Originally Posted by John Forester

Sixty Fiver's message is full of the typical misconceptions. First, that of induced traffic. This says that building roads generates more traffic to fill them, which leads to congestion. The point is that in many places the road system does not provide as much transportation as people need; the people are deprived of transportation that they could use to better their life. When road capacity increases, that previously unmet need gets satisfied. Just building roads does not generate their use; there are plenty of roads in the USA that are not used to capacity. Roads are used to capacity only when the need to use them exceeds their capacity. Since using those new roads provides for transportation that people use to better their lives, increasing road capacity to satisfy that need for transportation is a good thing.

Sixty Fiver asserts that in the Netherlands the car was king until the middle of the 20th century, and their roads were not much different from those in North America or other cities in Europe. As for similar roads, compare the pictures of Amsterdam's roads, even now, but better then. Like nothing in even Boston, the most European of American cities. As for the car being king until 1950 or thereabouts, up to that time the car was not king at all; the Netherlands had suffered relative poverty, first from the burden of the East Indian empire, and then from the German invasion and all the consequences of that. The moving picture shown in these discussions of Amsterdam traffic in 1937 show that cars were certainly not the kings of transportation, but were just one part of the rather slow traffic mix. It was only when prosperity entered, about 1960, that mass motoring could be afforded.

Whether or not the American urban pattern is not sustainable is a rather open question. Whether or not it puts a great burden on the center cities is also an open question, but with rather more data to support the idea that that burden is not greater than the benefits to the center cities. Of course, all of this argument is clouded by the efforts of the center-city landholders to get greater density to raise the rents that they can charge (that's why the French rentier is a dirty word).

Sixty Fiver also asserts that "when people's vehicular commutes start to become onerous it is a clear sign of poor planning." Really? One of the nation's worst vehicular commutes is that to Manhattan NYC. Is that a sign of poor planning, or is it a sign of planning that has concentrated so many extremely profitable activities in that area that people are desperate, despite the difficulties, of going to work in that area? Without that enormous economic incentive, Manhattan NYC would not have transportation difficulties, but the office buildings would be empty and their owners bankrupt.