This one is making the social media rounds today. The just-published video shows a toll plaza that seems to be a bit of a…what’s the word…bottleneck?!
On the plus side, traffic going the other way looks to be moving!
Traffic congestion aficionados should go to YouTube and search for “crazy traffic.” All sorts of stuff burps forth reminding us that traffic can be problematic beyond our lil’ part of the world. New Delhi, India, circa 2012:
Categories: Go Metro
That’s a perfect example of how widening freeways only leads to more congestion. See congress! I’m looking at u gop
Here’s a different perspective.
You can’t just blame the GOP in Congress today. The Democrats have been in charge in California and in LA for quite a long time now, guess what they do with the tax dollars? Yep, they too also widen freeways and keep calling for more freeway enhancement projects as well. And they were the ones responsible for building the mass transit system that sucks today. Majority of the tax dollars disappear to their public employees in terms of pay raises, benefits and pensions too, which make up the core base of Democrat voters.
You can blame the GOP for advocating more freeways, sure. But at the same time, you should also blame Democrats for them also in focusing on more freeway projects while at the same time, wasting tax dollars by building mass transit wrong as well.
Being said that, when you dissect and analyze it this way, it’s not a political partisan issue. It’s a generational gap of different mindsets between Baby Boomers who were in charge up until now, those who were addicted to cars and embraces the suburban commute lifestyle because they hate crowding and density versus the upcoming Millennials who will come into the political arena soon whom prefer the new sharing economy and prefer living in the city where all the action is and have no qualms about living a higher density lifestyle.
If you let the generation who grew up with cars, embracing the suburban lifestyle, hate high density, and knows little about how the rest of the world works, how do you expect them to build mass transit? Poorly. The vast majority of Baby Boomers don’t travel that much, let alone have never take a trip outside of their own state, perhaps even their county. They have this blind faith in American exceptionalism.
If you let the generation who dislike the suburbs, embraces higher density lifestyle, and seeks out travelling all over the world to gain new perspectives in life, how do you view mass transit differently? The Millennials are the most educated, most travelled, most culturally diverse, and the most pro-technology generation. They don’t share the blind American exceptionalism that their parents had,
A different perspective is that China and India are also the two most populous countries in the world. They have bad traffic jams along side overcrowded trains.
https://youtu.be/xG-meaGqg-M
https://youtu.be/nGe154vo-lc
Then again, when you have to deal with a nation with a population of 1 billion, there’s not much of a solution left than to just keep cramming people in trains, roads, and buildings; there’s no escaping crowding in China or India.