General Road and Highway Discussion

[ijmorlan]

I think the real problem is that few people bother to think past the "more lanes is always better" mindset that existed in the 60s.  So they'll oppose fewer lanes almost reflexively, even if it's justified.  This happened with every other road diet in the region, to the point that people were screaming about the sky falling.

I wonder if it would help to sell it as intersection improvements rather than lane reductions.

With any transportation construction project, how good it is will depend on all sorts of details about exactly what gets built. And this is true no matter ones priorities: somebody who wants more car capacity should be unhappy if they get more lanes but intersections are still jammed up, somebody who wants better transit will be unhappy if the exact location of the bus stop makes it hard to board and difficult for the bus to navigate traffic, and somebody who cares about bicycle infrastructure will be unhappy with bicycle lanes that interact poorly with fast-moving traffic.

So the one-line “this is what we’re doing” is really just a marketing slogan, and it should be chosen to be both accurate and sell the positives (to all the relevant constituencies) of the proposed project.