Building and Expanding Highways....and Why This Has (Almost) Always Been a Bad Idea

I grew up on Long Island, NY....the first suburb.  I've also spent much of my adult life here (along with a goodly amount of time trying to navigate my way back here periodically!).  Through these experiences, I have to come to simultaneously appreciate the Long Island roadways...and despise them.  However, it's only lately, from my exposure to the concept of downtown revitalization and transit oriented development (TOD), that I've started to see part of the reason we're in the situation we are right now concerning traffic and suburban sprawl.

Now, I'm not talking just about highways.  The Interstate system was...and still is...a great idea!  And the only way we can travel the country in a reasonable time.  Good for the economy, saves fuel and encourages travel and tourism.  But once you get into an area like NYC and the suburbs, the benefits get a little more blurred.  And the same goes for Miami (my current hometown), as well as every other metropolitan area.

So what's been the answer whenever traffic gets too heavy?  Build more roads!!  Or at the very least, expand the current roads.  The problem is always three-fold.  First, the new construction slows down traffic even further for years.  Second, by the time the traffic issues are recognized, a solution conceived, proposed, accepted, funded and implemented, the solution is already insufficient for the now-current demands.  But the real mistake is in what the highway expansion creates indirectly.

The basic concept of the suburb has always been the idea that you don't live where you work.  Work in the city...drive home to the suburb.  The other basic issue is that suburbs are rarely conducive to mass transit...making them very car-centric.  Given that people will generally travel only a certain amount of time to work, housing development will end where the commuting distance/time exceeds that limit.  Therefore, whenever highway expansions are begun, builders will start building further down the line...until they reach that "time" limit again.  And so the cycle continues!  More homes...more traffic...more roads....more homes...more traffic........etc, etc, etc.  And we haven't even mentioned the cost of upkeep on all these new roads and bridges!

Unfortunately, what makes more sense is to let the free capital market solve these issues.  Also unfortunate, is the fact that the initial suburbs (those closest to the city) will not want to lose their suburban feel.  Instead of denser and denser housing working it's way out from the inner suburbs, now creating the numbers to justify more mass transit, we build more roads.  Ironically, mass transit would not only reduce traffic issues, it would now allow these newly connected areas access to the entire mass transit system.  Access that is all but lost today with the inner city traffic congestion and parking costs.

And what about the jobs road building brings?  Well, all this money could be spent instead on the infrastructure and mass transit projects that would be generated.  Construction jobs would still be created, but so would long-term jobs in the operation of mass transit.  Not to mention the additional small business development that will occur to support the additional people living in these areas.  And that means more tax revenue...by the way.

The solution...again, unfortunately...is that the political and social will has to align with the idea that the current growth patterns are not endless...and not without hidden costs  Some places are already embracing the concept of transit oriented development (TOD).  However, these concepts are implemented on relatively small projects generally, and regional enactment is the only way to really impact an area sufficiently to engage the mass transit aspect.


So, as all things are, highway expansion is a two edged sword.  While it does bring some immediate solutions...jobs and traffic improvements...the long-term affects are to continue a seemingly endless cycle.  Never quite solving the problem.  In the end though, it will eventually lead to the correct answer.  Building roads is not the way to solve the problem of suburban sprawl and traffic congestion.  The question is whether we will learn that lesson before it is finally forced upon us.

What is the New Suburbia going to be like?

"The only thing constant in life is change" - Francois de la Rochefoucauld

"Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so." - Douglas Adams

These two quotes sum up the basic challenge with making anything new happen.  People want life to go on around them just as it always has.  They don't like change...it's unsettling to say the very least.  However, change does happen...whether we want it to or not...and people will always fight it.  The fact is that the world around us changes constantly.  Needs change...what people want out of life changes...everything does.  So we can either work towards directing that change, or we can sit by and watch what happens.  There is no other choice.

 

Having grown up in Levitt-style home just outside the first suburban community of Levittown, NY, it seems appropriate to talk about the evolution of the suburbs.  Back after WWII, when Levitt built this first suburban community, life was much different than it is now.  People tended to get married younger than today and they looked towards starting a family earlier.  Gas was cheap and the means of transportation of choice was the car.  So it's not surprising that the first suburbs...and most of what came afterwards...were geared toward the single family home with commercial activities (as well as jobs) kept at a distance.

 

Today, gas is no longer cheap and concerns over the environment have made people more conscious of transportation choices.  Younger people, as well as recent retirees, are looking for a different lifestyle than the old suburban communities offer.  Terms like Transportation Oriented Development (TOD), Multi-Modal Facilities (MMF) and reverse commuting are now part of the conversation  Not to mention the Internet Age of working from home or virtually (no pun intended) from anywhere on Earth.

 

So this blog is about what the New Suburbia may look like, the developments in this national trend and in particular, the challenges we face in trying to bring these changes to the downtown, in my hometown of Hicksville, NY.  To create an environment that attracts both business and residents, provide a desirable area to keep our young people from leaving and also fight the general decay that has plagued our downtown in recent years.  The choices are many...the challenges are great...but the rewards of success and the penalty for failure are great as well.  We owe this to those who have built what has come before and we owe this to those who will inherit the future.  We must then be relentless in this pursuit!