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And they apparently hated you for you spoke the truth. Like sure there's the "adding more lanes to one highway doesn't reduce congestion" thing but that's not a

by Spivak 3y ago

And they apparently hated you for you spoke the truth. Like sure there's the "adding more lanes to one highway doesn't reduce congestion" thing but that's not a good faith reading of your point. If you increase the capacity of the road system however that's accomplished and more people use it that's a win. It's literally providing more value to people and acting as an economic multiplier. If you improve the bus system and more people use it that's also a win because it's providing more value to people. If your plan doesn't start with here's all the ways the roads provide value and why individuals and businesses overwhelmingly prefer them to current alternatives and how we're taking that as table stakes for our new system, then of course people are gonna push back. Just because you think a trade-off is worth it or some perceived downside is fine for you doesn't mean it will be true for everyone.

boveus 3y ago
> If you increase the capacity of the road system however that's accomplished and more people use it that's a win. This ignores the cost/benefit of constructing more car infrastructure in heavily urbanized areas and the cost of owning a car for transportation. It ceases to be an economic multiplier when you compare it to cheaper alternatives. You are also painting car infrastructure as some sort of panacea, but it costs households a lot of money (almost 1/5th of their total income[1]) to use a car for transportation. Not only are cars expensive, but their expense is inversely correlated with income (poor people spend more money on cars). In the USA we spend much more on transportation than in EU countries[2]. From the standpoint of the average American family, car infrastructure is much costlier than the alternatives. 1. https://data.bts.gov/stories/s/Transportation-Economic-Trends-Transportation-Spen/ida7-k95k/ https://data.bts.gov/stories/s/Transportation-Economic-Trend... 2. https://www.itdp.org/2024/01/24/high-cost-transportation-united-states/ https://www.itdp.org/2024/01/24/high-cost-transportation-uni...

by Spivak 3y ago

boveus 3y ago

> If you increase the capacity of the road system however that's accomplished and more people use it that's a win. This ignores the cost/benefit of constructing more car infrastructure in heavily urbanized areas and the cost of owning a car for transportation. It ceases to be an economic multiplier when you compare it to cheaper alternatives. You are also painting car infrastructure as some sort of panacea, but it costs households a lot of money (almost 1/5th of their total income[1]) to use a car for transportation. Not only are cars expensive, but their expense is inversely correlated with income (poor people spend more money on cars). In the USA we spend much more on transportation than in EU countries[2]. From the standpoint of the average American family, car infrastructure is much costlier than the alternatives. 1. https://data.bts.gov/stories/s/Transportation-Economic-Trends-Transportation-Spen/ida7-k95k/ https://data.bts.gov/stories/s/Transportation-Economic-Trend... 2. https://www.itdp.org/2024/01/24/high-cost-transportation-united-states/ https://www.itdp.org/2024/01/24/high-cost-transportation-uni...