alt Hacker NewsAsking to see a realistic roadmap and timeline is being a realist, not a defeatist. If Amsterdam started in the 1970s, that’s fifty years ago. Maybe we can make progress by the 2060s-2070s? Or we can just wait for China to manufacture all the EVs the world needs. Which is more likely to occur first?
Consider the US has $40T in debt and no will to raise taxes at this time, and therefore no will to spend on public infrastructure projects. Where will the capital come from?
How and when will we start? How many elections need to occur to appropriate funding? How much of the US electorate has to turn over for the right people to be elected to appropriate funding? Until shovels are in the ground, it’s vaporware and dreams.
It doesn’t have to be a massive nationwide project on par with the national highway project. It can start with local communities.
The mayor of Carmel, IN thought traffic circles were better than intersections and wanted more mixed use development. They have that now, nearly every intersection in the city has been replaced over time as they were due for routine work.
In Detroit they are in the process of building out a 29 mile greenway around the city.
These city level projects are a lot more important than the national ones, when it comes to reducing car traffic in cities and having an impact on people’s most frequent trips.
Seeing this at a local level could inspire more rail connections between cities, which could also come from the private sector. We have already seen a couple examples of this.
For anything funded by the federal government, you’re right. They have a huge mess on their hands, and need to get serious about cleaning it up. They have no business kicking of any major public works projects until that happens (though that has never stopped them in the past). But at a local level, things can still move forward and we are seeing it happen to some extent, though it often still feels more like a hobby than a firm conviction.