The Congestion Con.
How More Lanes And More Money Equals More Traffic.
We are spending billions to widen roads and seeing unimpressive, unpredictable results in return.
In an expensive effort to curb congestion in urban regions, we have overwhelmingly prioritized one strategy: we have spent decades and hundreds of billions of dollars widening and building new highways. We added 30,511 new freeway lane-miles in the largest 100 urbanized areas between 1993 and 2017, an increase of 42 percent. That rate of expansion significantly outstripped the 32 percent growth in population in those regions over the same time period.
Yet this strategy has utterly failed to “solve” congestion. There is certainly little-to-no evidence that widening roads is helping reduce delay or congestion. Yet we have doubled down on this incredibly costly solution that appears to be completely disconnected from whether or not it can solve the problem.
We need to face the music: we are doubling and tripling down on a failed strategy. We cannot keep relying on the same expensive and ineffective approach. With discussions underway about the next federal transportation legislation—a process that only happens every five years—now is the critical time to make changes before we pour billions more into a solution that doesn’t work. This report recommends five key policy changes, many of which could be incorporated into the upcoming transportation reauthorization.
Click HERE to download the report. It’s quite large so be patient.
For Specific Information contact us at (941) 921-2117 or EdBertha@DiscoverSuncoastHomes.com
Burns & Bertha – Changing Lives – Red Line Investors – © 2020
www.DiscoverSuncoastHomes.com
Reprinted with permission of Transportation for America. All rights reserved. ©Transportation for America®
