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> We can always travel more miles at higher speeds to reach the same stuff—family, friends, jobs, dining, shopping—if technology and cheap energy enable us to k
by hnal943 7y ago
> We can always travel more miles at higher speeds to reach the same stuff—family, friends, jobs, dining, shopping—if technology and cheap energy enable us to keep spreading out. Heck, some of us might commute to the moon if we could.
This is where the argument unravels for me. Mobility is obviously preferable to immobility, and family is a great example as to why! It's very rare to have your entire extended family in one city. The ability to keep in contact with people who are far away is an obvious good.
Also, I'm not sure about commuting to the moon (although if it was fast enough, why not?), but it would be cool to visit. The increased ability to travel broadens people's perspectives.
I don't understand why this is the fight they want to have.
- Dylan16807 7y ago> Mobility is obviously preferable to immobility, and family is a great example as to why! It's very rare to have your entire extended family in one city. The ability to keep in contact with people who are far away is an obvious good. That's fine for freeways that people are taking across multiple states. When trips are too long to work as commutes, the level of traffic is low lower and you're immune to induced demand from everyday traffic. But this is about the roads that get you around a city. If you make those roads a lot wider, but the housing density drops 3x, your ability to visit family doesn't improve at all. Increasing the distance you can go in 6+ hours broadens horizons. Increasing the distance you can go in 30 minutes inflames sprawl and congestion, unless you have some kind of efficiency miracle to apply to the construction.