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Biden pledges billions to rebuild cities ‘torn apart’ by highways decades ago (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 7 months ago by vividspecter@lemm.ee to c/fuckcars@lemmy.world
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[-] conditional_soup@lemm.ee 97 points 7 months ago

You could always ask for more, but honestly, unfucking car centric infrastructure is going to take two decades at least of consistent effort and deliberately diverting highway and road funding. I'm putting this square in the 'W' column while noting that there are many, many more 'W's that we still need to claim.

[-] vividspecter@lemm.ee 21 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Honestly, just the fact that Biden is explicitly talking about the problem would have been unthinkable just a few years ago, so at the very least it shows that a decent amount of the public is starting to get it. And that support is going to be needed to take measures that are going to be unpopular with a loud (and often well resourced) minority.

[-] dalekcaan@lemm.ee 19 points 7 months ago

Absolutely. "Don't let perfect be the enemy of good." Nothing's going to change overnight. We can only hope to move in the right direction.

[-] AA5B@lemmy.world 7 points 7 months ago

You, sir or madam, are an optimist. Certainly let’s do it, but there’s 70+ years worth of car-centric growth to undo, and 70 years with if declining transit to rebuild. It’s a lot.

In the city near me, the project to remove just one of these downtown highways dividing cities took 16 years

[-] conditional_soup@lemm.ee 8 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I really think that car-centric infra is so bad, that once people get a taste of good urbanism and small and medium businesses see how it benefits them, it'll start picking up a lot of steam. Honest to goodness, the only reason it has such sticking power is that it's really all we know in the US, and people find it hard so hard to imagine that our infra has been deliberately designed badly that they adopt excuses for why it must not work here. But once they see it working and like it, it's going to be on like donkey Kong

[-] vividspecter@lemm.ee 3 points 7 months ago

High quality video of people cycling and walking in livable cities is helping with this I think. Even if you can't afford to travel yourself, you can get a feel of someone going about their day in a way that is much more true to the actual experience than in the past.

[-] fruitycoder@sh.itjust.works 2 points 7 months ago

Gotta hope we can do better than in the past. How much of big projects delayed just because of old bueracracies and not fully utilizing new technolgiea and ideas?

[-] Spaceballstheusername@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago

On problem is most of the money supposedly meant for public transit in the IRA went towards roads and car infrastructure. So I have a feeling somehow this is just gonna make more highways if anything actually materializes from this.

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[-] tired_n_bored@lemmy.world 40 points 7 months ago

Nice

[-] regul@lemm.ee 39 points 7 months ago

The largest grant is going to Portland for a freeway widening that has occasionally included a cap in the renders.

Austin's grant is going to a similar project.

The freeway widenings apparently must continue, but now they'll just come with caps in progressive cities.

[-] fireweed@lemmy.world 37 points 7 months ago

I saw the headline and thought, "we ripping out the highways or doubling down on them with expensive bandaid 'fixes'?"

Doubling down it is. Crap like this is why Biden will never be a "climate president": we can't address the systemic issues that are the primary drivers of climate change as long as we keep trying to work within the confines of said systems.

[-] regul@lemm.ee 20 points 7 months ago

Some of the blame lies at the feet of state DOTs that are still drawing up these projects. In Austin's case, I think the I-35 widening is basically being forced down the city's throat by a revanchist state government.

[-] fireweed@lemmy.world 7 points 7 months ago

For sure, state DOTs are completely complicit in the problem (some more than others), as they're the ones deciding and designing the projects (highways are generally their jurisdiction). However the federal government has complete say in what projects they help fund, and could definitely set standards dictating the types of projects to move forward.

[-] regul@lemm.ee 6 points 7 months ago

I think they tried to do that and Mitch McConnell told red states to ignore those rules and then the feds cowardly backed off.

[-] PedestrianError@towns.gay 12 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

@regul @fireweed That’s how US government works. Democrats propose to do something moderate that would help a little bit but they already compromised on important details before they started, Republicans throw a tantrum, Democrats capitulate, billions more dollars get poured down the toilet (or into highways) with very few dollars going to something useful but the net effect being overwhelmingly bad.

[-] fireweed@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago

Was this back when his wife was transportation Secretary? Cuz she ain't there no more

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[-] Katana314@lemmy.world 32 points 7 months ago

I live in easy biking distance of some great stores I'd like to visit more often. That is...assuming there was a bikeable road to that destination. Gigantic highways have basically formed a death wall for bikers and pedestrians keeping them out of fun destinations around my area. If you travel across to a particular crossing and wait half an hour, you might be graced with a cross-walk that sometimes works, while 80 cars honk at you to cross more quickly.

Really hope this turns out well. It'd pay for itself, since those highways are money black holes anyway.

[-] stoly@lemmy.world 28 points 7 months ago

What's amazing about this is that he's attempting to undo what would have been touted as total success when it happened and he was younger. He's of the generation that these were actually built for. Seems even the Silent Generation is realizing that it was a horrible idea that should be undone. Next, please fix suburbs!

[-] TheWoozy@lemmy.world 8 points 7 months ago

Next, please fix suburbs!

Not In My Backyard (tm)

[-] stoly@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago

That’s the sad part. The petit bourgeois tends to be very intransigent.

[-] FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today 27 points 7 months ago

That's an incredibly bold plan, but I do love the vague concept. Are we just going to redo all the city planning of the past, what is going to be our new set of standards?

[-] danhab99@programming.dev 29 points 7 months ago

Hopefully walkability. Fuck the car industry

[-] FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today 9 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Agreed, but "walkability" is not a set of standards. I'm talking about documents, numbers, widths and lengths, intersection types, grid sizing for repeatable patterns.

It looks like the EPA has published a document on measuring walkability within the USA HERE, and Harvard Researchers have also published a few, but I bet there are also European examples both good and bad we could take from.

[-] SpiceDealer@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago

Sounds like a good plan. The question now is: will he actually deliver?

[-] Yots92@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago

I have watched a documentary about how much about motorization USA's roads have been built in the past, I witnessed people attending funerals or other ceremonies while still being sat into their cars... is that ordinary in USA?

[-] TheWoozy@lemmy.world 4 points 7 months ago

I've never heard of drive through funerals. That shounds like a Covid distancing measure.

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this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2024
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