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> Drivers will make use of roads, especially new ones, but only if the cost of construction is subsidized by others. Doesn't everyone benefit from the transpor
by sosuke 10y ago
> Drivers will make use of roads, especially new ones, but only if the cost of construction is subsidized by others.
Doesn't everyone benefit from the transportation system though? I like to get food and other goods on a regular basis like everyone else. My gut reaction says there are more drivers than non-drivers. We have 797 cars per 1000 people.
- lhopki01 10y agoYet these same people will complain about public money being spent to subsidize public transport.
- rayiner 10y agoThe governments isn't spending billions widening roads out to the exurbs because that's needed to get food and other goods around. If road construction was limited to what benefited everyone--instead of subsidizing particular lifestyle choices--there would be far less of it.
- kazinator 10y agoAll the single-occupancy drivers out there that are causing jams are in fact hindering the flow of goods. Trucks stuck in that traffic waste fuel, pollute more and bring up the cost of goods.
- rplst8 10y agoI'd argue that we are way beyond this being a problem. In many cases the highways were designed with a much lower traffic count in mind. When the population was half what it is now. The problem to me it seems is that highway planners did not design for continued growth. Or when they did, growth outstripped capacity. Additionally, single car drivers is the absolute worst case - why not design for that? Part of the problem with traffic is people go where the jobs are. There is a perverse incentive to house jobs where people aren't. This causes people to have to move a great distance everyday just to get to work. What makes this all really laughable is that many people drive a great distance just to sit infront of a computer where most of their work is done on some sort of computer network or over the telephone. I think a nationwide telecommuting first policy would do more to reduce traffic than any of the other alternatives available.
- pif 10y ago> Part of the problem with traffic is people go where the jobs are. There is a perverse incentive to house jobs where people aren't. This! No city loves car entering their perimeter. But no city chooses to push enterprises/services/commerces out of their perimeter. Talk about having your cake and eating it - or, as we say in Italy, having your wife drunk and the barrel full :-)
- kazinator 10y ago> Additionally, single car drivers is the absolute worst case - why not design for that? One possible reason is that catering to the worst case of single car drivers is politically unsavory. In the green future, they are all supposed to go away.
- lastbestmatt 10y agoIt's not as easy as you might think to determine what benefits everyone, though. Even if you live in the city near your employer and avoid using the roads, it's still to your benefit to build roads to the suburbs where the local shops and restaurants you patronize can hire cheaper labor.
- pkulak 10y agoWell, when you make something nearly free, it's no wonder the adoption skyrockets.
- sosuke 10y agoHa! You got my brain going on the idea of the public "free" infrastructure as being a startup that gets millions of users but doesn't know how to monetize them, continues to struggle with how to manage bad drivers all while trying to grow even larger.