[CR][messengers] Re: Kamikaze couriers - road capacity

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In-Reply-To: <20040608103000.81923469.dccourier@dccourier.com>
References: <20040608054501.14999471.dccourier@dccourier.com>
Date: Tue, 8 Jun 2004 07:41:59 -0700
To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
From: "joel metz, ifbma/sfbma" <magpie@messengers.org>
Subject: [CR][messengers] Re: Kamikaze couriers - road capacity

it always baffles me that ANYONE, let alone city planners and whatnot, still beleives that further road construction does *anything* to combat traffic and congestion, even after its been shown time and time again that car traffic behaves like a gas - it expands to fill available space.

the *only* thing that will reduce car traffic is viable transportation options - and by viable i mean rail transport and human-power. not stupid electric cars, not freaking busses.

theres a freeway (motorways to you royalists :) ) down by where my parents used to live - the interchange between the 5 and the 405, i beleive - that has been expanded umpteen times - i think it is now the single widest section of freeway in california, if not the world, some 30-plus lanes wide, counting all off/on ramps - and despite this huge dimension, it is STILL stop and go every night. insane.

that any sensible human being still subscribes to the idea that building more roads will decrease traffic utterly confounds me.

-joel
>Quoting Blair Brown:
>
>> "The city's rapidly growing in every direction," said Blair Brown,
>> another courier, pointing to the construction cranes looming in every
>> direction around the gritty bar, just off Yonge St. near Adelaide St.
>>
>> Unless the city undertakes major road construction to keep up with all
>> the growth, Brown said, traffic will continue to be unmanageable and
>> streets will become increasingly unsafe for bikers.
>>
>
>Wrong! More road capacity means more cars, as shown by the experience of LA,
>and London (orbital motorway (freeway to colonials) M25 bumper to
>bumper within
>minutes of completion - subsequent addition of lanes has done
>nothing to reduce
>congestion)
>
>---
>
>Buffalo Bill, LBMA

--
joel metz : magpie@messengers.org : http://www.blackbirdsf.org/
bike messengers worldwide : ifbma : http://www.messengers.org/
po box 191443 san francisco california 94119-1443 usa
==
i know what innocence looks like - and it wasn't there,
after she got that bicycle...