@PatrickThornton

Building more roads to alleviate congestion only causes more congestion:

It seems like a logical conclusion that if your streets are clogged, you need more lanes for cars. But, in a curious phenomenon known to urban planners, cars seem to fill whatever space they’re given.

What many cities have found is the opposite. Build bike lanes, sidewalks and better public transportation, throw in a few trees lining the streets for good measure, and traffic often slackens. The traffic that does flow through flows in a more orderly, safe fashion.

Read on to see why our transportation policy needs to be about more than just cars and roads.

Which is why, for the life of me, I can’t understand why Virginia is making the beltway around DC into eight lanes wide on each side. Maryland has taken the smarter approach by proposing a light rail line to mirror the beltway in Maryland. It only takes one bad accident to clog all lanes, even eight.

Car uses begets more car uses, which causes more congestion, more pollution, more road rage and less happy people.