That's underselling it a bit. The growth rate of roads was deliberately stalled in the 70s. We just elected not to build new infrastructure in most places, and coast with what we had. There are some exceptions, but they are just that -- exceptions.
Meanwhile, it seems that the same people who didn't want to build any more road infrastructure also didn't want to build mass transit rail infrastructure either. And so here we are.
Now, it's probably too late without a major cultural shift and realignment of priorities and sensitivities. We give everyone a seat at the table and every last one of them has veto power. So ... nothing happens. Without unanimous consensus.
Hell, Oregon & Washington spent $175 million just to plan out a new bridge, and over $100 million of that was just pretty pictures. In the end, too many vetoes, too much fighting, we gave up. Eventually we will try again but maybe it will take the existing I-5 bridge dropping into the river from old age before agreement can be reached.
Cost disease. Other countries have been completing public works projects of similar-or-larger scope for dramatically less than it costs here. How can anyone rationally accept $175 MILLION (pinky finger) for bridge planning?
There are two many people sticking their hands out in American projects.
Most other counties don’t attempt to build motorways through cities the way we do in the US. Until moving to San Francisco I’d never seen a 6 lanes each way motorway. Gained a new appreciation for the public transit in U.K. cities outside of London which I’d previously considered shitty.
I did a quick survey of Asia and it seems like they are happy to build expressways through downtown. Tokyo has them, Shanghai has them, Taipei has them, Seoul has them.
East Asian expressways often are less disruptive to the city than in the US. There typically aren't as many, they're narrower, and the ramps and interchanges aren't as big or as numerous.
Not always true, but by and large they don't dominate the city core nearly as much as in most of the US. Comparing Detroit's interchanges vs Tokyo's is stark: Tokyo is an order of magnitude larger city, but has fewer of those large cloverleaf interchanges that take up a ton of space and ruin the walkability of the area. Detroit has multiple in the city center.
That's underselling it a bit. The growth rate of roads was deliberately stalled in the 70s. We just elected not to build new infrastructure in most places, and coast with what we had. There are some exceptions, but they are just that -- exceptions.
Meanwhile, it seems that the same people who didn't want to build any more road infrastructure also didn't want to build mass transit rail infrastructure either. And so here we are.
Now, it's probably too late without a major cultural shift and realignment of priorities and sensitivities. We give everyone a seat at the table and every last one of them has veto power. So ... nothing happens. Without unanimous consensus.
Hell, Oregon & Washington spent $175 million just to plan out a new bridge, and over $100 million of that was just pretty pictures. In the end, too many vetoes, too much fighting, we gave up. Eventually we will try again but maybe it will take the existing I-5 bridge dropping into the river from old age before agreement can be reached.