Like most cyclists, I think the world would be a better place if we all drove less and rode our bikes more.
For a long time I’ve advocated communities based on sustainable modes of transportation, and cringed every time highway appropriations - perpetually encouraging more driving - were passed.
No longer. America is a nation of drivers, and the best we can do is deal with that fact constructively.
The surface roads in my area are overrun with people avoiding the freeways, beating up the roads and creating unsafe cycling conditions.
I think it would be great if we rethought our lifestyles to avoid all of this driving, but it I don’t think it will happen in my lifetime.
It’s a bad “fix”, but I’m now in favor of building the biggest possible freeways to concentrate traffic so that we can ride our bikes in peace on the surface roads.
I fully understand your point, but I think it’s a bit on the selfish side. It’s the cyclist inside of you who wants the wide open roads and fresh air telling you to say that. Don’t get me wrong, less cars on the road is better for anyone and everyone involved. I’m all for it, but it’s just not gonna happen anytime soon.
Onto the more freeways bit…The part that’s scary about more freeways is more driving, which means more gas. More gas = more smog, more pollution. If there is a higher demand prices go up. And you know people don’t stop driving. The ones that need to drive are gonna do it regardless of price. The real scary part for me about more freeways is more accidents. Should I say, more fatalities. More freeways = a larger contingent of the city,county,state, and nation driving faster.
I think an encouragement to public transportation is a good way to go about it. Granted, most cities need to work a lot on getting public transportation worthy of consistent use.
In reality, I think we are moving to a time where cities will charge to drive a car. Similar to what NYC is moving to; charging cars and trucks to come into the city.
think of it this way too though. Surface streets are mainly slow traffic and stop and go driving, while an expressway (when working correctly) is free flowing and fast moving. If you get people off surface streets and onto expressways, you increase the efficiency of each drive. The shortest distance between two points is also a straight line, which is how expressways are designed as well.
So, increase the number and size of expressways, you decrease the average driving distance to major locations, and allow cars to opperate at more fuel efficient levels. So all in all, even though you are ‘encouraging’ driving, you are decreasing overall pollution.
no, you are not crazy or cynical, but your solution simply would not work.
any freeway, very quickly nears its maximum capacity (bumper-to-bumper traffic) soon after it is completed. so just building more freeways never works. it actually makes the problem worse.
I think that you have become a little cynical, yes. I don’t blame you, though. There are many ways to aleviate congeston and building more highways probably isn’t the best one. I think the best one is to encourage people to live closer to where they work. That would decrease congeston quite a bit and solve 1000 other problems in the process.
This is getting a bike Lavener room-ish…but I don’t think easier access to more driving will decrease the amount of traffic so much as encourge a new ring of insufferable ex-burbs to pop up wherever the new roads allow.