Efficient Freeways

To whom it may concern,

In most American cities, the most accessible mode of transportation is the automobile, and its most pervasive effect has been the proliferation of the freeway network. Whether local, regional, or inter-state, these highways and freeways provide door to door service for anyone who can afford a car. Over the past 50 years, these freeways have developed new routes of travel, created new nodes of development, and augmented the overall character of development. Moving into our new paradigm, these existing right of ways should be better utilized. The automobile, while the most widely used of all transportation modes, is highly inefficient, as well as insensitive to the social needs of its users. Automobiles and automobile oriented development discourage social interaction by separating us from each other and breaking land uses into single functions. The equivalent amount of people moved on four lanes of freeway could easily be accommodated on one lane of rail line. If we could reduce our freeways from 8 to 2 lanes, imagine all the left over acreage that could be utilized for open space, bicycle and pedestrian routes, or even additional development. These trains would provide the necessary infrastructure for new, vertical neighborhoods to be developed at transit stops, which would be located at existing feeder roads and freeway interchanges. Freeways could be capped, where feasible, to create development parcels and open spaces. This newly found urban density could generate enough space for decades of future development, preventing the destruction of prime agriculture land, open space, and significant ecological areas at our periphery. Is the federal government willing to think outside of its current regulation status quo to transform our freeways system into efficient freeways?

GUNNAR HAND, AICP