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

511–520 of 783 posts

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

#511

Post by kortilla »

em-bee wrote: post #225
SSJPython wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You live in a country with the wrong type of political system for that. Valuing everyone's opinion equally is called democracy. Infrastructure should not be subject to peoples' opinions. Like utilities and defense, infrastructure is crucial for security and commerce. People simply don't know better.

but there is a solution to this problem: education. and i don't mean propaganda, but teaching people not to be selfish, to care for others and consider others needs, to contribute to the betterment of society. to have compassion, remove prejudice, etc. if these values were taught in schools, then the next generation would make better choices and they would know better and vote for better infrastructure.

The vision for what society should be is absolutely not consistent across political and religious spectrums.

People vote completely the opposite on things like nuclear energy, wind energy, defense spending, etc all while thinking they are bettering society.

Getting everyone consistent on those requires full on propaganda and forced “re-education” whenever people critically examine things.

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

#512

Post by tonynator »

prmoustache wrote: post #238
throwaway22032 wrote: post #90

As someone who loves trains and buses and planes, I wish that people who pushed public transport would actually engage with the reasons why people don't want to use it rather than just making alternatives worse. There are three main issues that need to be solved for even me, a train lover, to prioritise using them. 1) Undesirables need to be removed. I don't want to deal with beggars or other general hoodlums. Transp…

Aren't your "indesirables" waiting at the traffic light as well in your part of the world?

[flagged]

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

#513

Post by nerb »

tonynator wrote: post #500
nox101 wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you don’t. plain and simple. Tons of people living together share the costs. the few in the suburbs need to pay for their own infra. They’re not now. The cities are subsidizing the suburbs. that’s not fair. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI

[flagged]

dude... where do the imports of petroleum and fixed nitrogen which are critical for Ag come from? hint: look at the US ports and see what surrounds them.

farming and suburbia are subsidized out the wazoo. and a lot of Ag doesn't go to feed people... you're bark is much, much worst than your bite.

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

#514

Post by tonynator »

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

[flagged]

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

#515

Post by tonynator »

ElevenLathe wrote: post #59
fastball wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What science is being ignored? Traffic expanding to fill capacity is not a bad thing, that is efficient use of capacity?

Fossil energy is artificially cheap (the price its consumers pay does not even begin to pay for the negative externalities of producing and burning it -- and most of it goes into private hands that don't intend to use it for any kind of mitigation anyway). This causes all kinds of problems, has all kinds of causes, and is generally a disaster all around, but at the very least we shouldn't deliberately make it worse b…

[flagged]

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

#516

Post by tonynator »

walthamstow wrote: post #101
rufus_foreman wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The induced demand argument is sort of crazy. It is saying you shouldn't build something because if you do, it will be extremely popular and widely used. We shouldn't build libraries - if we do, people will want to check out books. Instead, let's penalize people who read books. That will destroy the demand for books. Problem solved.

You are comparing the externalities of car driving to that of libraries

[flagged]

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

#518

Post by tonynator »

nerb wrote: post #513
tonynator wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

dude... where do the imports of petroleum and fixed nitrogen which are critical for Ag come from? hint: look at the US ports and see what surrounds them. farming and suburbia are subsidized out the wazoo. and a lot of Ag doesn't go to feed people... you're bark is much, much worst than your bite.

[flagged]

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

#519

Post by Gibbon1 »

infecto wrote: post #123
SSJPython wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You live in a country with the wrong type of political system for that. Valuing everyone's opinion equally is called democracy. Infrastructure should not be subject to peoples' opinions. Like utilities and defense, infrastructure is crucial for security and commerce. People simply don't know better.

Totally agree on this one. I am a free market proponent but when it comes to infrastructure projects, often its hard for even the free market to get it right and its often better for a central plan to work off of (roads, electrical transmission lines, etc)

Mine is we need to stop pandering to weirdos when it comes to public infrastructure projects. There is a political process for approving them. And we shouldn't let weirdos get endless do overs in the courts when they lose.

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

#520

Post by cscurmudgeon »

TheCleric wrote: post #313
Gibbon1 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When it comes to transit I think the lol make driving sucky so people will support mass transit is inane because of the backlash potential. Much better to get ahead of the hose than always be trying to grab it's ass. You're not going to get boomers and GenX to take the bus. You probably could get younger generations to do that especially if there are options. Really there should be a high speed rail along the front r…

When I lived in Denver this GenXer gladly transitioned to light rail as it freed up an hour a day that I would have spent concentrating on driving on more relaxing things like reading. I miss it.

Respectfully, you should be arguing for more density so you don't even have to travel by rail that much.

But any density is opposed strangely by the anti-car crowd due to (e.g., see SF local politics).

1. "It will ruin the character of our precious million year old city"

2. "Building more housing will magically cause existing people to move out the city"

3. "Developers will get rich. Can't ever let that happen. They should be in perpetual misery."

If someone is advocating for anti-car policies but neutral or against density, they are holding inconsistent views.

Post reply on HN