I suspect that in a hypothetical world without significantly fewer personal vehicles, roads wouldn't need to be nearly as wide. Not really the case where I live

I suspect that in a hypothetical world without significantly fewer personal vehicles, roads wouldn't need to be nearly as wide. Not really the case where I live, but when I see those gigantic 6-lane+ highways around major cities that are loaded to capacity and at a standstill, it does definitely give me pause. Where I live, we don't really have those, but... > lost productivity from sitting in traffic That part of the cost equation is flipped upside down here (where I live) if you start looking at any of the currently-available alternatives. Public transit is a nightmare to navigate. What would be a 12-minute drive from my house to the work shop ends up taking a bit over an hour, assuming the buses all arrive on time and you don't end up missing a connection. And there won't be much productivity happening on that trip, the city uses the busses to move high school students around right around the same time I'd be going to and from work. In the summer it would quicker to bike for sure. Ultimately, though, I've found the best way of all to cut down on the commute: just work from home! Can't do it every day when we're in the middle of a hardware build, but lots of days it works out just fine.