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Comment by xyst | Hacker News Reader

It’s a shame this country is so obsessed with cars. There’s so much land yet we devote it to destroying lush ecosystems (that help reduce effects of Mother Nature) and replacing it with massive highway projects that end up costing everyone more in taxes/indefinite maintenance costs.

Then the effect is 10X’d when useless suburbs are built. More car dependence. More time spent on roads. Traffic slows to a halt as suburbs fill up. Geniuses at the state transportation department believe we should just widen the roads. But continue to ignore decades of “induced demand” evidence.

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The US Highway building industry is in many ways a form of a state run social system. First of all the road construction and maintenance uses a huge amount of tax dollars and redistributes it to lower class construction site and road maintenance workers and some engineering bureaus. Secondly it gives everybody equal (highway) transportation access by continuously expanding capacity on existing roads and building new highways to growing towns on the countryside. Poorer people need to buy or rent housing far away on the countryside and highways therefore democratizes their access to the urban centers with lots of jobs.

In the specific case of Texas there's also a toll road system, however this only covers a fraction of the highways in the state and the tolls themselves don't account for all the incurred costs.

Poor people should not have to buy a car as it is a massive drain on finances to keep it running. There are better solutions

Theoretically yes but a lot would need to change for that to happen in the US. In reality having a car and traveling lots of miles every day is the cheapest variant for most people.

> In reality having a car and traveling lots of miles every day is the cheapest variant for most people.

Realistically, it's the _only_ way to get around the US.

That's because the US is built that way. In turn because every city that's not New York has just expanded horizontally with hundreds of thousands of square kilometres of detached house-driveway-backyard-frontyard suburbia.

In most of the Old World, cities have existed for centuries—if not millennia—and were built for the human foot, not the car tyre. Hence most European and Asian city centres are dense, mostly walkable, and fairly small. From the 1800s onward as transport speeds have increased they've built dense mid-/high-rises in the suburban bits, and developed cheap, efficient, and highly-utilised bus and heavy rail public transport, both within and between cities.

Many such cities additionally have 'green belts' to prevent urban sprawl.

Actually I am misrepresenting the situation in the USA.

The US expanded with the railways, and many American cities were built along and at the end of railways.

But then in the 1950s, Americans collectively decided that public transport was useless and they bulldozed through their city centres, ripped up the trams and railways, and splatted veritable plates of highway spaghetti right through the middle of their cities (often through slums and ghettos mainly housing poorer people of African descent).

Most U.S. cities were located and built due to the geography of water, whether it is on the coasts or inland on lakes and rivers. The reason why the railways ended at the coastal cities is due to oceanic shipping.

> But then in the 1950s, Americans collectively decided that public transport was useless and they bulldozed through their city centres, ripped up the trams and railways, and splatted veritable plates of highway spaghetti right through the middle of their cities

The causality for this was mostly the other way around. There was a lot of empty land around the cities -- unlike most of Europe or Asia -- so once cars became available people started moving there because they could get more space for less money and still commute into the city by car for work.

The real problem is that the people who did this didn't want the city encroaching on their suburban space, but that space was directly next to the city. So they zoned it for single-family homes only and then the only way to add new housing is for the city to expand horizontally. Which needs more roads and parking and reduces use of mass transit which in turn gets discontinued.

What you need isn't mass transit, it's to allow condos and mixed-use zoning in what is currently the suburbs, to reconstitute enough density that mass transit can actually work.

Houston is actually a good example of this: the city has no zoning laws and so the workplaces are relatively evenly distributed across the metropolitan area. It may not be ideal, but you don’t really appreciate this aspect of the city as a visitor.

People in areas with no transit don't have to drive far.

Lots of people at my office do drive 40-50 miles each way, but it's not because they can't afford the houses that are 5 miles away (in perfectly pleasant neighborhoods, near the central area that most services in the region are located in).

And then the cheaper parts of towns aren't bad either.

People living in the outskirts of huge population centers are the ones driving far for economic reasons.

Can't this line of reasoning be applied to any transport infrastructure?

Vehicles built to handle 5-8 travellers, the majority of vehicles sold in the US, are more often than not carrying one driver and no passengers for significant numbers of trips breaks this line of reasoning.

Yes! and that's why public transport is so good. Because it's everything the comment said, but without the cost of buying, operating and maintaining a vehicle.

I'm not sure what you think the alternative is. The US is huge compared to any similarly developed country. Is the answer huge cities right next to thousands of square miles of untouched nature? That hasn't happened in any society on the planet.

It sounds like you just want everyone to live in a city and take public transit everywhere but cities are awful for your mental health[0] and most people in the US do not want to live in a major urban area. You can't have a huge geography and rural or suburban life without private vehicles.

[0] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7892359/

If people want to live in rural areas, that's fine by me. They don't particularly contribute to the problems with car-centric infrastructure in the US. The main complaints are how most cities in the US are designed in ways that are hostile to anybody who doesn't have a car, such as:

- making it difficult to get around safely by bike

- zoning restrictions that force development to be clumped in certain areas

- underdeveloped public transport with infrequent stops and limited range

- parking space requirements that limit development

- food deserts where people have to drive long distances to get groceries

There are many places in the world that have solved these problems. I don't get why it's so inconceivable to solve them in the US.

Japan is awesome like this, they have amazing highways and rail. Tokyo in my option is a bit too car friendly but it’s still very walkable and rideable.

Japan is an extremely small island. I don’t think a lot of their experience would apply to us. China may be a better example.

Extremely small island that stretches from New York to Atlanta..

Honshu is the 7th largest island in the world. It's area is a little more than 1/3 of texas.

The fact that it barely measures up to our second largest state would reinforce my point.

LA to San Fran could be doing a lot better is what you’re saying ?

If that system existed in America, what would it take to keep it as clean and as safe? (Edit: I visited Japan and loved the train system)

As someone who recently bought a house (and used to live in an apartment), those were some of the reasons why I opted out of apartment life. I would prefer to live in a denser urban area if other amenities and quality of life benefits came with it, but they don’t in my city. Even if you live close to the city core, there are either extremely limited or entirely nonexistent options for groceries, fitness and recreation, coffee shops, affordable eateries, non-alcohol entertainment and art, etc in most neighborhoods. You would still have to drive most of the time anyway. Most of the denser areas closer to downtown can also be quite dangerous for pedestrians after dark. The few places that have denser housing with those amenities within (safe) walking access are exorbitantly more expensive. Meanwhile apartment and townhome developments are now springing up everywhere in my area of town, but without any amenities to go with them, leading to even more vehicle congestion on the local streets as people try to escape the neighborhood and reach the highways.

The US being huge has no bearing on the requirement that I have to own a car to get to work every day, or to go to the grocery store, or to take kids to school. I live in a more suburban area than I used to and having to pilot a huge deadly vehicle everywhere is vastly more stressful than just walking to handle my groceries.

Note that the study you link to there is from 1994 and only controlled for the following criteria: sex, age, social class, marital status, unemployment, chronic illness and region of residence. Those aren't the things that put folks on edge about cities in 1994 or in the preceding years. 30 years on from 1994 and now in a different world, many of us are wondering why we're locked out of some of the benefits of a bit more density.

No ones saying we abandon all beyond our city walls to nature, instead they'll be farmland or productive rural activities like we already use them for. But we don't need every city of 500k people to mean that there's a 15 mile radius circle of strip malls in every direction.

>having to pilot a huge deadly vehicle everywhere is vastly more stressful than just walking to handle my groceries.

That's a nice luxury to have. I take it you're fortunate enough to live in a very temperate area with palatable weather year-round, rather than somewhere that gets 110° F in the summer, or ice storms in the winter?

Not everyone can afford to live on the beautiful, comfortable, and exorbitantly expensive cities along the west coast.

Have people not lived in those places in the past?

They have, but if you mean before the introduction of the automobile, it was in an era where nobody had to commute to get groceries because a majority of the population were subsistence farmers.

Do you know nothing about the history of the east coast? Do you ACTUALLY think everyone who lived there before 1900 was a subsistence farmer?

We have the choice of affordable, door-to-door air conditioning now, so why should we do without if we don’t have to?

> I take it you're fortunate enough to live in a very temperate area with palatable weather year-round, rather than somewhere that gets 110° F in the summer, or ice storms in the winter?

Okay, we don't get the 110°F in the summer here (only up to the 90's), but we do get the ice storms in the winter.

I still walk to get my groceries if I can, even if it's actively snowing. I just wish they'd plow the sidewalks here, I don't like having to choose between walking in the street or trying to walk on uncompacted snow in my boots while laden with groceries.

Every place I've ever lived has required property owners to clear and salt their sidewalks within 24 hours of the snow stopping, and any place that actually gets regular, measurable snowfall (northeast, northern midwest) is pretty good about citing those that don't.

Most Americans vote with their wallets and feet. They don't want dense apartment living and the majority run from it as soon as they can afford it.

It is usually possible to rent small apartments near work in most metro areas, but instead they prefer 3000sqft places to 600sqft and supermarkets to corner stores.

There is a huge amount that would have to change about the American dream and esthetic desires to enable car free European living.

Yes, this is why San Francisco, Boston and NYC have the cheapest rents in the US.

Sure, there's more demand than there is supply at the moment for sense urban areas. But in the end, most Americans don't choose to live in denser areas even if it's more affordable than NYC and SF.

I do agree we should build more density, but there is also still a large amount of convincing people to actually allow it and move there.

It's not like these zoning laws just appeared on their own one day. People vote for these things. People show up to city halls and fight densification. People fight against transit, they don't want those people coming in to their nice quiet neighborhoods and the undesirables in their apartments.

No, it is why 60% of Americans live in single family detached homes, not including the additional 10% who live in manufactured homes or single family attached. Not factoring in latent demand, or those who are in high-density living for reasons beyond their control, e.g. assisted living, college dorms, military, that should be excluded from the calculations.

San Francisco 2024 growth rate is minus 2.4 percent. NYC 2024 growth rate minus 2.0. Boston minus 1.0 percent. High rent is more likely the result of NYC, SF and Boston renters being on the bleeding edge of rent setting software. Lucky them.

I would think any one of NIMBY incumbents, rent control, and (CA-specific, obv) Prop 13/19 would individually do a lot more to artificially pump up rent prices than rent setting software.

Prop 13 drives down prices the same way mortgage interest drive down sales prices. low tax on homes purchased 30 years ago means higher taxes on new purchases.

New home buyers usually care about their monthly payment. high mortgage rates mean they can afford lower sales prices. High tax rates mean they can afford lower sales prices.

Wait until you see the rental prices for large 2000sqft single family homes within driving distance.

According to Zillow, the median rent (for all property types) is $3,300 is San Francisco, but it is $3,400 in the neighboring San Mateo county, so yes, SF is indeed cheaper ;)

The one thing you can count on based on decades of experience living with the anti car crowd is they are uniquely ill-equipped to change the hearts and minds of the average American. Their Modus Operandi is shrill hectoring about how the lifestyle of the average American is a “problem”, when the average American is either quite satisfied with their situation or actually aspire to the “problematic” low density lifestyle. When that argument fails, they devolve to an apocalyptic vision of social collapse unless their vision wins. Hearts and minds? Yeah, US in Afghanistan all over again…

Neither of these anti car strategies will ever gain traction with any but the youngest, most easily duped Americans, who are already stuck in high density housing for a combination of economic and career trajectory reasons. The approach America has taken for many decades with these young people is “they’ll outgrow it”. And they do, when children arrive and these young people, as their parents and grandparents before them, aspire to that “better family life” that low density housing affords.

I keep getting older and my desire to live with greater density grows stronger, not weaker. I've recently been able to buy a house, and I just wish I could have gotten one even closer to the city than I did.

This patronizing "they'll grow out of it" is a self fulfilling prophecy when suburbanism is the only option.

To give a concrete example of the apocalyptic talk you mention: We aren't going to be able to do this forever, there isn't enough land. Sure it worked for a couple dozen years while the USA built new highways and sold off it's now-close-enough-for-commuting land, but that time is running out. We can kick the can down the road, but the interest in what's borrowed will come due, though probably in a monetary collapse not a social one. After all, who doesn't want a private island all their own (if they can afford it, and it's maintenance)?

But let's say we can kick the can down the road forever, or functionally forever. Even in that world, for those of us that only want a 1500sq/ft house and a nearby corner store, can we please make that just a possibility? Like, legally? Similarly, can we get some legislative support for 3 or 4 bedroom apartments since as it stands they feel incredibly rare...

The suburbs have a lot of appeal, can we please also build other things at all, sometimes?

Americans complain about unaffordable housing, car prices, gas prices, and car insurance premiums. But very few connect the dots between zoning and our housing and transportation ills. If your state DOT spends 98% of their budget on car traffic and 2% on walking, biking, and non-single occupancy vehicles that's what you'll get.

You're not required anything. Nothing is stopping you from walking or riding a bike. You're making a choice of convenience. You're over privileged life has made you believe you need this "deadly vehicle". Go with out? like the 5billion other people that are, or continue to wine about your luxuries and not being able to get groceries 2 minutes faster.

How about this, instead of designing your consumer luxury life around needing to go to a store or restaurant 2-3 times a day... instead maybe shape your habits around not being a mindless consumer.

wahhh it really is awful I have to drive for 30 minutes 1x a month to get groceries.

Why did we build society at all if we should be always satisfied with the status quo standard of living

The US is large - but roughly 1 in 10 residents live around LA or NYC. As much as it is large, it is also non-uniform.

Love how you cite a study performed in the _UK_ in _1994_ as irrefutable evidence that cities are "awful" for your mental health. Yet more recent studies in the US indicate exactly the opposite.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34315817/ (2021)

It’s not about rural places. It’s about how cities are centered around car.

Cities in the us are basically highway with warehouse around it.

It’s hard to navigate without a car, and public transportation are a afterthought.

I love how you claim that there doesn’t exist, while at the same time mentioning a (very old) study that would imply an alternative exists so that such study can take place.

If you go to anywhere in Europe you will find plenty of places that prove the opposite.

>I'm not sure what you think the alternative is.

We could start by making people who choose rural or suburban life pay the costs of such a life rather than foisting them on everyone else. Roads should either be toll roads or entirely paid for by gas taxes and vehicle registration costs. Gas taxes should have to include the cost of removing the pollutants from the environment.

Setting aside the shocking myopia of this comment (it turns out most of your food that magically appears in grocery stores comes from those useless rural yokels that use these roads)

A major driver of the interstate highway project was military in consideration because of the importance of logistics in being able to move troops around the country.

> your food that magically appears in grocery stores comes from those useless rural yokels that use these roads

That's fine. Roll those costs into the price of food. That way, the amount of road tax you pay is proportional to how much goods and services you consume.

Meanwhile, the status quo is that everyone pays into the road system regardless of how much or little they use it - even if they don't own a car.

Roads have to get paid for no matter what. The only choice we have as a society is between taxing everyone versus taxing only the users.

> Roads have to get paid for no matter what. The only choice we have as a society is between taxing everyone versus taxing only the users.

Exactly right, but proving the opposite of what you request.

Once roads are built they're a sunk cost. Roads have to be resurfaced as a result weather damage regardless of how many people drive on them. Road capacity that exists and isn't used is lost. The incremental cost of an additional car driving down a road, the actual wear caused by the act, is trivial. Far less than the pro rata share of building or maintaining the road, or than existing gas tax, or the cost of even the collections infrastructure for road tolls. But the use has value to the driver and plausibly to others in society (e.g. their customers/employers/friends), so we don't want to discourage it unless its value is less than the incremental cost, since the cost of building the road and most of the maintenance is a sunk cost.

Which leads to the conclusion that the sunk cost of the road should be shared by everybody, since everybody benefits from having products delivered and emergency services even if they don't have a car.

Well now that you tell me the military industrial complex is behind it, I'm all for it!

Houston is currently planning its fifth loop. They already have four, and they need a fifth, which mean converting many more square miles of marshland into pavement. Meanwhile there are hundreds of square miles of abandoned real estate in the middle of the city. It's cheaper to just buy and build new than the tear down the old building first. And they can't figure out why each hurricane season is more destructive than the last .... huh. I grew up in Houston and I hated it. I refuse to even visit family there now.

I recently moved near the 4th loop and - it’s hard for me to imagine anyone crying for the land beyond it. There’s just nothing there. It’s like playing SimCity on an infinite flat map. I’d much rather they put another 2-5 million people here over the next few decades than try to sprawl out from Seattle or Boston or some of the other places I’ve lived.

Houston only has three loops: I-610 and Beltway 8, with State Highway 99 under construction. The latter 2 are both toll roads. (I guess the highways around downtown form a loop, but as a former resident of the city, I never heard anyone call that a loop - I-610 was always the inner loop.) If you’re going to shit on Houston, at least get the facts right.

Also, what’s wrong with beltways? The main flaw in the interstate highway system, from an urbanist perspective, has always been the highways cutting through the historic urban core, which tend to attract traffic just passing through. Houston has those too, but not really any worse than most American cities. Beltways are really great at diverting such traffic away from the urban core. Unfortunately, as cities expand, beltways tend to become part of the urban core, so farther out beltways need to be built to retain their advantages.

I see this "induced demand" critique a lot, and I am curious - if it's wrong, how is it different than adding housing to a region to make it cheaper?

You're right that it's not entirely different.

But I'll start with the simple version of the critique. Individual commuters make their decision about whether to make a trip based in part on the time that trip will take (a function of road congestion). Thus, adding road capacity will temporarily lower the cost of a trip, allowing more people to make it until congestion reaches the pre-expansion level. Housing does not have this problem because consumers make decisions about where to live much more infrequently.

As you can tell, "induced demand" is a bad if rather catchy name. To be fair to urban planners, the throughput of an expanded road does increase. However, the experience of using it stays the same or gets worse, and the cost (both $ and space) is disproportionate. Is the pro-transit argument, which I subscribe to.

Of course, the real world includes large real estate firms which are making frequent decisions on housing stock. So I agree that the build-more-housing-and-everything-will-improve crowd is wrong. But I don't think YIMBY/transit and anti-transit are the only choices. The former is a common archetype these days.

Oh The Urbanity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7FB_xI-U6w , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wlld3Z9wRc

I think the US kind of gets a pass for that. You guys have so much land to cover. No one's going to be surprised that US including Alaska and Nevada and all those deserts is technically 600x more sparsely populated than Singapore or 17x more than Germany, but I bet many do if they learn it has 10x more land per population than UAE, 4.5x over Ukraine, 4x over global average, and so on.

US forces had hard time moving about in Iraq due to its lower land use and actual US is 7.7x sparse-er. There's no way American car culture could just stop being car dependent. Abundant fast cars is potentially the only way it can work.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependen...

Most of the US is undeveloped in terms of highways and suburbs.

Whats the point of having all that room if you’re going to trap yourself in a small apartment tower?

There’s a critical mass of population density needed to support a vast diversity of specialty businesses. NYC, for example, has the second- or third-best examples of basically every country’s cuisine.

We prefer cars. It's fine.

Robert Caro's book The Power Broker details how Robert Moses hacked govt post WWII, so that urban areas unwittingly financed sprawl. So much so that when NYC nearly went bankrupt, the victim was blamed.

So thoroughly was the con job that just now some groups have started to question it. Orgs like Sightline, Stronger Towns, micromobility, renewed interest in mass transit, and so forth.

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