In your future I see ... more roads
TRIP, a nonprofit organization whose initials stand for who-knows-what-’cause-they-sure-don’t-tell-you-on-their-website, released a report Thursday outlining our congestion problems and the transportation hurdles Georgia faces during a time when finances are hard to come by. We’ve got some structurally deficient bridges and well-paved roads, and we better build more of the latter and update all of the former, the report says, lest we face a catastrophe like the crumbling of a Minnesota bridge earlier this year or an economic standstill. Who funds TRIP? You guessed it:
TRIP is sponsored by insurance companies, equipment manufacturers, distributors and suppliers; businesses involved in highway engineering, construction and finance; labor unions; and organizations concerned with an efficient and safe highway transportation network.
In other words: businesses who have an interest in seeing more roads. But what’s that you say, Smart Growth America? A majority of Americans think that transportation funds should go toward maintaining roads and investing in transit alternatives rather than building more concrete swaths that are sure to just fill up in a few years?
Something left out about the “we-must-build-roads” philosophy is how planners and politicians are not addressing the issue of the price and supply of oil and how the added number of motorists will affect Atlanta’s notorious air quality problems. As more and more roads are built allowing more and more development of the city’s outer reaches, more and more people will be driving. Doesn’t the Urban Land Institute already view Atlanta as “chronically overdeveloped”?
Our roads may last a good while, but that’s a worthless superlative when a majority of motorists can’t afford to use them.
What say you, people? More roads or more options? And here’s the hitch ... you gotta say why.