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this post was submitted on 28 May 2024
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A Boring Dystopia
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Yeah, the system is fucked. But I can't help notice we install speed traps rather than bus lanes, almost as though we see drivers as revenue streams rather than traffic risks.
My city is installing red light cameras because of course milking drivers for missing the yellow by 1/2 second is better than actually fixing the problem of having hundreds of right angle crossings between roads with speed limits over 40mph (so people routinely go 50+ simply because they can)...
If we replaced some of those with roundabouts, others with over/underpasses, that might actually reduce fatal collisions, but that would cost money rather than rake it in, so...
That's definitely another approach, although these kinds of infrastructure changes are expensive and come with their own risks. Roundabouts take up more space than four-way stops, while underpasses flood and overpasses freeze. Your essential problem - moving too many overlarge vehicles through too small a space - is mitigated, but not resolved.
But yes, a camera that functions as a revenue stream is far more attractive than anything that might actually save lives.
I'm in the Phoenix area, while that can happen, it's a rare occurrence.
Even rarer.
Really it all comes down to cost- we spend millions on adding more lanes to highways, but very little on local connecting roads... Why spend anything to fix a problem when we can profit from the problem?
Sure, its always a rare occurrence. But when it happens, it can create a huge mess. Also points thumb at climate change less rare day-by-day.
For a city like Phoenix not to have a modern mass transit system is a criminal waste of money and manpower. You're talking about billions of dollars in highway expansion and tens of thousands of potholes getting filed, all so people stay in their cars.
FFS, its not even as though buses and trains are unpopular. Just ask folks in New York or DC. Even the Houston transit lines are commuter gold - filling up with tens of thousands of passengers every morning and evening who don't need a place to park once they get downtown.
Privatize the profits, socialize the losses. No more successful business strategy has ever existed.
What I'd really like to see is more cycling infrastructure... But in this climate, that's less likely to happen than public transportation. But hey, we're improving that, we have light rail that runs... On the streets.
Oh absolutely. And it drives me nuts to see the current mayor of Houston getting ready to tear up a bunch of cycling infrastructure the city has installed over the last decade. Bicycling was one of the bright spots of living in the Houston interior, and a bike highway into downtown would have been invaluable.
$10B to jiggle I-45 for faster trucking, but not one penny for raised rail.