Fundamental rule of traffic: building new roads makes people drive more (2015)

Re:Fundamental rule of traffic: building new roads makes peo... by belenos46 on Friday December 28, 2018 @03:58PM (#18779352)

Likely the latter, and for that we can largely thank large motorist groups in the US. Michelin comes to mind, as they created their "Michelin star" metric to give people a reason to drive places, and then lobbied like hell to create town/city layouts that mandated driving.

A hundred years later, driving is a massive part of US culture, and we have trouble seeing the problem because that's "just how things are".

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Re:Fundamental rule of traffic: building new roads makes peo... by twblalock on Saturday December 29, 2018 @01:47PM (#18785048)

This scheme would not have succeeded if people preferred public transit to driving.

Honestly it's not hard to see why it succeeded. Back in the early postwar period, driving was cheap and easy, parking was plentiful, traffic was light, and the new interstate highway system made long-distance car travel practical.

Even if the motorist groups had not lobbied for it, cars would have taken over anyway because people liked them so much.

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