In his short tenure as governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger has gleaned a powerful insight about transportation that somehow eluded his predecessor and Democratic legislators:
Californians can’t get from place to place on little fairy wings. This is a car-centered state. And we need roads.
Carpool lanes that obstruct the flow of traffic, light rail systems that carry no passengers, unbuilt bridges, bicycle lanes, and empty buses don’t move people, but freeways do. Right on.
As a contrast to your post, read Jim K.’s latest post at Clusterfuck Nation.
Do you mean this post?
It’s helpful to have links.
Yes, that’s the one.
Sorry about no link.
Kunstler seems a little deranged. Saudi Arabia isn’t doing us a favor by selling us oil, it’s acting in its best interests by engaging in a profitable business transaction.
That’s not to say that we shouldn’t reduce our dependence on foreign oil, but we need to do that in ways that make sense. Carpool lanes, for example, don’t reduce our consumption, they increase it by slowing down traffic.
Our transportation system isn’t just about realtors in SUVs going to tanning salons, it’s mainly about getting people to work, kids to school, and food from the stores to the tables. The key is maximized efficiency, not colorful 60s rhetoric that goes nowhere.