Why are we still widening highways in US cities?
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Indianapolis is kind of like Austin: a blue capital city in a red state. They are similar in size. Our state legislature has essentially given Indianapolis the finger even as the Statehouse is right downtown.
Date: 2021-10-26
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Comments and reviews: 9
Flak153
This does make sense. You don't want local NIMBYs to block much needed infrastructure that affects the entire state.
The entire argument is fundamentally exclusionary, centering the needs of people who would live near infrastructure over those who actually need to use it.
The argument is that the small amount of additional local pollution (in the face of modern highly efficient vehicles and electric vehicles) and a complete non factor people dying while crossing a highway (it's illegal to cross highways) is more important than the mobility of the majority of the people who live in the local area.
Don't give any backing to this argument. No airports would ever be built, no highways would ever be built, no freight train lines would ever be built.
The reason why it's done at the state level is precisely because you need to access the situation at a level that encompasses all the people affected, including the people who need to get from point A to point B.
This feels like the latest in exclusionary city planning circle jerks, that we're going to learn is a disaster in a few decades.
Sure you can add buses and bike lanes. But as a rule, bike lanes are never a replacement for vehicle throughput. Especially not for highways, and buses only serve people who live directly on the corridor. The Austin metro area, and most of the people living in it are suburban. Democracy requires that they be catered to as well.
Putting highways outside city limits makes getting in and out significantly slower, while adding a bunch of pollution and pedestrian fatalities along neighborhood streets instead.
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This does make sense. You don't want local NIMBYs to block much needed infrastructure that affects the entire state.
The entire argument is fundamentally exclusionary, centering the needs of people who would live near infrastructure over those who actually need to use it.
The argument is that the small amount of additional local pollution (in the face of modern highly efficient vehicles and electric vehicles) and a complete non factor people dying while crossing a highway (it's illegal to cross highways) is more important than the mobility of the majority of the people who live in the local area.
Don't give any backing to this argument. No airports would ever be built, no highways would ever be built, no freight train lines would ever be built.
The reason why it's done at the state level is precisely because you need to access the situation at a level that encompasses all the people affected, including the people who need to get from point A to point B.
This feels like the latest in exclusionary city planning circle jerks, that we're going to learn is a disaster in a few decades.
Sure you can add buses and bike lanes. But as a rule, bike lanes are never a replacement for vehicle throughput. Especially not for highways, and buses only serve people who live directly on the corridor. The Austin metro area, and most of the people living in it are suburban. Democracy requires that they be catered to as well.
Putting highways outside city limits makes getting in and out significantly slower, while adding a bunch of pollution and pedestrian fatalities along neighborhood streets instead.
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Evan
You got something very wrong in your video. The states do not get their power from the US Constitution. US states are not provinces. The US Constitution is no more than a legal contract between the states. Any power granted to the US government is a power ceded by the states to the US government. The US government only has the powers that the states grant the US government, not the other way around. This is a major misunderstanding that the majority of people in the US do not understand. Most people view states as nothing more than provinces similar to what Canada has, but that isn't what a state is. The reason we call them states instead of provinces is because their power comes from their own authority, not from powers granted to them.
This is most explicitly seen when it comes to the process of amending the US Constitution. While amendments can start in Congress, the states themselves can completely bypass Congress, and create amendments to the Constitution. That is because it is the states who give power to the Constitution, not the Constitution who gives power to the states.
It is only through this misunderstanding of the power hierarchy works within the US that has allowed the Federal government to gain so much power over the every day lives of individuals that the Constitution never actually enumerates to the Federal government.
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You got something very wrong in your video. The states do not get their power from the US Constitution. US states are not provinces. The US Constitution is no more than a legal contract between the states. Any power granted to the US government is a power ceded by the states to the US government. The US government only has the powers that the states grant the US government, not the other way around. This is a major misunderstanding that the majority of people in the US do not understand. Most people view states as nothing more than provinces similar to what Canada has, but that isn't what a state is. The reason we call them states instead of provinces is because their power comes from their own authority, not from powers granted to them.
This is most explicitly seen when it comes to the process of amending the US Constitution. While amendments can start in Congress, the states themselves can completely bypass Congress, and create amendments to the Constitution. That is because it is the states who give power to the Constitution, not the Constitution who gives power to the states.
It is only through this misunderstanding of the power hierarchy works within the US that has allowed the Federal government to gain so much power over the every day lives of individuals that the Constitution never actually enumerates to the Federal government.
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Dani l
It is such a paradox.
I love the fact that I didn't grow up in a North-American suburb and being so car dependent, but instead I grew up and live in the Netherlands, where you can safely cycle from A to B and where you aren't dependent on the car to get to a shop. However, I am impressed by the infrastructure in Texas. Those massive highways, even with frontage roads, and their huge interchanges continue to amaze me.
It is obvious that the widening of I-35 is necessary, because of the way that new suburbs are build in the USA.
The solution? Create higher density, less car dependent, neighbourhoods with good public transport connections. Also make sure that the places where people go to work are concentrated as well, instead of being spread out along highways and busy roads.
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It is such a paradox.
I love the fact that I didn't grow up in a North-American suburb and being so car dependent, but instead I grew up and live in the Netherlands, where you can safely cycle from A to B and where you aren't dependent on the car to get to a shop. However, I am impressed by the infrastructure in Texas. Those massive highways, even with frontage roads, and their huge interchanges continue to amaze me.
It is obvious that the widening of I-35 is necessary, because of the way that new suburbs are build in the USA.
The solution? Create higher density, less car dependent, neighbourhoods with good public transport connections. Also make sure that the places where people go to work are concentrated as well, instead of being spread out along highways and busy roads.
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hugokatz
The city government hates cars and dose all it can to screw up traffic. They routinely take traffic lanes on already clogged roads, and convert them to bicycle lanes. This adds hours a week of extra driving time on clogged roads as drivers sit in traffic next to empty bicycle lanes. Lights are not timed properly and they have recently taken to dropping all the speed limits. The speed limits set below the natural speed most would drive causes greater mismatches of vehicle speeds so it's made traffic more clogged and dangerous. If you want to help the environment stop purposely clogging our streets.
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The city government hates cars and dose all it can to screw up traffic. They routinely take traffic lanes on already clogged roads, and convert them to bicycle lanes. This adds hours a week of extra driving time on clogged roads as drivers sit in traffic next to empty bicycle lanes. Lights are not timed properly and they have recently taken to dropping all the speed limits. The speed limits set below the natural speed most would drive causes greater mismatches of vehicle speeds so it's made traffic more clogged and dangerous. If you want to help the environment stop purposely clogging our streets.
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Sweet
IMO, the best solution is to separate through traffic from destination traffic.
Through traffic requires a highway with on/off ramps placed outside the city. As the city expands, new ramps are built further out and the old ones torn down.
Destination traffic requires many smaller roads that spread out to different parts of the city. These should be boulevards or streets.
Unfortunately, it seems people insist on having a one-road (a. k. a. silver-bullet) solution. The Golden Hammer fallacy: Once you have a hammer in your hand, everything starts to look like a nail.
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IMO, the best solution is to separate through traffic from destination traffic.
Through traffic requires a highway with on/off ramps placed outside the city. As the city expands, new ramps are built further out and the old ones torn down.
Destination traffic requires many smaller roads that spread out to different parts of the city. These should be boulevards or streets.
Unfortunately, it seems people insist on having a one-road (a. k. a. silver-bullet) solution. The Golden Hammer fallacy: Once you have a hammer in your hand, everything starts to look like a nail.
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James
Who cares what the liberal nuts in Austin want. It needs to be widened to handle thru traffic from the border to DFW. Should have been widened 30 years ago, would have been cheaper and the east side was total trash back then. There is no alternative because this is for thru traffic not local traffic, sure it would help local traffic, but they have alternatives locally. The 130 toll road bypass was poorly planned, costs too much and takes just as long as driving thru downtown Austin. Seriously, this should have been done 30 years ago.
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Who cares what the liberal nuts in Austin want. It needs to be widened to handle thru traffic from the border to DFW. Should have been widened 30 years ago, would have been cheaper and the east side was total trash back then. There is no alternative because this is for thru traffic not local traffic, sure it would help local traffic, but they have alternatives locally. The 130 toll road bypass was poorly planned, costs too much and takes just as long as driving thru downtown Austin. Seriously, this should have been done 30 years ago.
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TsunamiFPS
Yeah in CT, there's already a decent amount of highways in the small state, even the town I live in has a interstate for all types of land vehicles and a parkway exclusively for small vehicles and motorcycles and yet we somehow still get clogged up for hours on both routes. Even riding the Metro-North trains and Amtrak is a cheaper alternative for me due to a U-Pass but outdated in my opinion, not even a high-speed rail like in other developed countries to have more people using such public transportation.
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Yeah in CT, there's already a decent amount of highways in the small state, even the town I live in has a interstate for all types of land vehicles and a parkway exclusively for small vehicles and motorcycles and yet we somehow still get clogged up for hours on both routes. Even riding the Metro-North trains and Amtrak is a cheaper alternative for me due to a U-Pass but outdated in my opinion, not even a high-speed rail like in other developed countries to have more people using such public transportation.
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JimJohnston100
We all like the idea of diverting traffic away from our neighborhood. But we all also want to be able to move around in metro areas beyond the locality where we live. If each locality optimizes only for its local concerns, the greater good of all citizens will suffer. It's tempting to divert traffic away from my locality, but doing so will just lengthen travel times for all and shift traffic to other localities instead. Turning I-35 into a boulevard with intersections is an especially absurd idea.
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We all like the idea of diverting traffic away from our neighborhood. But we all also want to be able to move around in metro areas beyond the locality where we live. If each locality optimizes only for its local concerns, the greater good of all citizens will suffer. It's tempting to divert traffic away from my locality, but doing so will just lengthen travel times for all and shift traffic to other localities instead. Turning I-35 into a boulevard with intersections is an especially absurd idea.
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Spencer
Austinite here. Some important context. Voters in Austin just passed an 8 billon transit package that will add a 3 light rail lines, and another commuter rail line (we already have one. Voters also have passed about 1 billion in alternative mobility bonds. There are plenty of other options. Interestingly, voters won't have a chance to approve the I-35 expansion. Most likely because TXDOT knows what the result would be. Thanks for highlighting our fight down here in Austin!
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Austinite here. Some important context. Voters in Austin just passed an 8 billon transit package that will add a 3 light rail lines, and another commuter rail line (we already have one. Voters also have passed about 1 billion in alternative mobility bonds. There are plenty of other options. Interestingly, voters won't have a chance to approve the I-35 expansion. Most likely because TXDOT knows what the result would be. Thanks for highlighting our fight down here in Austin!
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