In the 00's, a car company made this commercial that accidentally exposed how much space is wasted by car-centric road design.
— How-Sen (@HowSenChong) September 26, 2024
What’s crazy: The most unrealistic part of this video is how it shows *too many people* — because the average car on the road has just 1.5 people in it. pic.twitter.com/XQNfY6ByYY
Or are we like addicted Rats that keep hitting the same button til we die?
The Ontario government is studying the possibility of building another highway under the 401, the busiest highway in the world due to congestion. If 18 lanes aren’t wide enough, maybe, just maybe, we can admit that highway widening project in North America should come to an end. pic.twitter.com/Irq8XrBfgP
— Hayden (@the_transit_guy) September 26, 2024
Jesus Christ. What a great way to take our eyes off the ball. The problem is CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels, not auto occupancy rates or auto infrastructure (which has to exist no matter how much mass transit increases).
Our entire geography, urban, suburban and rural planning, is based on the automobile and has been that way for 100 years. The idea that we are going to somehow develop a reliable and convenient bus and train system for a 3000 mile long country which has 340 million people would be so ridiculously expensive as to be ludicrous. And politically impossible.
It’s about the CO2.
Very soon after I got my first EV I started to see the cars idling beside me at the traffic light or idling in place when parked as barbaric. Combustion cars stuck in traffic jams are burning wasted fuel to keep the engine running. The oil&gas industry is slappy happy about that.
On top of that, to a large extent building more (or wider) highways tends to encourage more traffic (e.g., developments in more distant suburbs).
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/363013/wide-highways-climate-environment-pollution
There was a highway designer that had a saying that I of course don’t remember exactly, his wording was much better than mine: People who drive cars during rush hour will only put up with a certain amount of congested traffic (long commutes) and businesses can’t get more people into the city to support growth. Expand a highway system in and around a city, more people will commute to work, until you hit that point again. Then the cycle repeats.
I’m looking at the explosion of high rises in Austin’s city center and I’m not surprised at the increased traffic of various throughways. Still, it helps that many of these buildings are residential and I know there are a lot of people who don’t mind living somewhere that requires an elevator (which would freak me out).
the latter