Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

In Colorado, an ambitious new highway policy is not building them

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 783 posts

Re: In Colorado, an ambitious new highway policy is not building them

#11

Post by theodorejb »

aqme28 wrote: post #3

> If every car on the road were battery-powered and those batteries were charged entirely by renewable energy, transportation emissions would be close to zero. This is entirely false. I'm surprised to see it in the NYTimes. They're only 0 when you factor out the cost of building the car and maintaining the highway, and those are still pretty high

Not to mention greater wear on the road and increased particle emissions from brakes and tires due to heavy batteries in EVs. https://nypost.com/2024/03/05/business/evs-release-more-toxi...

Re: In Colorado, an ambitious new highway policy is not building them

#12

Post by micromacrofoot »

ocschwar wrote: post #2

Massachusetts has not widened highways inside of 128 for 50 years now. And I am so grateful for that.

Boston has successfully moved one highway underground (the big dig) and shot down an extension of I-95 (there are parks and a train route where it was planned now). The city is much better for it.

Re: In Colorado, an ambitious new highway policy is not building them

#13

Post by toomuchtodo »

someguydave wrote: post #6

I am skeptical that all the tradeoffs are being considered here, it sounds like a recipe for permanent bad traffic justified with dubious moralizing. By the way, she is the daughter of Jack Lew who was President Obama’a Chief of Staff.

Bad traffic will expand to fill the road you give it (induced demand). You destroy demand instead.

https://www.wired.com/2014/06/wuwt-traffic-induced-demand/

https://www.nber.org/papers/w15376

Re: In Colorado, an ambitious new highway policy is not building them

#14

Post by [deleted] »

aqme28 wrote: post #3

> If every car on the road were battery-powered and those batteries were charged entirely by renewable energy, transportation emissions would be close to zero. This is entirely false. I'm surprised to see it in the NYTimes. They're only 0 when you factor out the cost of building the car and maintaining the highway, and those are still pretty high

[deleted]

Re: In Colorado, an ambitious new highway policy is not building them

#15

Post by infecto »

Sounds like the Bay Area. We don't like cars but we refuse to build comprehensive transit.

To build transit that works you cannot value everyone's opinion equally and have to just make it happen.

Some of the worst localized pollution I have experienced in my life was while living in the Bay Area with the massive traffic jams.

Re: In Colorado, an ambitious new highway policy is not building them

#16

Post by n8henrie »

wonder_er wrote: post #9
aqme28 wrote: post #3

> If every car on the road were battery-powered and those batteries were charged entirely by renewable energy, transportation emissions would be close to zero. This is entirely false. I'm surprised to see it in the NYTimes. They're only 0 when you factor out the cost of building the car and maintaining the highway, and those are still pretty high

also people who care about EVs tend to forget about tire wear and brake dust. Both are emitted in huge quantities, esp. tire microplastics, by EVs.

I thought brake dust would be drastically decreased due to regenerative braking?

Re: In Colorado, an ambitious new highway policy is not building them

#17

Post by duxup »

I'd rather see efforts to make mass transit more attractive and encourage its use in a POSITIVE way, rather than using a stick of clogging the roads and punishing people into using mass transit. Win the market, don't just quash what you don't like.

I can imagine this easily being responded to negatively in the end and the political response is to give in and the pendulum swings wildly in the other direction.

In the end these are policy decisions that can change and I can imagine this backfiring long term in some ways.

Re: In Colorado, an ambitious new highway policy is not building them

#18

Post by someguydave »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #13
someguydave wrote: post #6

I am skeptical that all the tradeoffs are being considered here, it sounds like a recipe for permanent bad traffic justified with dubious moralizing. By the way, she is the daughter of Jack Lew who was President Obama’a Chief of Staff.

Bad traffic will expand to fill the road you give it (induced demand). You destroy demand instead. https://www.wired.com/2014/06/wuwt-traffic-induced-demand/ https://www.nber.org/papers/w15376

You want to hurt people by costing their time in order to teach them to desire your morals?

Re: In Colorado, an ambitious new highway policy is not building them

#20

Post by dreadlordbone »

throwaway22032 wrote: post #5

"Induced demand" as a reason not to do something is illogical. The Green Revolution increasing crop yields induced demand for humans. Metro systems existing and building new lines induce demand, in some cases resulting in overcrowding. Building housing and offices induce demand in a location. There is nothing wrong with improving a thing so that more people are able to do that thing. I can understand concern about em…

cars bad
Post reply on HN