This isn’t a great argument. There is so much open undeveloped space in the US that could be used to house people. This interchange isn’t taking space away from anyone. There are lots of good reasons to reduce cars, but this isn’t one of them.
That’s not really true here though. This is in the middle of an urban area, not in some big open empty space that’s unoccupied, like Montana, or North Dakota. This is in the middle of Houston, Texas, a very populous city.
And? If they need space they expand elsewhere. If this interchange was at the edge of town, middle of town, north or south. The town is still the same size. America is large, lots of “empty” space.
And that’s how you get sprawling cities that are completely untraversable on foot, bike or bus. Urban planning is important, even when space is abundant
Which expands the total travel distance on average, exacerbating all car use in the area. Things need to be closer, not further. That will only encourage car dependent infrastructure.
Not just car use, also infrastructure cost for literally anything from water over sewage to electricity, internet connections, gas pipes,…
Expanding the distance is much, much worse than simply affecting travel times and making us more car dependent. It is literally something we can not afford.
Cities should avoid becoming nightmare, sprawling hellscapes. Dense cities with multi-use buildings, public transit, and walkable infrastructure are where its at.
Dense and ugly are not synonyms, same with lacking character. If you go to sprawling suburbia, you’ll find that there’s exactly no character, you can drive for 30 minutes and think you went in a circle.
Do you genuinely believe people want sprawling hellscapes where they have to sit in traffic forever to get to the nearest Walmart, destroying the environment and further atmozing individuals and alienating themselves, or do you think it makes more sense to address population needs, environmental needs, and efficiency via smarter urban planning that isn’t so car-centric?
Car-centric infrastructure takes up for more space and far more time is spent on commuting than well-planned urban infrastructure with public transit, and costs the environment far more, and is far more economically expensive. It’s disastrous and should be stopped entirely.
Ugly and character are both subjective, your opinion isn’t the correct one. Nor is someone’s else’s, but one side is vocal while the other trudges along allowing the other to do and get what they need and want.
Some people do, yeah. Do you seriously think people don’t want that? People literally drive trucks as a career lmfao, yeah lots of people love it, in fact, they are the majority and you are the vocal minority. Get a grip on reality lmfao.
People absolutely loath getting stuck in traffic, and the existence of truckers does not mean that the majority of people love traffic and wasted space, fighting over parking, wasting tons of money, and destroying the environment.
You implied that dense requires ugliness and lacking character, which is the exact opposite of reality. Car-centric infrastructure is incredibly ugly and lacks any and all character, it’s just roads and parking garages, traffic, and pollution.
No some people don’t mind being stuck in traffic. If it makes your drive 4x longer because of bad design that’s different. At the worst in my large city it’s 50% longer to get across the city unless there’s an accident. That 20 minutes to a whopping 30 minutes to travel the almost 40km from north to south.
Its ugly and lacks character because its dense, I’m sorry you can’t understand other peoples opinions and only yours apparently is valid.
You may want to look at the economic downsides to sprawl. If you really want sprawl, then you’re gonna have to pay for it, cause we’re sick of paying for your roads, and the people who live in the cities pay for everyone else’s roads, and we want walkable/bikeable cities with cars being excluded to a few parking structures on the edge of the city.
You’re so american it’s sad. American cities are some of the ugliest in the entire world, whereas dense cities like what you’d find in most of Europe or Japan are absolutely beautiful and brimming with character.
…and even though it’s next to industrial zone, this is what downtown Houston actually looks like on a map. Numerous square miles of space just for “letting traffic through”. The bill on the upkeep of this kind of wasteful infrastructure must be much more than what it costs to provide housing for all the homeless people in the county!
This isn’t a great argument. There is so much open undeveloped space in the US that could be used to house people. This interchange isn’t taking space away from anyone. There are lots of good reasons to reduce cars, but this isn’t one of them.
That’s not really true here though. This is in the middle of an urban area, not in some big open empty space that’s unoccupied, like Montana, or North Dakota. This is in the middle of Houston, Texas, a very populous city.
And? If they need space they expand elsewhere. If this interchange was at the edge of town, middle of town, north or south. The town is still the same size. America is large, lots of “empty” space.
And that’s how you get sprawling cities that are completely untraversable on foot, bike or bus. Urban planning is important, even when space is abundant
Which expands the total travel distance on average, exacerbating all car use in the area. Things need to be closer, not further. That will only encourage car dependent infrastructure.
Not just car use, also infrastructure cost for literally anything from water over sewage to electricity, internet connections, gas pipes,…
Expanding the distance is much, much worse than simply affecting travel times and making us more car dependent. It is literally something we can not afford.
that’s not how urban development works, like, at all, lol.
Cities should avoid becoming nightmare, sprawling hellscapes. Dense cities with multi-use buildings, public transit, and walkable infrastructure are where its at.
Dense, ugly cities, with no character, where people trip over each other isn’t the solution.
Those can be a part of the larger city, why can’t everyone have what they want instead of just a small portion of people who only think of themselves?
Its great to know this community is open to discussion instead of just perpetuating the same tropes and downvoting people!
Dense and ugly are not synonyms, same with lacking character. If you go to sprawling suburbia, you’ll find that there’s exactly no character, you can drive for 30 minutes and think you went in a circle.
Do you genuinely believe people want sprawling hellscapes where they have to sit in traffic forever to get to the nearest Walmart, destroying the environment and further atmozing individuals and alienating themselves, or do you think it makes more sense to address population needs, environmental needs, and efficiency via smarter urban planning that isn’t so car-centric?
Car-centric infrastructure takes up for more space and far more time is spent on commuting than well-planned urban infrastructure with public transit, and costs the environment far more, and is far more economically expensive. It’s disastrous and should be stopped entirely.
Ugly and character are both subjective, your opinion isn’t the correct one. Nor is someone’s else’s, but one side is vocal while the other trudges along allowing the other to do and get what they need and want.
Some people do, yeah. Do you seriously think people don’t want that? People literally drive trucks as a career lmfao, yeah lots of people love it, in fact, they are the majority and you are the vocal minority. Get a grip on reality lmfao.
No.
People absolutely loath getting stuck in traffic, and the existence of truckers does not mean that the majority of people love traffic and wasted space, fighting over parking, wasting tons of money, and destroying the environment.
You implied that dense requires ugliness and lacking character, which is the exact opposite of reality. Car-centric infrastructure is incredibly ugly and lacks any and all character, it’s just roads and parking garages, traffic, and pollution.
No some people don’t mind being stuck in traffic. If it makes your drive 4x longer because of bad design that’s different. At the worst in my large city it’s 50% longer to get across the city unless there’s an accident. That 20 minutes to a whopping 30 minutes to travel the almost 40km from north to south.
Its ugly and lacks character because its dense, I’m sorry you can’t understand other peoples opinions and only yours apparently is valid.
https://youtu.be/7Nw6qyyrTeI?si=4Dhz8B-6AYK677PO
You may want to look at the economic downsides to sprawl. If you really want sprawl, then you’re gonna have to pay for it, cause we’re sick of paying for your roads, and the people who live in the cities pay for everyone else’s roads, and we want walkable/bikeable cities with cars being excluded to a few parking structures on the edge of the city.
You’re so american it’s sad. American cities are some of the ugliest in the entire world, whereas dense cities like what you’d find in most of Europe or Japan are absolutely beautiful and brimming with character.
This is not really outside the city though
…and even though it’s next to industrial zone, this is what downtown Houston actually looks like on a map. Numerous square miles of space just for “letting traffic through”. The bill on the upkeep of this kind of wasteful infrastructure must be much more than what it costs to provide housing for all the homeless people in the county!
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I think OP’s argument is that the interchange is a symptom of low density urban sprawl and all the associated maladies that come with it.
@Anarch157a @BradleyUffner Yeah, it’d suck trying to walk to a friends house on the other side of the interchange.