david roberts
An excellent question. The "traffic engineer" profession is deeply broken. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/06/us/widen-highways-traffic.html
Widening Highways Doesn’t Fix Traffic. So Why Do We Keep Doing It?

With billions of dollars available to improve transportation infrastructure, states have a chance to try new strategies for addressing congestion. But some habits are hard to break.

The New York Times
Jan 7, 2023 at 7:38pmWeb
Show threaddavid robertsJan 7, 2023

We now have overwhelming evidence from a million different directions that sprawly car culture *doesn't work*. Suburbs don't pay for themselves. More lanes don't decrease traffic. Stroads kill people & inhibit economic growth. Parking is economic deadweight.

We refuse to learn.

Show threaddavid robertsJan 7, 2023
The whole car/sprawl complex has reached such size & momentum that it just thunders on despite all this evidence -- one of many ways the US punches itself in the face over & over again while bragging about exceptionalism.
Show threaddavid robertsJan 7, 2023
The one real change that dopey car-addled politicians & traffic engineers *have* embraced is ... replicating the problem underground, in tunnels.
Show threaddeighneJan 8, 2023
@drvolts it's common sense, but whenever you're digging tunnels (high cost) instead of using the surface, whatever you're building better be worthy of that cost; more roads for cars simply do not cut it
Show threadCDunnJan 8, 2023
@drvolts I think that the problem is not that we refuse to learn or that politicians are addled, but that small perturbations all have negative impacts on large numbers of people. When you eliminate parking or lanes of traffic, the average person ends up spending a lot more time doing things that they would rather not, and the public transit is not there to take up the slack.
Only a big program, comparable to the interstate highway system, is going to seem like progress.
Show threadGollyJan 7, 2023
@drvolts all while hating traffic!
Show threadBuckJan 7, 2023
@drvolts and now it’s to the point where folks defend the way it is because of how far down that path we are …. Basically it’s “too much work to change now” is the defense, along with “this is what Americans want” … “freedom in their own cars” .. very frustrating
Show threadLed By Gilded FoolsJan 8, 2023
@buck @drvolts See the Sunk Cost Fallacy.
Show threadKBrzozowskiJan 7, 2023
@drvolts As I get older I dislike cars more every day. Once retired hopefully we’ll move to a city where they’re not needed🤞🤞🤞
Show threadNorman WilsonJan 7, 2023
@kbird @drvolts I did that in my early 30s (happily not work-constrained, though left a great job to make the move). Would recommend.
Show threadLacci 🐇Jan 8, 2023
@drvolts
Part of why suburban sprawl continues is that it solves some problems, they just aren't problems that really have to do with housing. Suburbs are a way to keep some of the middle class afloat in the face of wages that aren't going up through homeownership and home values that are perpetually increasing much faster than incomes. For policymakers this has been the solution that enables their total refusal to address inequality in the distribution of the benefits of economic growth.
Show threadLacci 🐇Jan 8, 2023
@drvolts
And that's just one problem it "solves", there's a whole raft of things that should be addressed directly that sprawl is the solution to.
Show threadLacci 🐇Jan 8, 2023
@Lacci
The United States mostly papers over cracks policy wise. We rarely can get ourselves together enough to address pressing problems so we often go all in on non-solutions.
Show threadLacci 🐇Jan 8, 2023
@Lacci
Sometimes we do manage to address things directly, but mostly we've succeeded in kicking the can down the road. So for example instead of fixing healthcare long term the ACA made enough improvements to offset encroaching healthcare issues for perhaps a decade. It was a huge accomplishment, but healthcare is a crisis still in 2023.
Show threadLacci 🐇Jan 8, 2023
The percentage of the population that is uninsured or has insurance so bad they can't afford basic care is higher in 2023 than it was in 2010. The uninsured rate is a bit over 10% instead of 12% in 2010, which is huge for those millions of people if they have a catastrophe. But 5% more of the population is underinsured now. It's much better than it would have been had we done nothing, but not close to good enough. And that's about as good as it gets in US policymaking in my lifetime.
@Lacci
Show threadhopeless wandererJan 7, 2023
@drvolts the problem with more lanes is that to actually resolve traffic you would need so many lanes the roads would take up more space than housing
Show threadArgot_RobbieJan 7, 2023

@drvolts Vehicles as status symbols and as a spending priority are an aspect of this cancer.

How many of us have neighbors in dual-income households, who can't find $10K to spend on landscaping or plumbing issues but have $150,000 worth of cars in their driveway. Teslas at the laundromat are not a rare sight in Los Angeles.

Show threadBilly ArmaghJan 7, 2023
@drvolts @chriscaple It also permanently destroys the best farmland, just as we’re about to need it the most due to climate change and catastrophic disruptions in globalized agricultural supply chains.
Show threadMelissamc1Jan 8, 2023
@drvolts It’s really bad in the west. My dad’s home outside Tucson has a zero walking score. I’m looking to live car-free in Denver and it’s tough.
Show threadJonathan JoelsonJan 8, 2023
@drvolts Do you any book or article recommendations on the topic of suburbs paying or not paying for themselves?
Show threadGreg GreeneJan 7, 2023

@drvolts My favorite example right now is the push to spend an 11-figure sum — under a second-term Dem governor! — to widen the approach road to a trans-Hudson tunnel that will continue to have exactly as many lanes as it has now.

Like … what? https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/19/nyregion/holland-tunnel-turnpike-extension.html

Can a $10 Billion Highway Fix One of New Jersey’s Worst Traffic Jams?

And, in the face of climate change, should it? A plan to widen the highway that leads into the Holland Tunnel is fueling heated debate.

Show threadCallalilyJan 7, 2023
@drvolts
I would love to have a better train & bus system in our state.