a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment by illu45

    For American cities, highways are a drug. They’re expensive to acquire. They devastate healthy tissue and arteries, replacing previous modes of nourishment with destructive ones. They force the rest of the body to adapt to their needs, and they inflict pain on those nearby.

There's one other thing that highways have in common with drugs: You'll never have enough. Even if you invest in auto infrastructure at large cost, it'll only be a short time before more car commuters start to prioritize using the new infrastructure, leading to overuse and gridlock all over again.

Roads are there to move people, not cars. Within cities, cars are some of the least efficient ways of moving people. It's time to reprioritize the way we perceive, build, and use roads in major cities.