[Rick TYler]

Originally Posted by artdutra04

We should only be spending money on maintaining the system, as every highway widening project I've seen has only cost the taxpayers much over original estimates, snarled traffic for years during construction, and yet we still end up with traffic jams as bad as before. How many years are we going to continue this inane cycle before we realize that we aren't ever getting the results we want?

Cite? When CalTrans widened the Santa Freeway through Orange County from six lanes to twelve and improved several interchanges, there is no doubt that congestion and average trip times were both reduced. The problem with road and highway projects is that they are usually done too late, and upgrade an underbuilt road to another underbuilt road. Tacking rail transit onto an urban area that grew up around a road grid is a fool's task. Urban rail only works well where the urban area grew up around that rail system, not the other way around. How would you do urban rail in a place like King County, Washington, or Denver, Colorado? Unlike Chicago or New York (both of which grew up around rail) people do not live in one spot and work in another. Areas like LA/Orange County in California have residences and work locations spread around a vast area -- it's hard to link the residential areas with inner-city factories and offices when they are spread fairly evenly.

Anyway, there is no magic bullet. No one transportation scheme is going to fit every urban area.