> The problem with this is that roads have externalities
Public Transit does too. Cutting up neighborhoods, noise, pollution all happen with busses and light rails. The externalities are almost identical in either case. (You can bury your light rail, but you could also bury your roads, etc).
> For these reasons, your internet and water-use analogies are inaccurate parallels.
That may be true, but I don't see how yet.
People oppose fiber lines all the time because "telephone poles look ugly" or "I don't want to be in the electromagnetic field" (even though there isn't one).
> People generally don't believe these wider roads will significantly lessen congestion.
To be clear, I'm not advocating for bad roads. I'm advocating for more roads, and there is a big difference. New freeways should be far above ground (so that there's no division of neighborhoods) or below grade, just like new public transit (usually) is.
I'm also not advocating for more strip-mall like roads. (4-8 lane at-grade streets typical near malls, WalMart, etc). There should be lots of big freeways, with lots of small exits to smaller urban streets (downtown) or smaller suburban streets.
I think we are too far apart on this one. The buried freeway idea seems like a boutique solution for certain niche cases (the big dig in Boston is another example).
But the freeways relevant to me (in LA) are much too large and pervasive to put underground. It's over 100 miles of freeway, 5 lanes each way! And this is only in the most densely built-up core. Undergrounding them is lunacy!
By the time that all got done, we'd be in robotic helicopters or uploaded. Underground trains would be much more realistic (less tunneling for a given throughput), but even so, we have to be content with aboveground light rail.
>Public Transit does too. Cutting up neighborhoods, noise, pollution all happen with busses and light rails. The externalities are almost identical in either case.
Very true! However, they are significantly lower per person transported.
Public Transit does too. Cutting up neighborhoods, noise, pollution all happen with busses and light rails. The externalities are almost identical in either case. (You can bury your light rail, but you could also bury your roads, etc).
> For these reasons, your internet and water-use analogies are inaccurate parallels.
That may be true, but I don't see how yet.
People oppose fiber lines all the time because "telephone poles look ugly" or "I don't want to be in the electromagnetic field" (even though there isn't one).
> People generally don't believe these wider roads will significantly lessen congestion.
To be clear, I'm not advocating for bad roads. I'm advocating for more roads, and there is a big difference. New freeways should be far above ground (so that there's no division of neighborhoods) or below grade, just like new public transit (usually) is.
I'm also not advocating for more strip-mall like roads. (4-8 lane at-grade streets typical near malls, WalMart, etc). There should be lots of big freeways, with lots of small exits to smaller urban streets (downtown) or smaller suburban streets.
A good example of this is the buried freeways near the Washington State Convention Center and Mercer Island - http://northwesturbanist.wordpress.com/2014/02/17/lets-bury-...