> Even if it takes me 4x as long to get to my destination, driving is still better than this.
I don't believe this as a real rule. 10min vs 40min, maybe. 1h commute vs 4h commute? I don't believe that you would prefer spending 8h per day in a car.
> The parent poster made an interesting point that resonates a lot with me. Better public transportation will get people off the roads which will make quality of life better for drivers.
The youtuber NotJustBikes keep saying that "the only thing that can improve traffic is viable alternatives to driving".
I just wish that driving wasn't the most taxpayer subsidized personal choice in history, and that drivers would actually need to pay for the externality costs they incur, instead of being leaches on society.
>I just wish that driving wasn't the most taxpayer subsidized personal choice in history
Get the government out of the road planning/building business and let the chips fall as they may.
There are two big problems with this though.
First is demographics. Of all the people who currently say they want this "enough to be a problem" will immediately do an about face the first time they catch wind of a news story where some bigCo buys the land and puts a toll road through somewhere they don't want it or some inner-ring suburb of the kind they sympathize with the residents of losing out in gets absolutely screwed by some regional infrastructure conglomeration routes around them for not playing ball.
Second is entrenched interests. Government road management is mostly a result of coincidence. Society was building paved roads for cars at the same time that the modern high touch administrative state was on the up and up so of course the state claimed that as one of the things it administered. Had the 20th century administrative state come 50yr later modern roads may very well have ben built out privately like railroads were. It would be a huge fight to get the government's dick out of it because of all the economic and political interests that are inter-twined with the status quo.