September 19, 2007
News flash: D.C. Traffic Sucks
As if we needed another study to tell us D.C. area traffic is awful and getting worse -- a report released yesterday has pushed us into a solid three-way tie for second place in the contest for the Worst Traffic in the Nation award.
So congrats, D.C. You are tied with drivers in Atlanta and the Bay Area as you burn time inching along I-395 in your car. Only Los Angeles can boast more congestion than this. And that's bad.
Do we get a trophy out the deal? Nope. Just 91 million gallons of fuel - or $1,094 per gridlocked driver – wasted while sitting in traffic, reports The Post. And of course, Ryan Avent has the explanation for why this is happening to us in the first place.
It's not just fuel and dollars going down the tubes as we listen to our radios while watching the bumper of the guy in front of us – we sit in traffic for an average of 60 hours a year, a solid two and a half weeks week and a half of time that could be used for other things, like vacations. Or preparing delicious and nutritious meals. Or knocking boots with a significant other.
The report contains very little good news on our traffic future. Many of the authors' suggestions for bettering the situation center around measures officials have already been put in motion, like pushing mass transit, building new roads and installing HOV and HOT lanes. Traffic, they predict, is likely to just keep getting worse.
Photo by picture prefect
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" 60 hours a year, a solid two and a half weeks...." In france, maybe.
Or preparing delicious and nutritious meals. Or knocking boots with a significant other.
Yeah. Like that's what we'd do with all that extra time. My Christy Canyon DVD collection and right hand says otherwise.
I had to take Ma Monkey to a 7am doc appointment, so I had to get up at 3:30 to pick her up on time. The roads empty, except for cops every few miles looking for speeders.
Think your commute sucks? Either live closer to work, take public transit, get up at an ungodly hour, or ess the eff up. What a buncha crybabies. Back in the day, daddy had to hitchhike 30 miles uphill both ways through snowdrifts wearing a bear trap on his ass and he was THANKFUL that he had that job in the rendering plant.
Now if you'll excuse me, I gotta bust off a couple knuckle babies.
"solid two and a half weeks" - - - did you mean DAYS?
yeah, i'm pretty sure it's days, not weeks.
some of the people who complain about long commutes need to accept that they are to blame, in part, for such long commutes, for choosing to buy a home far far far out of the city, to get more square footage, picket fence, etc. there is a trade-off, one of which is commute time/price of gas.
My traffic pet peeve: the dumbasses standing in the middle of the intersections at Farragut Square theoritically "directing traffic" but in reality just blowing their stupid little whistles and confusing both drivers and pedestrians. Downtown DC has enough incomprehensible traffic signs and lights without adding human speedbumps to the mix.
Not really strictly relevant perhaps, but they really piss me off.
Another major contributor to people wanting to live in the burbs: crappy public schools in the District.
Those traffic people are assholes.. they like to stop pedestrian traffic before the don't walk sign is blinking, so you'll have a perfectly normal walk sign and someone yelling/whistling at you to stop.. and for some reason, they sometimes don't let people make right turns from K st. service lane (going west) onto 17th (going north). Anyone know why?
How do studies that tell us obvious facts get funded? We all know that LA, SanFran & DC have bad traffic.
Shouldn't that money go toward curing cancer or something like that?
#6 those confusing human speedbumps are there to stop stupid effing drivers from tailgating their way into the intersection only to be stuck there while the light changes, blocking the traffic going the other way ("block the box"). They are completely necessary in some intersections because people cannot drive worth a shite.
Ok these numbers are off. 60hrs a year is nothing! With 261 work days in a work year (assuming you love your job) that’s only .23hr a day or 13.8 min or 7 min each way. Hell I am delayed on the metro longer than that waiting for train where I can fit at least one butt cheek in.
You know, DC has been getting recognized for crappy traffic for many years now, and I have never quite gotten it. Sure, commuting in from Germantown or Falls Church or whatever probably sucks. But at the same time, driving around downtown DC itself -- even during rush hour -- is never that bad. And, there are many alternate routes that you figure out after living here for a while.
To be sure, there are few roads worse than 395 and 66 in the country. But once in the city, traffic just ain't that bad compared to places like Boston, New York, Seattle (truly, one of the most underappreciated traffic nightmares in the country), and the winners mentioned above.
Either live closer to work, take public transit, get up at an ungodly hour, or ess the eff up.
I disagree about the public transit option-- in most situations it still beats out driving in terms of transit time. When I lived in Alexandria my rule of thumb was to take the amount of time it'd take to drive somwhere and multiply it by 3, and that gave a pretty accurate estimate of how long it would take by metro.
You're right though; there are enough options that very few people should be forced to have an awful commute. A lot of people I work with go in really early and that seems to work fine for them. Plus they get to leave at 3 pm. I just live really close to work.
to #7
Another major contributor to people wanting to live in the burbs: crappy public schools in the District.
...or, conversersely, great private schools in DC -- depends on your perspective
Crybabies. I wake up at 5AM everymorning and crank 7 miles on a rusty 10-speed I got on freecycle. Never a moment wasted in gridlock. Never a dime wasted on transportation. Spending more money won't solve your problems, only hard work.
People spend a fortune on McMansions and SUVs in the 'burbs and then they wine about the miles of gridlock they face getting to work. What idiots. Stop wasting my tax money on endless highway projects to nowhere.
All I can say, selfishly, is amen and thank you. The more the burbs ignore the gridlock they are creating, the more my house on the Hill is worth.
Jamie, I agree! Even so-called nightmares like 395 have never seemed that bad to me. Sure, 395 has a lot of traffic during rush hour, but that traffic is moving at a pretty steady pace. You don't have all that frustrating stop-and-go stuff. Only maybe 2 or 3 times a year is it truly horrid due to an accident or something.
I wake up at 5AM everymorning and crank 7 miles on a rusty 10-speed I got on freecycle. Never a moment wasted in gridlock. Never a dime wasted on transportation. Spending more money won't solve your problems, only hard work.
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Do you take two kids to different schools on your bike? No? Then you have a non-standard commute.
OF COURSE 25 yr olds can travel by bike, I never set foot in my car at that age either, but 10 years and two kids later I have no freaking choice because I go to too many locations in the AM. THAT IS THE ISSUE.
I can't imagine what brilliantly performing schools exist in the outer perriphery of Loudon, Frederick, or the like. Did these areas go from being farms 5-10 years ago to suddenly being magnets for brilliant educators? The only common denominators are their whiteness. I hate trumping with the race card, but there it is.
What? LA beats us? That's lame. We should be number 1 in all these things. Come on suburbanites, you can sit longer. We need to win this one! We can't let any city out on the left coast beat us at anything! We're the nation's capital after all.
Frederick has a large and historic black population.
There schools are also neglected due to segregation and all the parents I know send their kids to private schools. Frederick county schools are nothing.
"Do you take two kids to different schools on your bike? No? Then you have a non-standard commute."
This is why there is an obesity epidemic among children - parents feed them fast food while they belted into an SUV to drive their fat asses around the block. What's wrong with you people? I was riding my bike to school when I went to first grade, and it was no big deal. Kids can get to school all on their own if you let them.
"Standard Commute" is a term coined and repeated by neo-conservative writers in an attempt to mask the inefficiency of suburban sprawl development. Inefficiency creates a market for a products which would otherwise be too obviously a waste of money.
Oh and actually my neighbor takes his little toddler to daycare on a bicycle. What's so hard about that? In a lot of parts of Europe everyone takes babies around on bikes, and their roads are pretty much the same.
Well my commute sucks also, I spend 2.5 hours a day on I-66 driving from Adams Morgan to Chantilly and back. I could CHOOSE to live in Chantilly (never) or take a lower paying job in DC (never). The cost of gas and the commute time would have to increase significantly before I would choose either.
Why would you have to take your two kids to two different schools? Whatever happened to school buses? If you give your kids a ride to school, then I would say you have a "non-standard commute" whatever the f*ck that means.
Anonymous Idiot #22: Did you live, for example, in Columbia Heights and ride your bike to Brightwood ever day when you were in first grade? In rush hour traffic? If so, then I salute you for your survival, and your parents should be locked up for child abuse.
I am sure it is possible for some people to take their child (singular) to school on their bike, even in rain, snow, or 99 degree weather, and survive, and have their kid survive too. However, to say that it's reasonable for even a fraction of DC people to do that is just asinine.
It's amazing how tolerant car commuters in this area have become and equally amazing how intolerant the same car commuters are to let a single car merge in front of them. I'm lucky to bike to work and laugh at the chaos. Do you know how fun it is to watch drivers scream at each other about being cut off, race to the not stop light, only to sit next to each other? Might be the best free entertainment in DC.
I do hope businesses continue to run to the burbs to spread the mess out a bit more.
#23: Don't forget, your tax dollars made it possible to build the (inadequate) highway system that made your employer think that locating itself in Chantilly was a good idea.
I agree with Jamie-- #22 obviously doesn't have a kid, and I can think of plenty of reasons why parents would need to drive places most of the time. I'm not a parent, but I imagine if I was I wouldn't have the free time to be peddling a bike or taking public transit.
However, I do fail to understand why kids would need to be chauffered to school. Aren't there buses that do that? I live in DC and see them every morning on my street.
Having lived in LA, and having been driven out of LA partially by the nightmarish traffic, I can say that at least in the District itself, the traffic is nowhere near as bad. I mean, in LA, even taking surface streets, there was bumper to bumper traffic at 2pm on any given weekday. Whereas in DC, if I need to drive somewhere else in the city at 2pm on a weekday, I have no traffic problems unless there's construction or an accident.
The real traffic problem in this area seems only to be with the stupid suburban commuters. Yes, we need to make better school, better public transportation, more affordable housing in the District. But I don't feel any sympathy for the people who run away from the city to live in subdivision. They deserve to sit in traffic.
Whatever happened to school buses?
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The do not offer school buses at either of my kids' schools, there is no budget for them.
Most DC public schools do not have buses, you must be seeing private school buses.
And why do I send kids to different schools?
Different ages. Remember? You can't send a 3 yr old to first grade.
I am sure it is possible for some people to take their child (singular) to school on their bike, even in rain, snow, or 99 degree weather, and survive, and have their kid survive too. However, to say that it's reasonable for even a fraction of DC people to do that is just asinine.
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Thanks. I'm so tired of people who complain that I drive to work without understanding I start off with 4 people in my car and drop off three of them. I'm carpooling in a sense, so I don't feel guilty. I took the train and buses for years and years. It's my problem for being a leftwinger hanging out with leftwing friends, because conservatives would just say my car isn't big enough.
It's just kind of myopic for people to say "I'm one person biking one place in the morning and you can too" when I seriously miss being only responsible for getting myself to work on time. And all those suburban parents are doing the same thing we are.
And child protective services laws have changed since you were a kidand you can't just let an 8 yr old walk to school anymore. I don't mean that a paranoid Nancy Reagan wouldn't want to, I mean there are laws against it and the school will call you about it. I know parents whose kids were not dropped off at the bus stop because the parents weren't there to meet the bus at 3:30pm. Parents had to hop in the car and meet the bus back at school.
Some jurisdictions make it illegal for children to walk to school. Ironically, it's because so many parents drop their kids off via car, the accident rate has gone up. And then there's the whole child-kidnapper-in-the-bushes booger man we're all soiling ourselves in fear over. It also doesn't help that Ma and Pa Overperformer are micromanaging their kids lives with so many extracurricular activities, which necessitates a car to get from school to ballet to piano practice to soccer practice to taxidermy camp.
Also, because of school choice, parents are dumping their local underperforming school for higher performing ones further away.
"Yes, we need to make better school, better public transportation, more affordable housing in the District. But I don't feel any sympathy for the people who run away from the city to live in subdivision"
They didn't run away, they just got tired of waiting. And according to the statistics, 7min each way sounds like a fair trade off for better schools, less crime cheaper housing and applebees.
to add to post #11 about the numbers being off:
yeah a 40 minute commute (for me) each way = 80 minutes a day = 348 hours a year, not 60. give or take 30 hours for days taken off.
348 hours = 2 and a half weeks, so i think that's where the initial "typo" in this post came from. the typo was correct, two and a half weeks, it's the number of hours that is wrong. or the study.
I can't imagine what brilliantly performing schools exist in the outer perriphery of Loudon, Frederick, or the like. Did these areas go from being farms 5-10 years ago to suddenly being magnets for brilliant educators? The only common denominators are their whiteness. I hate trumping with the race card, but there it is.
Its not race. Its about things like new buildings with fully stocked classrooms, higher teacher salaries and better teachers, and near 100% parental involvement. Go to a "back to school night" in Loudon and see how many parents, even with a long commute, fail to show up? You can count them on one hand. Then count how many care enough to show up at a DC public school.
Its not race, its about giving your children a quality education and that simply can not be done within the DC Public School system. I have said it before and I will say it again. Sending a child to a DC Public school is akin to child abuse. It is that bad. Every single parent who sends their kids to DC public schools would, if they could, send their kids somewhere else.
You can't say that about many suburban districts.
I know dozens of people that live in DC and have total door to door commutes of 40 minutes (how about Cathedral Heights to Capitol Hill for example). If I had to spend 40 minutes getting to work, I would much rather spend it in my own car, with my own climate control and music selection, than squeezed into a Metro train or bus.
"I agree with Jamie-- #22 obviously doesn't have a kid, and I can think of plenty of reasons why parents would need to drive places most of the time. I'm not a parent, but I imagine if I was I wouldn't have the free time to be peddling a bike or taking public transit. "
I do have kids and they bike to school. Why would I move the family somewhere so isolated that they wouldn't be able to get themselves to school? No sense in doing that unless you want to be a farmer and home-school them.
"Did you live, for example, in Columbia Heights and ride your bike to Brightwood ever day when you were in first grade? In rush hour traffic? If so, then I salute you for your survival, and your parents should be locked up for child abuse."
That's 2.6 miles and flat - with multiple bike-lane options to choose from. It's a popular area for cycling. Any kid could make that trip. Are you kidding me? You are kidding right? My grandmother bikes farther than that to her job at the library, and she's over 70 ....
When I was a kid I did twice that distance over lots of hills all through grade school and beyond, with three of my friends, and it was no big deal. We used to race to get there. I can't imagine having to deal with such overprotective parents - I'd probably be on drugs now or hugely overweight. How depressing!
#24: "Why would you have to take your two kids to two different schools? Whatever happened to school buses?"
Umm... they are different ages? You couldn't get them into the same schools? Use your imagination.
School buses: You forget that DC now (idiotically) has about 87 charter schools. People are bringing their kids to schools that have nothing to do with where they live. There are surely no school bus routes to serve the majority of these. Even with regular public schools, schools serve pretty big areas. A bus isn't going to be able to serve everyone.
Unless you want your 7 year old walking himself through the 'hood where most of DC lives, and waiting at a shady bus stop, which based on some comments here might not even be legal, bringing your kid to school is a fact of life. Get over it, hippies. This isn't Kansas.
I think today's Ed Begley Jr. award goes to Anonymous Idiot 15/22/37.
"When I was a kid I did twice that distance over lots of hills all through grade school and beyond, with three of my friends, and it was no big deal. We used to race to get there. I can't imagine having to deal with such overprotective parents - I'd probably be on drugs now or hugely overweight. How depressing!"
For the love of Pete. Has it really come to this? "When ahhh was a boy, ahhh used to walk to school five miles... each way.. through snow... uphill... both ways!! You yung'uns these days got no sense ah' self respect. Goddamn nanny gub'mit..
Dude. Seven year old. Rush hour traffic. On a bike. In the HOOD, where white adults on bikes get rocks thrown at them, and I can only imagine what happens to white 7 year olds on bikes.
Seriously?
You obviously do NOT live in the city.
"I know dozens of people that live in DC and have total door to door commutes of 40 minutes (how about Cathedral Heights to Capitol Hill for example). If I had to spend 40 minutes getting to work, I would much rather spend it in my own car"
My Fiance goes from Cathedral Heights to Capitol Hill every workday by bike - it's all down-hill, so she makes it in UNDER 5 MINUTES. The trip back by bike averages 25 minutes, uphill. Every single person in her office bikes in (16 people). The building owners are totally Irate about all the bikes, and refuse to provide bike parking on the premises, despite that the law requires it now. It's just so much more convenient to bike it - driving would be a major hassle, not to mention parking. I don't know why people do that to themselves. And the METRO, I just don't have that much time on my hands.
Then count how many care enough to show up at a DC public school.
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Uhhh... At my son's elementary school there was 100% parental show-uppedness at back to school night. I certainly didn't have a place to sit in the auditorium for the principal's speech.
Remember the crack was is over. that kind of thing you describe happened many years ago.
"Dude. Seven year old. Rush hour traffic. On a bike. In the HOOD, where white adults on bikes get rocks thrown at them, and I can only imagine what happens to white 7 year olds on bikes."
I have always lived in the city, and nobody's ever thrown anything at me while I was biking. It helps if you don't ride/drive like a ass. I grew up in the Baltimore "hood" as well as the DC "hood". And guess what rush-hour is only obstacle for cars, not bikes. If you treat kids like they are helpless than that's the way they will act. If you treat them like adults than that's the way they will act. Over-protectiveness is a disease on American Culture.
"When I lived in Alexandria my rule of thumb was to take the amount of time it'd take to drive somwhere and multiply it by 3, and that gave a pretty accurate estimate of how long it would take by metro."
I think you're using it wrong. Unless by "metro" you mean "bus ride with multiple transfers."
Guest 41 -- Google maps puts the Capitol 6.1 miles from the Cathedral. So, it is impossible to get from Cathedral Heights to Capitol Hill on a bike in 5 minutes unless you are doing 73+ MPH, which is impossible on any bike unless there is a rocket strapped to the frame.
Seriously, you are either a major bs-artist, or completely clueless. Go away.
guest 41:
Its five miles from the catheral to the capitol.
to get there in 5 minutes you would be traveling at 60 miles per hour.
on a bicycle.
well i commute from new york city to capitol hill on my skateboard.
Only takes about 45 minutes.
i rule.
It must be nice living in Palisades. Since it never happened to you, obviously it couldn't happen. And certainly not to a child... but of course, if it did, then I suppose it would be their fault, since 7 year old should know better than to bike like an ass.
Since this seems to be such a surprise to you, which seems odd for someone who seems so plugged in to biking in DC, I suggest a little research before you send your 7 year old out on a five mile bike ride through the city every day:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=rock+throwing+dc&btnG=Search
Yes, there is crime in DC...
The multiply by 3 rule sounds about right. From Clarendon to my job in DC it takes 20 minutes to drive, and an hour by metro.
This is accounting for a 10 minute walk to the metro station, and I have to switch lines, but once I get off the metro my building is right there.
I take the metro occasionally when I have a good book I want to read, but it does cost a lot more in time and money.
how DOES one "bike like an ass?" ring your bell loudly while doing wheelies?
People, seriously, it's against the law for a 7 yr old to be out biking away from their house in DC alone, ok? They will get picked up by the police and brought back to the station. This isn't 1991, it's 2007 and the laws on child neglect and child endangerment have changed.
I can't find the statute, but it's basically at:
http://cfsa.dc.gov/cfsa/cwp/view,a,3,q,520705.asp#n
and it's called "lack of appropriate supervision" under "Child Neglect" and every year our pediatrician tells us what the laws are, so anyone saying a 7 year old can bike in DC is not the parent of a 7 year old in DC.
To Guest #48:
Where in the world is your job? I used to metro from Court House to Bethesda and it would take me no more than an hour each way and I had 5-10 min walk from each metro.
Do you people even use a watch?
It probably costs you $2 each way to metro in/out of DC. Where do you park that's less than $4 per day? Also, you use gas to drive in/out of the city.
This has gotten way off track, as usual. The issue of development and transit, city vs. suburb has got to be addressed in a constructive/positive way.
The problem is that people want everyone to live just like them, and that's impossible. What the focus should be on is giving people the option to live how they want to live. That just isn't happening right now.
Some people think that the free market should (does) work, and people want the suburban ideal. That's false; however, as counties around DC only issue a certain number of residential building permits per year, yet increase the commercial/industrial building (employment) footprint as much as possible. This does a few of things: 1.) it creates a government-endorsed real-estate bubble; 2.) it substantially increases traffic problems, because you can't work near where you live if you want to (see #1); and 3.) it allows local governments to pass off the costs of public schools to the next-further out suburb.
As long as our land-use laws only offer one option - the half-acre of land, in a development with one vehicular entry and exit point, that in-turn gives people access to one main traffic artery, then yeah, we're going to continue to have huge transit issues. However, if we change how we fund schools, zoning for single family homes, and create blocks, then maybe we'll have better, more livable areas for everyone. OK, now flame away...
to #42
Had the same thought, but didn't want to feed the trolls. There are some horribly misguided generalizations and stereotypes about many DC public services, even schools.
Hillrat:
I must agree with your bestowing of the Ed Begley Jr award.
I find the You Must Bike No Matter What Crowd to be sortof funny, in a sad way.
Biking just is not a realistic primary means of transport for most families. It's great that it works out for some, but it doesn't for many.
I work not too far from the Capitol on the green line and I do have a watch. Trust me, it does take that long. I don't think anyone taking the metro and trying to make it to work on time is oblivious to how long it takes, as you suggest.
And I've already done the math on cost. Parking is free where I work and even if I assume that every drop of gas I use per week is going towards my commute, I'm still saving about $7 a week. It may sound silly to care about $7 but that does add up. If you're factoring in car insurance then it's more expensive to have a car and drive, but if I'm going to have a car anyway it makes more sense to drive to work.
"Its five miles from the catheral to the capitol.
to get there in 5 minutes you would be traveling at 60 miles per hour.
on a bicycle."
Like I pointed out, it's down-hill that direction. You don't need an engine to go 60mph+ when it's all down-hill. There's no speedometer on my bike - just got my watch, okay? Also, cyclists don't usually wait around behind the traffic jams and light signals in DC, do they? Put that all together and bikes top cars for average trip speed downtown - without even considering the time savings on parking, even without jumping any lights.
"I find the You Must Bike No Matter What Crowd to be sortof funny, in a sad way...It's great that it works out for some, but it doesn't for many."
I find the Fat, Lazy, Drive No Matter What Crowd to be Fat and Lazy, in a sad way. My guess is that even if you could bike your lazy ass wouldn't.
Don't lie. You wouldn't.
I find the Fat, Lazy, Drive No Matter What Crowd to be Fat and Lazy, in a sad way. My guess is that even if you could bike your lazy ass wouldn't.
Don't lie. You wouldn't.
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My whole rant about taking my kids to school is because the bicyclist crowd is so ugly about my family's requirements.
And then they go and write something like this.
I'm hoping this was someone mocking the biker thing, but perhaps it was meant in earnest.
"it's against the law for a 7 yr old to be out biking away from their house in DC alone, ok?"
The auto industry spends 24 Billion dollars a year in the USA alone playing on your fear of the road, safety issues, inadequacy, etc. to get you to buy cars and drive everywhere. Driving your whole family around is even better. That's 4 billion more than they spend on the rest of the world put together. That's how much it costs to get Americans to think the way they do now. Persuasion by fear. Overprotection of children - a great way to sell SUVs. Ever seen a TV add for a bicycle? No. A TV add for kids riding bikes? No! There aren't any, and that't no accident - it's message control. There's a lot of money to be lost if people can't be persuaded this way - the weath of the Top 1% of the population, who control 1/3 of all wealth. The legislature has been bought out on this issue long ago. They lobbying is intense. TV media get's 1/5 of it's bottom line from car adds. Newspapers are asked to change their op-eds to be pro-car 90% of the time.
In parts of western Europe, most kids are good cyclists by the age of Five. It's easy. Anyway, how do you know if the kid on the sidewalk is Seven, not Eight? It's not like he has photo ID. Kids always lie. A kid might get cited for not wearing a helmet if there's a helmet program going on, that's about it. They don't go around looking for underage cyclists. DC police pay almost no attention to cyclists whatsoever - even the crazy ones. Anyway the fine for that would be less than the cost of all the gas & time you'd spend driving them.
A passenger is several times more likely to be killed or injured in a car than on a bicycle, per mile traveled - there's more accidents. Cycling is about as deadly than eating the occasional Hamburger, or hot-dog, for comparison - the danger of bad meat is on-par with cycling for participation fatalities. Also, an occupant of an SUV, impacted by a car, has the same survivability as a cyclist hit by a car. Same odds - from the goverment's own police statistics. Don't count on getting that message on TV. They don't want you to know - it's not very profitable. Automobile safety, and the dangers of cycling on the road, are illusions that been drilled into you by the best and brightest psychology tactics that money can buy.
@58: You're really bringing me down with all that 'crazy talk.' Besides, the answer has already been offered. In the immortal words of KG & JB:
"The second decree: no more pollution, no more car exhaust, or ocean dumpage. From now on, we will travel in tubes!"
"Biking just is not a realistic primary means of transport for most families. It's great that it works out for some, but it doesn't for many."
Tell that to the Dutch. It has nothing to do with technology, or the needs of families. It has everthing to do with the the monopoly that big oil has over domestic industry, media, and politics. Take a look at what the world looks like when goverment takes a different set of priorities...
http://www.ski-epic.com/amsterdam_bicycles/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_in_Amsterdam
http://clevercycles.com/blog/clever_in_europe/clever_in_europe.html
Every dollar you spend is a vote. You can vote to keep things the way they are, or you can vote for something that doesn't perpetuate the oil lobby's stranglehold on transportation. Every citizen is a stakeholder. Goverment represents the public's opinion. Industry will bow to consumer demand. Opinions can change with time. Oil won't last forever. How much damage must happen before public opinion changes?
Tell that to the Dutch.
Let me guess, you went to Amsterdam once and saw a lot of people on bikes and are now an expert on the transportation networks of every country in the world.
Funny, when I went to Holland I saw a lot of bikes, and then I also sat in several massive traffic jams and met with several groups of clients who all drove to work, complained about traffic, and probably hadn't ridden bikes since their teens.
Comparing Holland to Amsterdam is like comparing New York State to New York City. Slight difference, yeah? There are ill-advised attempts at 'burbs in Holland, yes. Amsterdam, and a number of other Dutch towns, continue to be a success story. Unlike the Americans, the Dutch actually reflected on said problems in their development policy, and refocused on bicycle-centric development and policy as a solution to emerging problems.
great, the Dutch like bicycles. the Chinese like rice noodles too and the Russians love beets.
I have good friends who are Danish. They were initially amazed that the US doesn't have a good train system, but now just say, "In the US you don't like trains- you're cowboys who never want to give up your horses."
Inidividual transportation has been part of the American transportation ideal since way before Oil was discovered in Pennsylvania.
To try to compare the USA vs Amsterdam as if it was a matter of GOVERNMENT priorities is LUDICROUS!
I'll phrase it in a way everyone understands, George Bush made it his priority to enforce his Rightwing Christian values on this country via faith-based initiatives and other ideas.
Did you automatically change your beliefs to match those being suggested by the government and industry or did you buck the system and reject Bush's ideas?
Therefore why do you think that the Dutch are influenced by their government to think like that? Were you influenced by Bush? It's just that simple- the Dutch like bikes and mayonnaise on french fries. We like cars and cowboys.
It's interesting that New York City, among our largest cities, is nowhere on that list. Neither is Chicago. All the cities on the list are sprawl cities -- something that the greater DC area, due to exceptionally bad planning, turned into even though it could have been avoided.
Speaking of bikes, the Netherlands is starting setting up automated bike dispensers. They're basically like Zipcar, except for bikes: pay a subscription, punch in a PIN, and a bike pops out. If they could get the vandalism thing under control, these would kick ass near downtown Metro stops.
It's interesting that New York City, among our largest cities, is nowhere on that list. Neither is Chicago. All the cities on the list are sprawl cities -- something that the greater DC area, due to exceptionally bad planning, turned into even though it could have been avoided.
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ugh.
read your history books.
"It's five miles from the Catheral to the Capitol. To get there in 5 minutes you would be traveling at 60 miles per hour on a bicycle."
Like I pointed out, it's down-hill that direction. You don't need an engine to go 60mph+ when it's all down-hill.
Ah, I knew there was a reason I read DCist: "I ride my bicycle from the Cathedral to the Captiol every morning. And I *average* 60 miles per hour! It's downhill, you see! Whee!!!"
This could be the most un- self-consciously irrational couplet of sentences I have ever read. You must provide hours of entertainment at parties. Kudos!