Monday, June 21, 2004
Fantasy Island in Hawaii
"Ensuring that residents don't have to use their cars just to get to a grocery store or a movie would do more to ease traffic congestion than building more roads or widening highways, island mayors said yesterday." The reality is that this has been disproven by Portland (which has focused on smart growth and had the nation's second-fastest growing congestion) and Houston (which built more roads and had the slowest-growing congestion of the nation's fifty largest urban areas). Of course, reality is not mentioned in the article.
Comments:
You got to be kidding about the situation in Houston. More road construction did NOT make things better as a new study just came out ranking Houston in #8 as the worse city with traffic. More roads did NOT help Houston at all.
http://www.newsnet5.com/news/757933/detail.html
http://www.newsnet5.com/news/757933/detail.html
Dear Anonymous...
You might want to look at the data.
In 1985, Houston had the worst traffic in the nation according to the Texas Transportation Institute. By 2001, it had dropped to 14th, falling behind Portland and way behind Los Angeles, which had formerly led. The actual Travel Time Index had also declined somewhat. This occured because freeway supply was expanded. Meanwhile, even if, by some other measure, Houston traffic is #8, that's better than number 1.
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You might want to look at the data.
In 1985, Houston had the worst traffic in the nation according to the Texas Transportation Institute. By 2001, it had dropped to 14th, falling behind Portland and way behind Los Angeles, which had formerly led. The actual Travel Time Index had also declined somewhat. This occured because freeway supply was expanded. Meanwhile, even if, by some other measure, Houston traffic is #8, that's better than number 1.
