Daily Exasperation #4
Everything in transportation is counterintuitive. You're not welcome.
Ian Duncan is one of our sharpest transportation reporters and he’s honed in on the exact issue that many of us have been worried about since the BIL’s passage—and really most of the historic transportation spending enabling legislation that devolves decision-making to the states and lower—in 2022. If you give an inch, many will take a mile. It’s happened. Lots of dollars meant to stem the climate catastrophe have been siphoned off to stem the other crisis—crumbling infrastructure.
It’s frustrating because again transportation is counterintuitive. More investment was supposed to fix this problem—what problem? The problem was never we don’t have enough money! We’re the richest country in the history of the world. The problem is what we think we know the opposite is often true. The flexibility we were promised immediately just…sank to the simple center. It’s part of a larger problem that includes:
Costing issues, even though we should be able to exert influence via volume and power. It costs way, way, way too much to build infrastructure, especially rail, here.
A distracted public. It seems obvious that more lanes should “fix” traffic. It’s not and it’s so hard to make a nuanced argument when the obvious answer is just there. Ask yourself: why is congestion bad? OR! Why is congestion good?
Just some food for thought on a Monday. Here’s a song I like for fun.