this post was submitted on 11 Feb 2026
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Privacy
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If you don't think you can do away with billboards I don't see how you'd think you could get people to stop using cars. Especially with how many things get delievered door to door these days. You could put every commuter on trains and the roads would still have traffic. I don't see changing that being any easier than getting rid of billboards and other highly intrusive ads.
True, just one more lane, right?
The thing with adding lanes is induced demand. By nature of there being more space for cars on that road more drivers will choose take that road over other roads. Cars don't magically come into existence, people drive them, and people drive them for a reason, most commonly to go to/from somewhere
Trains (and bikes and buses) take cars off the road. Every person riding on a transit solution that isn't a car is a individual vehicle trip saved. When every vehicle contains an average of 1.2 people in it, you've got very close to 1:1 vehicle reduction for every trip that's not taken by car
So to your point, are some number of non-drivers choosing not to drive because of traffic? Probably a small number of them. But a complete transit system that has the real world effect of fewer cars on the road will mean few people owning cars. Why would a family own 2 cars when one is parked most of the time? Why spend $20k on a new (to you) car if you're barely using the one you have/had? Fewer cars means less cars on the road which means less traffic. This is the dream.
I understand that cars serve a purpose. But trains and buses move orders of magnitude more people than cars could ever dream. With a properly functioning transit system (including the aforementioned high speed rails) traffic would clear up (because traffic didn't happen to you, you are traffic), and fewer distracted operators would be on the road.
And in removing those people from operating vehicles, the distraction of a billboard, and the subsequent potential accidents, are mitigated.
And yes we also need to get rid of billboards.