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> hardly any of those studies were done when the roads were put in, or subsequently widened Where do you get this idea? NIMBY works every bit as well on new o

> hardly any of those studies were done when the roads were put in, or subsequently widened Where do you get this idea? NIMBY works every bit as well on new or expanded roads, and it gets used constantly. Hell, we've spent hundreds of millions of dollars just trying to decide if we can build a new bridge, and that doesn't even involve actual planning. It's amazing we get any infrastructure projects done now given that every single person can stall them indefinitely.

bluGill 2y ago
only when someone speaks up. The worst roads are in nobodies backyard (who likes on a stroad - nobody, they all live on cul-de-sacs off the stroad)
- rootusrootus 2y ago
  Perhaps you live somewhere were everyone is content? My neighborhood is full of people (admittedly, many older) who mobilize at the slightest rumor of change anywhere in our vicinity. Bigger road? No way, that means more traffic. More houses? No way, that means more traffic. The neighborhood associate is quite active about staying on top of anything planned for this region of the city so they can light up our inboxes with information. Probably the one thing they wouldn't really be bothered by is expanding that cul-de-sac, as long as it will still be a dead end and not a new connection that traffic might choose to use to transit across the neighborhood.
panick21_ 2y ago
This might be true now, but it wasn't when all these massive highways, roads and stroads were built. US cities weren't destroyed because the people that lived there voted on it. For the most part you had a bureaucratic elite come in over the top and simply create laws and change the regulation.
- blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
  > US cities weren't destroyed US cities were not destroyed, and this is just misinformation, or hyperbole at best. In fact virtually all cities benefited from car infrastructure, since it brings people and things to the city, lets people efficiently get around, and so on. It helps the economic value of a city and also improves quality of life. If this wasn't true, there would have been a response with a broad political base. But there hasn't been. At best, a tiny minority of residents gets upset about roads and organizes into activist groups that make such claims. But the majority of the public enjoys and utilizes driving infrastructure.
  - oblio 2y ago
    They enjoy it when it's not in their neighborhood. Notice the cul de sacs everyone loves.
    - panick21_ 2y ago
      Man I wrote a long comment and that's a point I didn't address. Of course non of those cul-de-sacs pay their own taxes, they are all subsidized by the often poorer people who live in denser neighborhoods.
  - bluecalm 2y ago
    Yeah and more and more people are fat and die or get sick from air pollution. Truly a win for car based infrastructure. Your argument doesn't work because people are terrible at making good choices as individuals. Public enjoys smoking too, especially when pushed by advertising. Yet we somehow managed to push back on it a bit and people are now die less frequently from lung cancer and you can now breath in many cases you couldn't before. Driving is like smoking only much worse.
    - rootusrootus 2y ago
      > Driving is like smoking only much worse. That is a weird comparison. Smoking has no objective upsides, unless you count pleasure or the stimulant effect of nicotine. Driving, on the other hand, has a huge utilitarian aspect that is impossible to ignore. There are many things you cannot accomplish using public transit, and many of the counter arguments are transparently made by young healthy individuals with a lot of stamina, plenty of spare time, and no children. And probably no house. That may seem like utopia to some folks but it completely ignores reality, so the argument is dead on arrival.
- rootusrootus 2y ago
  > This might be true now, but it wasn't when all these massive highways, roads and stroads were built. I guess that depends a bit on how far back still includes 'now'. Portland is the nearest big(ish) city to me, and they absolutely killed road expansion about 40 years ago; that is when most of the freeways and major arterials in the area were being built out. There have been a few small extensions built since, a bit of widening now and then, but they are the exception and they take many years to get buy-in.

bluGill 2y ago

only when someone speaks up. The worst roads are in nobodies backyard (who likes on a stroad - nobody, they all live on cul-de-sacs off the stroad)

rootusrootus 2y ago
Perhaps you live somewhere were everyone is content? My neighborhood is full of people (admittedly, many older) who mobilize at the slightest rumor of change anywhere in our vicinity. Bigger road? No way, that means more traffic. More houses? No way, that means more traffic. The neighborhood associate is quite active about staying on top of anything planned for this region of the city so they can light up our inboxes with information. Probably the one thing they wouldn't really be bothered by is expanding that cul-de-sac, as long as it will still be a dead end and not a new connection that traffic might choose to use to transit across the neighborhood.

panick21_ 2y ago

This might be true now, but it wasn't when all these massive highways, roads and stroads were built. US cities weren't destroyed because the people that lived there voted on it. For the most part you had a bureaucratic elite come in over the top and simply create laws and change the regulation.

blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
> US cities weren't destroyed US cities were not destroyed, and this is just misinformation, or hyperbole at best. In fact virtually all cities benefited from car infrastructure, since it brings people and things to the city, lets people efficiently get around, and so on. It helps the economic value of a city and also improves quality of life. If this wasn't true, there would have been a response with a broad political base. But there hasn't been. At best, a tiny minority of residents gets upset about roads and organizes into activist groups that make such claims. But the majority of the public enjoys and utilizes driving infrastructure.
- oblio 2y ago
  They enjoy it when it's not in their neighborhood. Notice the cul de sacs everyone loves.
  - panick21_ 2y ago
    Man I wrote a long comment and that's a point I didn't address. Of course non of those cul-de-sacs pay their own taxes, they are all subsidized by the often poorer people who live in denser neighborhoods.
- bluecalm 2y ago
  Yeah and more and more people are fat and die or get sick from air pollution. Truly a win for car based infrastructure. Your argument doesn't work because people are terrible at making good choices as individuals. Public enjoys smoking too, especially when pushed by advertising. Yet we somehow managed to push back on it a bit and people are now die less frequently from lung cancer and you can now breath in many cases you couldn't before. Driving is like smoking only much worse.
  - rootusrootus 2y ago
    > Driving is like smoking only much worse. That is a weird comparison. Smoking has no objective upsides, unless you count pleasure or the stimulant effect of nicotine. Driving, on the other hand, has a huge utilitarian aspect that is impossible to ignore. There are many things you cannot accomplish using public transit, and many of the counter arguments are transparently made by young healthy individuals with a lot of stamina, plenty of spare time, and no children. And probably no house. That may seem like utopia to some folks but it completely ignores reality, so the argument is dead on arrival.
rootusrootus 2y ago
> This might be true now, but it wasn't when all these massive highways, roads and stroads were built. I guess that depends a bit on how far back still includes 'now'. Portland is the nearest big(ish) city to me, and they absolutely killed road expansion about 40 years ago; that is when most of the freeways and major arterials in the area were being built out. There have been a few small extensions built since, a bit of widening now and then, but they are the exception and they take many years to get buy-in.