Excellent post by Herb Caudill, Greater Greater Washington though I think he misses a few points. Any mode of transportation that is better accommodated then other modes gets… well crowded. New York City subway and pedestrian malls for one example… and we all know the results when only cars are accommodated. The trick I think is to try and balance the different modes, in particular denser development *needs* denser modes of travel then what the automobile alone can provide. Congestion? We need to think first about getting mass transit and bike accommodations in there and only after that think about expanded capacity of the roads. The goal is to move more people per square foot of land use, not have each additional person "consume" a hundred times their floor space just for a car. Now for a few quotes:
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The central fact about cars, from a planner’s perspective, is that they take up space. Lots of space. And this matters because space in cities (a.k.a real estate) is scarce and therefore expensive.
Cars take up space when they’re moving and they take up space when they’re parked, and even though they can’t be simultaneously moving and parked, you have to plan for both states and plan for peak demand; so you have to set aside some multiple of the real estate actually occupied by the car at any given time.
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In the past, our policy response has been to just set aside more and more space for cars: More freeways, more roads, more lanes on existing roads, more parking garages and surface lots. This approach hasn’t worked, and there are two very practical reasons why:
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Read the rest here: https://greatergreaterwashington.org/post.cgi?id=16000
Biking in Baltimore