Why are we still widening highways in US cities?

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Black Lives Matter.

[NotJustBikes]

City Beautiful once again asking the important questions.

[Mr.Beanyuwu]

US stade govr: We gonna demolish
30 apparment buildings, 100 local buissines 15 churches and multiple social areas so more people can enjoy their local traffic jam together

[spencerschumacher]

Austinite here. Some important context. Voters in Austin just passed an $5 billon transit package that will add a 3 light rail lines, and another commuter rail line (we already have one). Voters also have passed about $2 billion in alternative mobility bonds. There are plenty of other options. Interestingly, voters won't have a chance to approve the I-35 expansion. Most likely because TXDOT knows what the result would be. Thanks for highlighting our fight down here in Austin!

[zackakai]

As London almost learned the hard way back in the 60s, widening roads doesn't actually alleviate your traffic problem because it just encourages more people to pile onto that road. The only viable solution for long-term sustainability is massively reducing our dependence on cars by building mixed-use suburban neighborhoods with lots of bike lanes good public transit (preferably by some kind of grade-separated rail, or at least rail with right of way over street traffic).

[Andrew-bnrr]

There's no reason a major highway should go through any city center, that defeats the purpose of the density of the urban core. Manhattan's west side highway, which still a giant armpit, is a step in the right direction.

[ichirofakename]

You don't mention the gorilla in the room: more lanes do not speed up urban traffic. I have seen this with my own eyes. If you build a lane, cars will come and fill it.

[finnworldwide]

As a Boston resident, this is fascinating to see. Here, we have been actively trying to move highways out of the center of the city and making sure they disrupt less communities. It’s interesting to see how the rest of the county is doing the opposite.

[williamhuang]

The best way to get the DoT to stop building highways is to bulldoze the DoT's office and say that they're building a new freeway there and that the freeway is "necessary infrastructure"

[rogerwilco]

Highways should not go into cities, but around them.

[victorparedes]

Houston has an interesting case, where the state wants to expand a highway whereas the federal, county and local government are stopping it. So far the state wants to proceed, but the federal lawsuit (I think) will make it dead before then

[carlo]

Just looking at I-35 on Google maps alone, I noticed that Austin lacks something a lot of other cities use, a loop or diversion around the city for traffic not destined for Austin. Maybe an auxiliary 235 to split off somewhere between Georgetown and Round Rock then rejoining I-35 around Buda? Circumventing the city on the west side and avoiding downtown.

[toasterpastries]

*American governments: "It's too expensive to build a high speed rail. Think about the cost to buy all that property!"*
*Also them: "We're going to widen the highway from 10 lanes to 20 lanes"*

[joeleblanc]

An important thing to note for people unfamiliar with Austin: where I-35 sits today used to be a boulevard that separated a predominantly white part of town from a predominantly Black and Latino neighborhood. Black residents were forced out of the neighborhoods to the west of that boulevard and moved east. As Austin has grown, East Austin has heavily gentrified, which has pushed Black residents to suburbs like Pflugerville. If you want to get from Pflugerville to downtown… yes, you guessed it, the most reasonable way of getting there today is I-35. There’s also a state highway running parallel to I-35 (known as Mopac) which has been widened in the last few years with toll lanes added, but it is mainly used by locals and does not carry interstate truck traffic.

[utterbullspit]

This is exactly how bad Georgia's DOT is. GDOT is literally prohibited by law by the state government, from building mass transit and can only build highways, freeways, and state roads.

[jpotter]

"Shouldn't the local residents get the final say?" Harhar. Nice one, CB.

[yuriydee]

I visited Texas couple months ago and their highways reminded me of a kid going wild with Sim City. Its like highway porn all over the state. Whether it was Houston or Dallas or even Austin, its level on levels of highways. Everything was so freaking spread out it was crazy. I dont know how people put up with the suburban sprawl there, but it definitely made me dislike Texas overall. Even in my car dependent suburbs of NJ, everything is still somewhat within reach and feels closer. I did like Austin as a city but that highway is definitely a blemish on it. They should build highways around the city, not thru it....

[Droidman]

In Shreveport, Louisiana, they are planning to build a brand new highway through the middle of the city against the will of the city. Ridiculous this is still happening in 2021 but the city and parish (county) have no real power to stop it, and the DOT is dead set on finishing the highway even though a bypass already exist.

[c_splash]

Not Just Bikes and City Beautiful videos in the same day. I'm loving it

[deenil]

This is the EXACT opposite of the zoning problem. The problem in zoning is hyper-local control, the problem with these highways is a combination of too high a level of control (local residents be damned) PLUS VERY bad

[sweetwater]

City of Raleigh just made above-the-curb protected bike lanes part of the UDO of avenue street design. Probably should look into that, I feel like this would have made bigger news if it was anywhere else. Raleigh also stopped a highway from going through the city in the mid-20th century.