All of that, for a traffic jam. Imagine turning 4 lanes in a train track carrying 500 person every 5 min in both directions and one lane in a bike lane. It’s still 20 lanes for car, but you suddenly have decent public transport which would be safer and faster than that gigantic traffic jam
Yeah, well, many people are deeply stupid. And selfish. And racist. But I repeat myself.
Personally I think anyone who goes like “I don’t want to ride a train I might have to sit next to a black person” should be dealt with more assertively, but I’m not in charge.
One train! A single train track solves all of this. No need for two. Just one. In the picture you don’t see more than 500 or so people and that fits in no more than 5 modern train cars, with toilets, refreshments and other amenities. And it moves faster.
Or just a decent bus system. You could replace 50 cars on that highway with a single bus.
It’s always first and last leg in Texas that kills this stuff.
The only affordable housing is far enough outside the city that you basically have to own a car because there’s not enough density to have bus stops.
And going to a park park and ride following by waiting on the bus adds another 30-40 minutes to the commute and gets your car broken into 3 times a year, so nobody uses them.
The real solution is to mandate allowing remote work for positions where it is a viable option.
I commute 4 hours a day for a job where I log into a computer and do all my work online. If people like me were allowed to work remote we’d have more time with our families, traffic would be reduced, and housing closer the city would get cheaper for those who DO need to work in-person.
I hate cars and highways so much.
I wish we had good mass transit like Europe.
China’s mass transit is better. Probably we should just hire the Chinese to construct a national bullet train network in ten years like they did in China. But wait, we can’t do that because that threatens the profits of the bourgeoisie, who are the true rulers of amerikkka. Oh well, enjoy your eight hour commute to make your bosses richer!
Tofu dregs. You should look that up.
China also kinda just forces anyone out who’s in the way. To build any new infrastructure the US ends up getting slowed down to a crawl because of red tape and beurocracy. Land owners have a lot more rights in the US.
Unless the landowners are Black or Indigenous. I don’t recall euro-kkkolonizers asking their opinion about colonization either in the seventeenth century or today.
I’m not talking about history. I’m talking about the US today.
I’m not taking sides really, but I just want to point out that the US very much DOES still do shit to bipoc communities regarding infrastructure and construction and housing.
They will run a new highway right through a neighborhood. And sure, they offer to buy up the land first usually, so that’s nice I guess, but they don’t pay well for it and if you don’t move they just take it anyway. Rail lines run through lower income areas. Highways too. There are “easements” and “imminent domain” legal fuckery that they use against bipoc people mostly too. If it’s a rich neighborhood they go around, if it’s poor people tough luck to them.
Residential can also get rezoned to commercial and force everyone out.
There are LOTS of legal and quasi legal things that are done all the time here. But even the legal ones are often ethically/morally wrong.
So there’s that.
How can you separate one from the other? History doesn’t just begin and end at the convenience of white supremacists. When did the colonization end, for instance? All the euro-kkkolonizers are still here, they just changed their flag and started sending their taxes to DC instead of London.
These “euro-kkkolonizers” were all several generations ago. Maybe you want to pretend nothing has changed, but things have gotten significantly better since then.
I won’t pretend we don’t still have problems. People of color are still statistically lower income, and they’re still affected by all the same capitalist problems that come with that.
The problem is also not the same across the country. Every state has their own top issues.
Which corporate CIA source should I use to excuse the nazis who run the USA?
Japan pretty much has it figured out. Bunch of trains, slow or fast, fancy or frugal. Whatever fits you there’s an option. You can get a Pikachu train with a shop and children’s playground if you want to.
Everyone always disparages the cost of public transport but how much does it cost to maintain these highways every year? A few dozen/hundred billion dollars across the country?
they’re not really maintained much anymore other than minor stuff. even that costs tons of money and is of minimal benefit for job security of departments doing it. you’ll all be dead before any major development or changes occur. and even if they decided to do something major, the construction of it while you wait for it to be done over the years will make transportation even more unbearable for those years.
In USA they fund maintenance by developing the sprawl. So they are stuck in this circle where if they don’t develop, they can’t maintain, but developing means more surface to maintain, etc.
Also how much supposed leasure time is wasted sitting in all those cars, making the people frustrated, sick and unfulfilled?
I know. They should add more lanes.
/s
Am I the only one not seeing 26 landed here?
I think this is a picture before the most recent expansion. (They saw this picture and said “hmm not wide enough, too congested.”)
In the normal parts:
- 2 express/toll/HOV/carpool lanes
- 5 regular highway lanes
- 3 feeder lanes (in Texas, the highways tend to have “feeders” or “service roads” or “frontage roads” that run parallel to highways so that people can exit and enter, turn onto intersecting roads, and access local businesses, and Houston calls them “feeders”).
That’s 10 in each direction. But at any given time there might be merge lanes between the express and the regular lanes, between the highway and the feeder, or between the feeder and a turn lane. So at the widest point, around the major freeway intersection with another huge toll highway, they bump it up to one more of each type of lane, for 13 lanes in each direction.
There’s also a fair debate about whether the feeder lanes should count. After all, they have traffic lights and intersections to deal with. But on the other hand, driving on them is necessary to get on and off the highway lanes, so in a sense it’s part of the same highway.
Yeah that’s a better description.
Also of note this is part of the evacuation system for hurricanes. All lanes are outbown in an evacuation.
But it also kinda hides some of the crappyness. it was supposed to be on top of a giant underground flood diversion system which is a huge problem for Houston as you may have heard. Also the center was supposed to be for a commuter rail but we couldn’t get the bond passed so that might happen someday…
Unless they count the shoulders as their own lanes, I don’t see 26 either.
And traffic STILL sucks in Houston
You can turn the entire freeway system into a grid and it will still suck - Los Angeles
Los Angeles also has a higher population than 50% of the countries on the planet.
An anecdote fully lacking in relevance on account of there being larger cities than Los Angeles which do not at all have the same problems efficiently moving their populations where they need to go.
It’s all about the transportation infrastructure.
Los Angeles Metro Rail has 26 million annual riders with a population of 18 million, so it’s not like it doesn’t exist.
This is why traffic sucks. Super highways don’t reduce traffic, they create it.
I’m not disagreeing necessarily (I know nothing about city planning), but wouldn’t a smaller highway just force people onto the side streets and city roads? How does a superhighway make traffic worse?
Building larger highways always encourages more traffic. For a better explanation, check out this video by Adam Something. His youtube channel has a lot of interesting videos about transportation infrastructure.
If it helps you can imagine the side streets and city roads as unused additional lanes.
Most people will think traffic behave like water that you need to send through a network of pipes. It is not, traffic is made of humans and humans reactions will make traffic behave wildly differently than waters in pipes.
- Some people and businesses will move next to the new highway for its supposed ease of access, creating traffic
- some people might change their habits and go shopping to this place instead of that place, or getting a job far away from their home (or a home far away from home)
The exact reasons for the increase in traffic is complex and my example could be totally off. But we don’t need to know the exact reason for the increase in traffic, we know it happens because it has been observed on every road enlargement projects in the last decades.
There are some good videos by notjustbikes on this topic, iirc the main problem is that big streets make people want to drive more which makes everything more crowded
Ah, bikes. Driving is a necessity. I’m not going to commute 30 miles to work on a bike, and I’m not going to haul a pallet of drywall on a bicycle.
Off-road bikes are great, and they’re good machines for exercise. Bicycles should not be allowed on public roads. They’re a hazard.
If you had access to good public transport you could take a train for those 30 miles and relax, work or read instead of wasting time being focused on traffic. But if there’s too much supply of roads built for the purpose of everyone driving their car everywhere, there won’t be much demand to build something like that.
Biking and walking can then be for mid and short distances, respectively. But both will be dangerous unless there’s proper infrastructure for that. And again, not happening until they stop the over supply of roads.
And for hauling the dry wall, yes, use a car. Imagine how much nicer traffic and parking will be if most commuters who aren’t transporting big loads aren’t in private vehicles.
The problem is that the infrastructure doesn’t exist, and introducing it is cost-prohibitive for large parts of the US. I would love to be able to take a train from my small town to the nearest metro area 30 miles away and then take a tube to a block away from my destination–but that’s just not going to happen in my lifetime, because the city can’t afford to install a subway, and the auto lobby won the war against commuter rail before I was born.
Could it be better? Sure. Might it become better? Maybe, but probably not in my lifetime.
In the meantime, people are de facto dependent on cars. Destroying infrastructure necessary to support the reality of how people must, through no fault of their own, travel punishes the traveling public without addressing the actual problem.
If we’re going to transition to better transit infrastructure, we first have to build the better infrastructure–and pay for it by
eliminatingunseating political opposition. Only then can we dismantle these kinds of monstrosities without disenfranchising the people who depend on them.Yes absolutely! It’s a systemic issue and there’s no reason to blame the individuals who take cars because they’re literally not provided an alternative. It’s so fucked that you literally can’t do anything in much of the US if you can’t afford a car.
And of course it’s absolutely critical to start providing an alternative before dismantling existing infrastructure, fucking people over even further. It doesn’t have to start with a big rail line, even local buses and bike lanes and safe side walks within the small town will help a lot in reducing short car trips, such as to the shops or to school.
But for anything at all to happen, there will have to be enough problem in favour of traffic reform, and they’ll have to be loud. The car lobby is a huge opponent. But in local politics, like on a town level, they don’t have as much of a say. Maybe, just maybe, small change is possible
I know none of this will happen over night, but fingers crossed you’ll get to experience a better future in your lifetime.
It’s more the political opposition than the cost, rail used to be the de-facto long distance transport and it worked very well.
Rail still hauls a lot of freight, but in many areas people no longer enjoy the benefit of rail transport.
If I had access to good public transport, I still wouldn’t take it. Driving a car gives me the freedom to come and go as I see fit. There’s no waiting for a bus or a train to show up. Not to mention, driving my car, I’m not forced to sit next to a meth addict on their 5th day awake and third week without a shower.
Let’s flip the equation here.
If driving wasn’t an option, you wouldn’t live 30 miles away from your job. Driving was an option, so you did and so did your neighbors. More neighbors move in, more cars, more traffic, more lanes, more neighbors, more cars, etc.
Alternatively, you move closer to work in a town with half decent sidewalks and walk or bike in. Bikes and people take up much less space which allows things to be closer together.
And yes, cars are necessary for hauling large objects over long distances, but how many vehicles in this photo do you think are carrying more than just people?
Your particular commute might not be feasible without a car, but many are. Adding bike infrastructures allows those who can commute by bike to do so, while freeing space on the road for those who can’t…
The bicycles aren’t the hazard, the cars are.
In europe a few countries have city centers where you aren’t allowed to drive your car and some countries have seperate paths where bikes can ride.
Bikes are way better for the environment and trips around 5-15 km can easily be done with a bike without having to pay for gas or insurance etc.
Bikes also help you do excercise without having to waste time because you are doing the excercise while travelling somewhere.
Bikes and public transport are so much more efficient than cars
Tbf there’s assholes who behave recklessly in traffic on every mode of transportation. I’ve been run into by a bike twice in the past few years. But guess what, if we built proper infrastructure for them, they wouldn’t choose the sidewalk in order to protect themselves from cars. Also, the choice between whether you’d rather a bike or a car runs into you is pretty obvious.
the choice between whether you’d rather a bike or a car runs into you is pretty obvious.
No doubt. I pick car every time. Listening to the douchebag cyclist whining after the accident would be too much for me to bear.
Bicycles ARE the hazard. If your vehicle of choice isn’t able to reach and maintain the speed limit, then you are a hazard to everyone else on the road.
If you really don’t want to drive a car, buy a motorcycle.
How are they a hazard if they can’t even do damage to anyone, the cars however weigh multiple tons and would instantly kill anthing smaller than a car if hit at something above 30kmh
THAT’S MY AMERICA 🇺🇸 🦅🔥🔥🔥 ONE MORE LANE DOESN’T FIX IT MY A$$ LOOK AT THIS AND TELL ME IT ISN’T WORKING 🇺🇸🇺🇸🦅🔥🔥🔥🦅🦅
We getting out of the traffic jam with this one 🇺🇸🦅🔥🇺🇸
Texas highways are fucking terrible.
And I’m gonna have to deal with them in a couple weeks.
One more lane, bro
Just one more and it’ll all be fixed, trust me bro
I swear bro, just one more, please
WE’RE GONNA FIX TRAFFIC, FOR REAL THIS TIME
Worked every time so far, I swear!
There are 2-4 HOV/toll lanes in the middle depending on where you are in the city. I only see 2 in this photo, and they aren’t called out in OP’s title.
Double it and pass the problem to the next generation
If I count the roads off the sides, on ramps and off ramps, etc, the highest I can get is 18 lanes. Is this the photo of where it’s 26 wide? I can’t seem to find it.
I can get to 22 in the foreground of the pic with some lanes underneath others with the flyover ramps.
Lol, the title even says only 20 with 12 main and 8 feeder lanes.
Sorry- “progress”???
I was being ironic.
Totally missed that tone. My bad, sorry.
le sigh though
Text isn’t always the best medium to convey irony/sarcasm.
I just came back from tokyo after doing the JR pass travel to view the entire country. I fucking HATE CAR TRAVEL. taking the Narita express to the airport was so painless. Got back to IAH bush Int’ctl and it was a complete clusterfuck trying to get an Uber. Not to mention it was quite literally twice the price the express line train was. And that was one of the more expensive limited expresses too.
Public transport in Japan really is such a delightful experience. Also the organization and the habit of the people using it. It just works. And is cheap.
Just be aware that the JR pass is meant to be a form of soft power expression, with the goal being to make it easy for tourists to get places to spend money and then make them want to share stories about how great the rail system is in Japan when they leave.
They don’t allow such good deals for their own residents, only tourists, since JR pass requires you to be a non-resident. For everyone else, it is far more expensive to travel moderate distances by rail than it even is to fly in most circumstances in Japan.
shit could have been 1 long passenger and 1/10th of a freight train
