In this one frame above, there are 300 houses (with more clearly on the way) that create thousands of car trips every day on the same two-lane highway, which is the only way to reach regional job centers, retail, schools, and pretty much every single other daily destination. The frontage lots are likely zoned for commercial retail uses, so one day this highway will be filled with more new curb cuts requiring left turns, which eventually means signals, which will guarantee more delay.
Every single increment of new development here—every new subdivision, every new curb cut for a retail center—is virtually guaranteed to create more delay on that highway. By design. And when attempts are made to “solve” that congestion by widening the highway (the bad transportation decision), it just encourages and enables more similar development further out (the bad land-use decision), guaranteeing yet more delay through the corridor.
This vicious cycle is the reason we are spending billions on a “solution” that’s failing us and keeping millions stuck in traffic.
Travel a little to the west in that first image above, and you’ll find more development coming or built the exact same way—all designed to produce maximum congestion.
Every single day during rush hour, this highway is likely to get a little backed up due to delay. Have the calls already begun to widen it in order to “alleviate” all this congestion? And if the state goes through with such a project, after spending tens of millions of dollars to do it, what will happen next? The Congestion Con predicts the future thanks to years of examples:
Just a few short years after investing millions of dollars to expand the highway, traffic has increased enough that the road becomes congested again and travel speeds go back down, leaving people in the same position or worse off than they were before the expansion projects. Residents begin complaining about congestion, and elected leaders start touting a need to widen the road. The cycle starts over.
Is there a better alternative to emulate? There’s an obvious one just a few miles away from here near the center of this same medium-sized town: a network of connected streets that allows more people to generate far fewer trips, shorter trips, and can even eliminate trips altogether by walking, biking or chaining trips together.
Addressing congestion without considering land use is like traveling to the moon without considering gravity
We will never be able to widen our way out of congestion, and we need to stop wasting our money on trying.
We need to instead start thinking about improving access as a guiding principle. How many destinations can one quickly and easily reach by any mode of travel? The second gridded street network above is successful in part because access is high. Anyone who lives or works within view in that image can get to any jobs pictured by multiple routes. A good number of them could walk or bike or take a bus. Even if driving, their trip to every single job within view would be radically shorter than even the shortest trip from one of the above subdivisions to the nearest job center.
“It’s time to critically examine our assumptions about congestion and try something new. Something that doesn’t force people to travel longer distances and allows them to get to the things they need in or out of a car,” said T4America director Beth Osborne in today’s press release. “We focus too much on congestion yet have done nothing but make it worse.”
It’s time for an end to this “con”
[button type=”primary” size=”lg” link=”https://smartgrowthamerica.org/resources/the-congestion-con-how-more-lanes-and-more-money-equals-more-traffic/” target=”_blank”]View the report[/button]
Reminder: Join T4America staff & some special guests on March 17 to hear more about the report findings and why we’re stuck in this vicious cycle.
[button type=”primary” size=”lg” link=”https://cc.readytalk.com/registration/#/?meeting=7c1rfn6l4k8u&campaign=68ixdf70ec6q” target=”_blank”]REGISTER NOW[/button]