Re:Pedestrian deaths spike in U.S. as reckless driving surges
by efitz on Monday February 14, 2022 @12:44PM
(#30335168)
A lot of the replies to my comment about sustainability of sidewalks have been either “bullshit, just look at the roads” or “we did this to ourselves”.
I am not making a judgement about the desirability of sidewalks. Indeed I said that more would be nice.
To the latter criticism, I say, yes, we did, but it doesn’t change where we are.
To the former, I say that government monopoly on infrastructure (which means that taxes pay maintenance) combined with sprawl have led us in the US to a place where literally in many places the money does not exist to maintain the infrastructure that was already built, much less build new infrastructure.
I am not making a judgement about the desirability of sidewalks. Indeed I said that more would be nice.
To the latter criticism, I say, yes, we did, but it doesn’t change where we are.
To the former, I say that government monopoly on infrastructure (which means that taxes pay maintenance) combined with sprawl have led us in the US to a place where literally in many places the money does not exist to maintain the infrastructure that was already built, much less build new infrastructure.
There are lots of essays on this; here’s one: https://fee.org/articles/the-unbearable-truth-about-infrastr...