Maybe we should have volunteers do both, considering how the fear of Linux got Microsoft to rethink the quality issue. (Now that it has, I’m afraid I use Windows.)

Diana

Gerald Chasin, Ph.D

The design of a local bypass limited access highway in the town I live in, allowed for a great deal of public input and the result, like most political decisions, made no one particularly happy. Everyone had something to complain about. You could almost say the traffic planners should be complimented for a job well done. It reduced the congestion of the small town center. But in the few years since it was completed – the traffic levels have already grown downtown almost to the level they were before the bypass was built. Development raced on ahead and it was probably due to the decreased time it now takes for drivers to reach employment elsewhere. The town is more accessible in a shorter time.

Banishing the poor from highways is a little cavalier to say the least. But practically speaking – the high cost of a vehicle seems to push that way anyway. I am a low-income person but I live in a rural area. I have no choice but to use a car. But I don’t commute. I work out of my home and only need to take occasional trips to clients. There are no other services available except for a small taxi company (one or two drivers) and that is far more expensive than the costs associated with a private vehicle. I also take offense at the idea that poor people are bad drivers. That is also a spurious assertion. It’s almost nauseating that there are people out there who really believe that because they are better paid they are better over all. That is probably the flimsiest idea I have ever heard.

Political leadership on this issue will probably only take the form of tax incentives for alternate and “green” transportation. The state government in this state – New Hampshire – is running on short money now. The whole country is going to have a hard time paying for any dramatic change in transportation infrastructure. The older cities of the US that have subways and extensive bus systems have them because the design of the city made it economical for private entities (for busses) and local authorities (trains and subways) to operate them at all. The suburbs are too dispersed and at too low population density to serve economically with public transportation.

Most suburban areas of this country were built after the Second World War. The car was king. The subway and commuter rail lines generally date from the late 19th century up to the WWII era. It was a very different land use pattern after the war than it was before the war.

Perhaps most people don’t know it but the NYC subway system was built by private enterprise. Many decades later it was taken over and extended by the City. What makes it difficult to do anything as dramatic as digging a trench down major avenues and boulevards today is the ability to get approval to do that from the local residents. Tens of thousands of property owners willhave abutter’s rights. The New York City system was started in Manhattan and in large part preceded the development of the island. The subway opened up the furthest reaches of the burrows to new development. That was also true of the streetcar system. Read Sam Bass Warner for more on this.

If the country is ever going to do a serous job trying to create low carbon and sustainable developmentand transportation itis going to have to deal with sprawl.When in the long history of this or any other developed country has “sustainability” ever been an issue – we don’t even know what that really weans yet? They will have to try to set limits on sprawl. There are a lot of reasons to fight sprawl beside the issue of traffic control and efficiency. But without the ability of the city centers to influence and design the suburban areas there won’t be much meaningful change.

Unfortunately the cities do not and probably will never have the ability to command zoning changes in their suburban areas. It would require the creation of greater metropolitan scale planning agencies that could dictate substantial development changes in the suburbs and the suburbs will fight that every step of the way. Our constitution puts a lot of emphasis on individual liberties and property rights. No single political entity governs any greater metropolitan area in this country. It might be impossible to ever create that entity. Each town would have to agree to become part of such a creature. And that move would have enormous impact on every aspect of a suburban town’s ability to control it’s own destiny.

The solution to traffic congestions that nobody, I mean nobody ever mentioned here or in any article I’ve ever read about such a topic is the simple syncronization and alternation of traffic lights. But that would get in the way of businesses all over cities and town across America. You all should be greatful to the businesses, small, medium and large, that gether in annual meetings in the city meetings to determine that the traffic lights should stay the way they are so that people driving on the streets see their businesses and go patronize them.

If people only new that all this traffic jam every day going to work and comming back from work is caused indirectly, or even directly by the businesses along the road, people would get so enraged – hopefully – and not patronize their local businesses anymore.

In other countries where Oil companies and Car makers don’t dictate ( at least not as much as here in America)what kind of transportation model will be used, or how the system will work, traffic flows much better. And we are talking about the so to speak “Third World Countries”.

About the comment from Dennis White, I think we should not be so narrow minded and think that now the world is over and we should all concentrate in one thing only, and that is the macro economy. Someone has to work on that issue so that we all can benefit from spending less gas, polluting less the air, having more time for leasure out of the roads, and so on.

I think that Suzzane Smith wanted to say that low income drivers should not be on the road so often. I would agree with that since in third world countries the poor take busses and trains most of the times to go to work and move around. Even the medium class uses this kind of transportation because it is efficient and inexpensive. Why can America be like this? Most people are really bad drivers because MOST PEOPLE ARE THE POOR driving on freeways and roads. So, the low income people essencially are in the situation they are because THEY NEVER STOP PROCREATING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If we have to pay for the milage or the roads we are occupying, so be it. That might be one of the solutions to take off the streets all or most of the poor and the moreons with GMC SUV’s who usually are the illiterate latinos. Please don’t hate me for saying that because you know it is true. Nothing against latinos or any other nationality, only against ignorance, poverty and perpetuation of both.