What evidence do you have that makes it wrong?
First its so contrary to both logic and common sense that it would require a massive amount of evidence to prove it right.
I don't understand your evaluatin but large amounts of evidence do exist.........do you think people came to these conclusions from something they smoked? We stopped building freeways because they were not solving the traffic problems not because of environmental laws.
Secondly I have the evidence of watching the population and number of cars grow while new road projects are canceled or scaled back and I see how the traffic gets worse. And I can see when new roads are built, or old ones expanded that the traffic situation is improved. The improvements might not continue tobe created fast enough to keep up with the growth of traffic, but if they improvements where not made traffic would have been even worse.
There is no keeping up with the traffic.....many households now have 3,4, and 5 drivers and cars per household. Just ten years ago, 16 million new car sales per year was a big thing; now its the norm. There is no way the highway depts could keep up with the growth.......besides, in many metro areas there is not the room to build freeways......they take up so much space and people are unwilling to have them in their neighborhoods because of what they do to neighborhoods. To want more roads is reactionary and not healthy for our cities.
Now in the beginning, when there was just the Earth and the Garden of Eden, God said unto Moses, "Go forth and multiply". Oh sorry, wrong theory!
When the freeways were first discussed in the 40s, 50s and 60s their proposed rights of way were intended to go as far out as what was then considered country.
Fine go back to the 40s or 50s and argue then... Now most new highways or highway improvements are not built out in to the country but are instead an attempt to keep up with growth in the suburbs.
I know...........its called sprawl. Our cities were actually fairly dense [by today's standards] before the 1940's. The freeway ended that by creating sprawl. BTW did you know that GM bought up many urban light rail systems in the country in the '50's. and tore them up so people would buy cars instead.......GM's motto back then was "What is good for GM is good for the country'. What a bunch of BS! Boy, did we can taken down the primrose path. Then you wonder why there are some many laws on the books........the good ole boys really stuck it to us, and that's why the laws had to be created to keep them from sticking it to us some more.
As soon as their rights of way were known, developers began to build apts., offices, and retail so that when the beltways opened, they too were met with almost full capacity.
The apartments and offices would have been built somewhere and many people don't want to live in the inner cities. If the beltways where not built things would have been even worse.
Maybe, maybe not.........I know things would not have been built at such low densities which is the leading cause of sprawl. There are many large European cities without nearly the traffic problems that our cities have.
There is a lot of implementation of counterproductive laws because of the conflicting jurisdictions in a metro area.
Agreed.
In places like Mpls and Portland
They have their own problems.
What are their problems and how are they worse that
DC's?
Plus environmental laws are based on logic.
Many of them, like many other laws, are not. They are based on whatever becomes the hotbutton issue or on the give and take of politics. If they where more logical you could get a combination of less polution and less impact on businesses and individuals.
DC has some of the worst air in the country particularly in the summer. Logically, you would think people would not want to live there.
The air isn't like an old East German factory town. Its only really bad a few days a year and even then its not bad for most people unless you are out in it all day or are particuarly sensitive to it. Logically you wouldn't look at this one issue but would look at the jobs and the good schools and other benefits of the area.
According to the American Lung Association, from 1998 to 2000, DC averaged 50 days of unhealthy air due to Ozone contamination; Fairfax 51 days and Baltimore 93 days.
lungusa.org
and DC is on the EPA's nonattainment list in regards to Ozone pollution:
epa.gov
Given the above info, the air problem seems to be more than just a few days per year.
ted |
