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i was in NY this past week, and I found the dreaded BQE a very easy way to get around. It would make more sense to say that more urban freeways are not a solution to rush hour congestion. Most of them are not congested off hours, when they are heavily used by trucks,etc. Tearing down existing ones certainly makes little sense.
Now when you consider that maintaining roads cost a lot more than building them in the first place!!
I don't think that would resolve the problem. I think that some businesses and corporate offices need to be relocated into the suburbs, so that people will have NO need to travel into the city. Leave some offices in the inner city, and have others spread out in the suburbs. Better than having 90% of the workforce commuting into the inner city. Of course that's a recipe for traffic congestion.
Unfortnatly for you....there moving to the cities or to Railway towns......your logic is old and dying...
NY's west side highway was built through a dockyard area, and many were built through white working class areas - indeed one of the successes of the movement to stop building urban highways in working class nabes, in baltimore, involved white working class areas.
AFAICT american highways were built to move cars and trucks - they naturally avoided areas where real estate was most expensive.
And, in fact, today the cost benefit for tearing down highways OR putting them underground is best in those areas with prime development potential. not racism, just economics.
But the economics were based on racism. Yes, the routes were chosen based on the lowest property values, but redlining practices, white flight and blockbusting meant that the lowest property values were in nonwhite neighborhoods--or, failing that, through working-class white neighborhoods (or ethnic neighborhoods that weren't considered "white" until recently, like Italians, Greeks, Portuguese etc.) that were considered just as disposable.
Tearing down freeways isn't going to accomplish much. The voters in suburban Sacramento voted against additional freeways in the mid-70s which would have required the taking of private property through eminent domain, construction of sound barriers, and a whole list of other issues that would have to be dealt with.
The end result: Traffic cutting through neighborhoods because people don't want to wait at the next stoplight. This creates a lot of road noise in many parts of the suburbs as well as safety concerns for pedestrians and bicyclists. Most of the two-lane roads have posted 25 or 30mph speed limits, because they were designed to get people in and out of the neighborhoods. In practice, most of the traffic is people taking "shortcuts" and 35-45mph is probably closer to the speed most people drive along these roads.
We have a river running through the entire length of the metro area that acts as a geographical barrier running the entire length of the metro area. From Downtown Sacramento where B-80(formerly US-99E) crosses the river to the eastern side of the urbanized area in the vicinity of Cameron Park there are a grand total of 5 roads that cross the river that intersect with US-50 over about a 30-35 mile stretch. It isn't so much the local traffic into neighborhoods that is a problem, but the traffic resulting from people needing to get from US-50 to I-80. The two freeways are only separated by about 10 miles. The problem is the roads between the freeways can't hold the volume of traffic during rush hour so it takes 45 min to well over an hour to drive 10 miles. The other alternative is to drive a 40 mile loop most of the way west through the metro area, then loop back and drive east on I-80.
I don't think the traffic in that area is bad during non-rush hours, but most people disagree with me. However, it is enough that people prefer to spend twice as much on new McMansion in an area where CA-65 was widened into a freeway through Rocklin and Roseville areas. A freeway between US-50 and I-80 could have slowed down some of the sprawl as people would be more inclined to buy a home with mature landscaping in an already developed area.
So how do you weight the pros and cons on this? Obviously the lack of a freeway didn't encourage people to use public transportation. Over the long term it resulted in speeding cars cutting through residential streets in an effort to get "there" in less time. Bicyclists are hesitant to use some of the streets during rush hour due to the volume of cars. People bought new homes in the exburbs to avoid the congestion when they could have paid less for an older home. But building a freeway would require the demolition of buildings along with some other issues.
Simply lacking a freeway doesn't drive people to public transportation--if the network doesn't exist, it can't be used, nor can cyclists use bicycle infrastructure that doesn't exist. Retrofitting for them would be simpler and cheaper than massive use of eminent domain to construct new freeways...and I'd agree that during non-peak hours, traffic around here is pretty mellow.
Traffic generally grows to meet the capacity of a system--just as a full bus is the one that is closest to paying for itself, a highway is most fully utilized when it is jammed with frustrated motorists doing considerably less than the speed limit.
Simply lacking a freeway doesn't drive people to public transportation--if the network doesn't exist, it can't be used, nor can cyclists use bicycle infrastructure that doesn't exist. Retrofitting for them would be simpler and cheaper than massive use of eminent domain to construct new freeways...and I'd agree that during non-peak hours, traffic around here is pretty mellow.
Traffic generally grows to meet the capacity of a system--just as a full bus is the one that is closest to paying for itself, a highway is most fully utilized when it is jammed with frustrated motorists doing considerably less than the speed limit.
The area I'm talking about has a fairly good bus system. Anytime I've had to drive through Citrus Heights on Sunrise I've been stuck behind a bus. Several of the routes interface with the light rail system too. The problem has to do with people passing through the area on the street level because there isn't any other time-efficient alternative.
Ever look at the bus system map in Citrus Heights? Aside from commuter routes there are a mere handful of lines on the main feeder streets, and once you hit Fair Oaks and Orangevale there are only one or two buses that go anywhere near the area--and again, they stop running in the early evening. Beyond the county line, where most of the suburban growth has been in the past decade, there is almost nothing aside from a couple of peak-only commuter buses. This
Heck, I moved downtown from Citrus Heights 14 years ago and bus service in that part of the county really hasn't changed at all.
Ever look at the bus system map in Citrus Heights? Aside from commuter routes there are a mere handful of lines on the main feeder streets, and once you hit Fair Oaks and Orangevale there are only one or two buses that go anywhere near the area--and again, they stop running in the early evening. Beyond the county line, where most of the suburban growth has been in the past decade, there is almost nothing aside from a couple of peak-only commuter buses. This
Heck, I moved downtown from Citrus Heights 14 years ago and bus service in that part of the county really hasn't changed at all.
There is no demand for routes other than up and down Sunrise. RT interfaces with Roseville Transit at the county line. Regardless, the lack of a good transportation corridor isn't going to make public transportation any better in that area.
But the economics were based on racism. Yes, the routes were chosen based on the lowest property values, but redlining practices, white flight and blockbusting meant that the lowest property values were in nonwhite neighborhoods--or, failing that, through working-class white neighborhoods (or ethnic neighborhoods that weren't considered "white" until recently, like Italians, Greeks, Portuguese etc.) that were considered just as disposable.
Had there been no redlining its still virtually certain that the lowest property values would still have been in non white neighborhoods and immigrant nabes, since those people had the lowest wages. Whether due to racism or not.
In any case, the transportation decision makers were not (at least not necessarily) the folks making decisions on redlining (which AFAICT itself seems to have started not so much with intentional racism but with a misguided attempt to ensure loan safety) or blockbusting.
I think racism is a serious thing, and I dont like to toss accusations of it around casually.
Now when you consider that maintaining roads cost a lot more than building them in the first place!!
if you are going by the cost to build back in 1920 or whatever
But all transport infrastructure requires maintenance. A piece of infrastructure in which the construction cost is sunk, and only the maintenance cost (and externalities, etc) are incremental, is one that is seldom going to make sense to remove - unless A. Its not really utilized anymore (not true for most urban highways in the USA) or B. Its externalities are massive (thus highways in the densest and highest rent urban centers like Embarcadero or downtown Boston) or C. Its obsolete in design and requires not just maintenance but reconstruction (west side highway in NYC)
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