up at a future date if need be. I'm sure there are places like the Portland to Vancouver BC and the LA to Bay Area places where you could get enough passengers to make it work.
This may be true in some places, but there are a couple of states growing fast. Oregon, and Utah. They are going to need new highways and their current infrastructure does include building trains and railways to help too.
Anybody who's played Sim-City (the original) will tell you that building more and more roads doesn't fix your traffic problems...
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