I could still be convinced that the sustainability or safety (from fewer blowouts) gains of these would outweigh that, but it's important to consider beings outside of the auto cabin.
It's only "blighted" because the people who self select to live beside a highway tend not to be the ones who care a ton about making their residence look nice from the street (manicured lawn, nice siding, sealed driveway, etc, etc) so the prices stay cheap, the rents stay low and the cycle continues.
Source: I live beside a highway
60 km/h traffic is 10 times louder than people having a conversation.
A more likely explanation is that living near a highway sucks. Very few people want to hear traffic noise from their back yard, let alone smell exhaust fumes while trying to grill outside. People who can afford to will pay a premium for a quiet and peaceful backyard, and houses with traffic noise close to them will command a lower price to compensate for the lowered quality of life. The fact that we see a similar effect near airport runways is a supporting data point.
I would in fact argue that you’ve got causation backwards. The curb appeal of houses near the highway is low because the home values are low. The people who live there are aware that nothing they can do will push the home value up because of the highway, or they lack the time and resources to focus on a manicured lawn.
Well you're in luck because if you re-read my comment without the intent of building a strawman you'll see that that's not my explanation. My explanation is more or less "selection bias" I tried to offer some examples as to the mechanisms of such selection but you read right past them.
>A more likely explanation is that living near a highway sucks.
I like it specifically because people "who are willing to pay a premium for a quiet and peaceful back yard" do not elect to live in places like this if they have the option of paying that premium. This means I am free to use power tools into the evening, the business across the street is free to use heavy equipment in the morning, my neighbors are free to play loud music, have barking dogs, yell at their kids, etc. etc. etc. Things like not having to be anal about cutting our grass and keeping our houses nice follow quite naturally from that. If you don't care about other people's business in a similar manner the cost savings from living in this environment are tempting.
>The fact that we see a similar effect near airport runways is a supporting data point.
Yes, people who care about noise avoid those too. What's your point.
>I would in fact argue that you’ve got causation backwards. The curb appeal of houses near the highway is low because the home values are low
Values are low because a subset of people don't want to live here. Selection bias applies to both groups increasing the disparity.
You are foolishly projecting your opinions onto everyone. Some people simply don't care about the noise. They cluster where it is noisy because why would they pay more to avoid something they don't place a high value on avoiding. Are these people a minority when you look at the population overall? Probably. Are these neighborhoods composed of many people who simply tolerate noise because they have no other rational option. You call this blight but I call this a reflection of our priorities.
[0]https://www.lung.org/clean-air/outdoors/who-is-at-risk/highw...
https://academic.oup.com/eurheartj/article/36/39/2653/239823...
or this
https://forcetechnology.com/en/articles/traffic-noise-danger...
200-500 annual Danish deaths related to road noise pollution. Thats more than the number of people killed in traffic yearly.
This paper should be helpful if you want to dig into the methodology one can use.
Ugh, handling == safety, my friend
[0] https://tweel.michelinman.com/light-construction-products.ht...
Various manufacturers have been teasing "airless" prototypes for highway use for a long time. I hope this one actually goes somewhere.