Moving into the 21st Century, mass transit instead of just adding more and more lanes
“It’s just more and more lanes’: the Texan revolt against giant new highways”
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Moving into the 21st Century, mass transit instead of just adding more and more lanes
Today, wait ten years, eventually you are going to run lot of room to build more lanes
I believe what he is talking about is suburban areas using and exhausting services that the urban residents are paying for, not an uncommon complaint, I know some communities are discussing a commuter tax of sort to address the situation
For example, where I reside, the local government will no longer extend sewer connections out to new suburban developments without substantial payment to offset the additional stress put on the existing system
Where I live the local government stopped building extensions onto new suburban developments
cawacko
Well-known member
I was talking about housing. I'm not going to pretend to know the ins and outs of Texas (and DFW specifically) transportation policies. (And if I wanted to I wouldn't get it from a British tabloid.) But I get the impression that Dallas is very much like L.A. in that they have a car centric lifestyle.
What I do know in Dallas is that the growth continues North of the City. To do that you have to build highways. You can't build homes in undeveloped areas and not have access to them.
T. A. Gardner
Serial Thread Killer
Except mass transit doesn't work worth a shit in low density US cities. Phoenix has spent several billion now building light rail that hemorrhages money. It's been suggested, more than once, that the city just buy every rider a new Prius as that would be cheaper... That's how poorly utilized it is.
It is possible that with driverless cars, and a system in place like Uber, that a decentralized operation mass transit system could work. That is, driverless cars are routed to riders and they go from A to B directly with the system scheduling rides efficiently. But fixed route mass transit? Just a bigger waste of money than building roads is.
And that is the problem, encouraging a car centric lifestyle by adding more lanes to the highway
May not “work” today, but what you build today will work down the road when you run out of room to add more lanes, and it doesn’t have to be just in cities but also between cities extending room for development
cawacko
Well-known member
Kind of hard to build in undeveloped areas and not build roads/highways to get there. If you are really interested in what Texas is doing I'd recommend reading something more local that offers the full story of how they are addressing their growth (roads, public transportation, trains etc.)
I'm not an urban planner but taking a place like Texas and saying "don't build any more highways" is not realistic. One can argue building only roads without any other transportation options is not the right way to go but without additional info we don't know what their plans entail.
T. A. Gardner
Serial Thread Killer
If you build it, they won't come. Mass transit is generally avoided worldwide when you have an alternate available to you. It's that simple. The proponents of mass transit themselves don't use it if they can avoid doing so. Yet, they are more than willing to try and force through government regulation and laws the forcing of the population into using mass transit.
Monad Portal
Was it me?
on working where you live.
that's not always easy, considering where jobs are and where real estate is cheapest. you can't just blame people who can't afford an intown loft.
What 'widelaned roads and supersized highways'? Texas DOES have the longest freeway ramp in the world though.
Did you ever walk across Texas?
The same old bullshit from the usual gang of Democrats idiots.
What 'frenzy of road building'??
I have been to every State and territory in America, including Alaska and Hawaii.
What train? Trains don't go to the ranch, dude.
The Guardian??? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
You are describing yourself again.
Okay. No cars from outside the county. No trucks, no trains, no nothing. You can isolate yourself and starve.
Who are YOU to require who lives where and who travels where????
Talk about the lanes in California. I'm sure you're seething over that shit as well.
Developer pays for the services, be it roads or sewers, what you are creating is urban sprawl, and problems like "Geeko Sportivo" was referring to earlier
And it is the "without any other transportation options" which is the problem, more lanes just exacerbates the issue
Of course they won't come as long as they have additional lanes, but as the topic post pointed out, more people will drive in the improved conditions, leading to more traffic and eliminating any initial benefit, building more roads only leads to more cars
Not going to waste my time responding to dangling participles and phrases, if you can't tie two sentences together, move on
cawacko
Well-known member
I'm not an expert on Texas. What I do know is they have lots of land and continue to build further North in the DFW area to meet their massive population growth. It's not any different than what we did in California. Even today, NIMBYs here stop dense urban development which only leads to more sprawl.
Just saying they shouldn't build more highways doesn't tell the whole story. It's an incomplete argument.
I'm not "seething" over anything, but sounds like you are, and if I am not mistaken, California has begun to recognize the problem