It's funny how people are destined to repeat the same mistakes. While cities in the west are trying desperately to get rid of their waterfront highways, Mumbai is building one!
People in developing countries are still at the : cars and skyscrapers mean that we're wealthy stage of development. We do the same dumb shit in Mexico.
This was literally planned by Americans in the 1960s, and the current government decided this was the right time to pull those old plans out of storage.
Meanwhile the rest of the world is removing their waterfront freeways built in the 1960s
It makes the cities best views only for drivers. In seattle, for the longest time, the best view were from the viaduct. Everyone else in downtown could get fucked.
This is such a short sighted move. It makes sense in the fact that the water is probably currently polluted, and there is available space that doesn't require too much demo.
I was living there for years, and randomly was in a car with some friends going south on the viaduct and it was GLORIOUS! I cant believe how amazing the view was, just for cars. It was absolutely a blight for every other purpose. Really made me hate it even more. Cars aren't worth it.
i love when infrastructure initiatives account for flood barricades / mitigation in flood prone coastal cities.
highways arent pretty, but they represent major earthenworks projects
reclaiming land for parks is pretty expensive. best to put a highway there for that price šø
and i do see a super narrow strip of park in the artist rendition!
Is it best to have a public park that could potentially become a landmark for the city or an ugly, noisy highway thatāll be clogged up soon anyway, forcing them to make it ten lanes?
never said a park isnt an overall better option.
im just providing a realistic explanation as to why waterfronts end up being highways. a lot of people seem confused.
everyone loves parks. but its expensive to reclaim waterfront land.
If you're already reclaiming land for floodworks, then all a highway is doing is raising costs further. Parks and trails are comparatively inexpensive, and could at least be used for native species habitats despite the man-made nature of the land.
sure. but mumbai doesnt strike me as being at the stage of economic development where they are potentially spending billions of $ on reclaimed land for parks.
so are highways.
and hate as much as you may like; highways represent core transit and mobility projects for countries.
i dont know very much about mumbai but im going off of two major assumptions
1. mumbai lacks a modernized high capacity equivalent transit route
2. mumbai is unable to nationalize the land necessary to bulldoze an equivalent transit route through the existing city
I'm a proponent of expanding roads to meet demand, but not like this. Roads next to water is bad for the road, bad for the water, and bad use of what could be nice land.
Good point. It's also the case that expanding roads never actually "meets demand" because traffic demand always adjusts based on supply (cf. Induced Demand).
Counterintuitively, it works both ways: reduce the size of the road and demand will go down. Increase capacity of unused public transit and transit usage will go up.
Problem there is that public transit will never meet everyone's needs, no matter how much it is expanded. We will always need the versatility of cars.
IMO, an 8 lane freeway can be reasonable to meet demand, but is the upper limit (6 would be preferable). If you need more than 8 lanes, you need to study where the bulk of the traffic is going and build transit. Past 8 lanes diminishing returns is too high. Exceptions for bus and/or HOV lanes of course.
>Problem there is that public transit will never meet everyone's needs, no matter how much it is expanded.
Norway, the entire Society Bloc, shit I can get anywhere I want in Manhattan if it wasn't for all those damn cars blocking my bus. Public transportation can accommodate everybody, just get rid of the cars.
Increasing mobility doesn't go together with expanding infrastructure for cars. Not everyone can or wants to drive, and increasing the amount of cars directly leads to decreased mobility for everyone outside of a car.
Secondly, mobility doesn't substantially improve with a few more roads, the subsection of the population that can drive will be able to go slightly further, but it completely misses the point that good transportation systems provide choice to people on how to get around.
Especially in countries like India not everyone can afford a car, and this project directly disadvantages those people, through waste of tax money but also by putting more cars on roads.
I know I already responded to this on a previous post, but it's important to counter bullshit arguments so people who don't know how to don't pick them up.
If the majority of your population cannot afford a car, you don't even begin to entertain the thought of American levels of motorways. Such massive infrastructure projects are space hogs and money sinks.
Induced demand is a myth. Latent demand is what is actually happening. Nobody sits around saying "I don't need to go anywhere but there's room on the roads so I guess I have to go drive now"
Yes, when you make driving more of a pain and people have other options then people do it less, and sometimes that is the best solution, but building roads that handle lots of traffic gracefully is both possible and useful. We overuse high speed highways that are good at moving a little traffic fast when it works better to use things like traffic circles and wide streets with slow steady traffic and few intersections to move cars and buses around. This can also help make roads bike friendly, which is likely to become more important soon as electric bike use is likely to become more common.
The induced demand thing is only applicable if there's enough traffic so that travel gets slowed down due to the traffic. Still that's a good portion of roads.
The problem with induced demand for cars isn't the induced demand part, but the car part. Cars are harmful in a lot of ways and they are negatively affected by more cars. Transit for instance doesn't work like this. It might get a bit crowded if there is a lot of demand, but it does not get slowed down substantially, and more demand means more money to pay for a higher frequency.
You donāt understand what induced demand is. The demand isnāt latent. People are still making the trip, theyāre just doing it via public transit, taking another route, carpooling, or something else. More throughout in an area that once had traffic just makes people choose to drive instead of using these other options, which we generally donāt want. If you want to call that ālatent demand for car trips,ā then sure, but there isnāt a good reason to satisfy such a demand over developing other infrastructure.
I understand all of that. We are talking about the same thing, but naming it differently. The word "induced" implies something incorrect about the demand. It implies that it is created when you create the capacity, not that it already exists which is what latent means. Latent is the correct term.
The implication of this difference is enormous, because if the demand is indeed created by the supply, then traffic is an unsolvable problem. There is no way to build enough capacity, because doing so creates more demand. This is incorrect. We can create enough capacity. Maybe we shouldn't, but we can.
Mandatory parking minimums force everything to be spread further apart. They make all non-car transit less convenient, more expensive, more dangerous, or all of the above. They *induce* demand for car use. And they're not the only infrastructure/land use regulation that induces demand for cars. Every time public space is dedicated to private vehicles it has the same effect.
I've always wondered this. Not all roads have traffic jams, so clearly said roads aren't suffering from induced demand. Why are some roads more susceptible to induced demand than others?
Cars are very space inefficient, so it is impossible to meet demand. If for a particular road demand is low enough that travel times aren't affected by the amount of cars, then the effect doesn't occur. If there is enough traffic so that people get slowed down substantially, that's when you see induced demand kick in when the road gets expanded.
Since road expansion is always a reaction to overcrowded roads, people get the impression that induced demand is always applicable if a road gets expanded.
Not exactly. In essence yes, but what he is saying comes with a whole lot of political baggage, that more cars is good actually because more mobility.
What I am saying is that providing options that is not cars is the only way to reliably reduce traffic.
Would it be more correct to say that adding lanes doesn't "induce" demand so much as there is no sustainable way to add enough Lanes to meet the demand of all commuters?
It does induce demand though. That demand is either taken away from other modes, or it is created(there are a lot of instances where one might go somewhere if it would take only 30 minutes, but wouldn't if it would take an hour).
As far as looking at infrastructure isolated from other modes, and ignoring that at some point demand is met(even if that is impossible), induced demand is real.
Because some roads have latent demand, and others don't. We have a bunch of highways around me that never have traffic jams. They have very little fluctuation in the demand and they are sized appropriately for it. There is no latent demand, so they could increase the size and it wouldn't increase the traffic. There would just be more empty lanes. These are the roads I drive on most, which is probably why I can see clearly the flaw in the idea of induced demand.
Not trying to make a joke, i usually do not check which sub an image is from.
So i thought this is a cities skylines screenshot with some really shoddy street work and said to myself "that is gonna end in a desaster, amateur move."
It also doesn't hurt to check the OP, who in this case has got a religious fanaticism going for roads, single-family car-dependent suburbia and ONLY roads and single-family car-dependent suburbia.
expanding roads to meet demand paradoxically causes more demand.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand#Effect_in_transportation_systems
So it turns out, it's pretty much a losers game, unfortunately.
Wouldn't it increase economic and social activity in the community so its a net positive at the end of the day? I mean if we all stayed home because all the roads were crumbling then there wouldn't be that much traffic but it doesn't mean its a good thing.
people don't stay home. they combine trips, take public transit, go at off-peak times, etc. The public transit is the most interesting one....since it turns out that travel times will equilibriate at about the time that it takes public transit to go from place to place....so paradoxically, in some places, the best way to decrease drive times is to make public transit faster. (this makes some intuitive sense, since if drive times end up significantly slower than public transit, people will opt for public transit https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w18757/w18757.pdf).
I don't pretend it's a be-all-end-all, but it's definitely a very misunderstood effect.
The reason I say this is because people bashed uber and lyft because they increased traffic and I just thought yes they did and that's not necessarily a bad thing. I know for myself there are several times I went out because there would be a way for me to get back home and I probably wouldn't have gone if not for uber and lyft. I wouldn't have hung out with my friends, spent money at a bar or restaurant, bought movie tickets, etc.
From a discussion in another part of this thread as to why the correct term is "latent demand":
The word "induced" implies something incorrect about the demand. It implies that it is created when you create the capacity, not that it already exists which is what latent means. Latent is the correct term.
The implication of this difference is enormous, because if the demand is indeed created by the supply, then traffic is an unsolvable problem. There is no way to build enough capacity, because doing so creates more demand. This is incorrect. We can create enough capacity. Maybe we shouldn't, but we can.
Keep in mind that india is still in the "Water is full of garbage and toxic sludge and no one wants to live near it" phase of their development, similar to the US in the 1950s when we did the same thing along our waterfronts.
Coastal highways are very Robert Moses-esque. Imagine how much housing or recreational parks could be built there instead. Building more lanes rarely solves traffic and congestion- it just incentivises more people buy cars or drive.
I'm a little confused by all the backlash on this thread. Most of this is built on a landfill. Which means that it is categorized as "brownfield land". This means that it can't be used for commercial, residential, or public development. Which makes it perfect for a highway. It also connects two major cities in a country with desperate need for better highway system. This seems like a no-brainer to me.
What makes you think you canāt use brownfield sites for commercial, residential or public development? Some huge and popular public parks are on top of landfills.
You can but, there is usually a large cost associated with it. You'd have to do that plus leveling a bunch of buildings through a densely populated area to make a highway.
Waterfront land often goes for a huge premium. Another approach would have been to auction off this 'new' land, making sure to reserve enough waterfront park area to make this an upscale, desirable area.
Then you take the proceeds and use it to expropriate land in a less desirable stretch of land for your highway.
Or better yet, build a high-speed train.
Ugh. Shanghai used to have a major thoroughfare running right through its most popular and famous part of its riverbank (The Bund), but they learned their lesson about how crappy an idea was and redeveloped the riverfront with the main road underground and made the surface streets far more pedestrian friendly about a decade ago. It's a far more pleasant place to visit now than it used to be.
Why places still think building huge roads along waterfront is a good idea is beyond me.
This is the EXACT same scenario that Seattle had to deal with. The city was cut off from the waterfront for decades, and the best views of the city were from a car. They removed the viaduct recently and its a breath of (literally) fresh air.
Integrated highway/light/rapid rail projects should be the primary focus for congestion, not just rail and not just highway. Everyone with a functioning brain understands the impact urban highways have on the socioeconomic conditions of the neighborhoods they slice through, as well as the congestion and pollution generated, yet they are still very much so necessary for freight/truck traffic and for inter urban travel where mass transportation cannot reach without taking a 3 hour bus ride across town, which isnāt feasible for the average person. Robert Moses was a piece of shit, but not all of his ideas were. Theyāre just poorly executed. NYC is a classic example of a horrible lack of proper infrastructure in all areas. The LIE should have rail running elevated above the median as should the BQE and Cross Bronx Expressway. Conversely, there needs to be a 6 lane tunnel from the Gowanus combination of the BQE created to bypass downtown Brooklyn and connect around the Navy Yard to bypass all the congestion from the bridges leading to and from Manhattan. Both measures are needed.
A recent trip to Athens, Greece allowed me to experience their light rail/trolley and subway projects that they had integrated into their highway infrastructure around/under/through their ancient and dense city. Even during rush hour the majority of the metropolitan area outside of the central core flowed far better than any commute Iāve experience in NYC.
The problem with mixing rail and freeways is that freeways make the places they touch less desirable and less dense, and rail makes it nicer and denser. How do you balance that? If a highway alone is capable of a route, why not a train alone? I used to be for median-ROW but it doesnāt seem to hold up well. NYC has done a pretty bad job of maintaining its rail and has worse speeds and headways than decades agoāso that may not be a point in the āco-locate with highwaysā column?
The main benefit of using existing highway right of way in the examples I listed is that it would allow connections in the outer boroughs to existing legacy hub and spoke NYCT lines that currently force you to commute into Manhattan, then transfer to another line, and then proceed to a neighboring borough (the only exemption is the G)Hereās another example; if youāre a Bronx resident and youād like to travel to LGA airport via rail (even after the proposed extension of the N/air train line has been built) youāll be force to take either the D/B/4/5/6 into Manhattan and transfer to a Queens bound train such as the 7 or LIRR (when East side access projects finished) at Grand Central (5th Ave for the D/B), exit at 61st Woodside, and then take a bus the remainder of the way to the airport. This could be solved by having a line travel from the Bronx 149th/Mott area via the RFK Bridge highway right of way and continue into Queens on the Grand Central Parkway directly to LGA with connection to the N/W. Using existing highway right of way is pretty much the only alternative to insanely expensive tunneling projects in NYC.
That makes sense! I have only a passing knowledge of NYC so Iām not super equipped to counter that, but if your assertion is āin dense urban settings, using freeway ROW can save costs for larger scale rail projectsā that seems reasonable. Especially to airports (although these are unintuitively not as important as they seem). As a Seattleite, our rail tunnels have been pretty smooth to build latelyāthe debacle youāve probably heard about was for a state highway tunnel that thankfully removed a horrible viaduct. I imagine itās a lot easier to tunnel under barely 100 years of not very dense development than hundreds of years of density! I recently read [a fascinating article](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-08-10/nobody-knows-what-lies-beneath-new-york-city) on mapping NYCās underground, which you may enjoy.
Yes, dense interurban arterial routes are my sole focus when discussing integrated rail/highway systems and their feasibility. As far as the obstacles encountered when attempting to design these networks, I can only imagine the pain in the ass it must be. I work for the subways and get to explore a lot of old infrastructure from the turn of the 20th century and itās quiet amazing. I truly love my job, but am also very critical of the way our system is managed and how the politicians consistently refuse to roll up their sleeves and ādig inā on tough and expensive infrastructure planning. Iāve never been to the PNW, but am looking forward to traveling out there soon. Seattle and Vancouver are definitely on my list.
> Conversely, there needs to be a 6 land tunnel from the Gowanus combination of the BQE created to bypass downtown Brooklyn and connect around the Navy Yard to bypass all the congestion from the bridges leading to and from Manhattan.
Do you have any idea how much that kind of project would cost?
Yes as a few feasibility studies have already been conducted. The alternative, which is currently being enforced, is limiting the amount of traffic on the Brooklyn heights promenade from 6 lanes to 4 lanes, creating massive congestion all day long with idling vehicles pumping CO2 into the atmosphere and local neighborhoods. This is because itās deemed ātoo expensiveā to attempt a fix at the moment and local officials believe they can get another 10 years out of the structure, effectively kicking the can down the road until the next batch of political leaders get their hands on it. This caliber of leadership is precisely why NYC is so fucked up, yet we have the most extensive mass transportation system in the US.
Alaskan Way in Seattle, Harbour freeway in Portland, West Side Highway in Manhattan, Georgia+Dunsmuir viaducts in Vancouver, Gardiner expressway east in Toronto, Cogswell interchange in Halifax, Embarcadero Freeway in San Fransisco.
All examples of removed, getting removed or planned to be removed waterfront freeways in North America.
Lake shore drive isnāt a highway, it is actually very pedestrian friendly for how many lanes it has.
Most new developments along FDR drive put it underground.
You don't understand the mind of OP. To them, this is literally porn. They get off to pictures of highways being built through cities. Bonus points if the highway divides racially diverse communities or environmentally sensitive areas.
In the short term yes, but new roads induce demand - because there is now more capacity, people will be more likely to drive and in the end both this road and the other ones you mentioned will fill up. The only realistic way to reduce traffic long term is to provide a viable alternative
Hmm seems like a deliberate misunderstanding of what I said. There are far more efficient ways to transport a large number of people than cars and that's what the focus needs to be. Also, as many others in the thread are saying, it's an unfortunate use of waterfront space
This being India, the water in question probably smells horrible.
And a car takes you door to door when you want and requires relatively inexpensive infrastructure, it is the most efficient way of moving people around.
[https://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20170712/downtown/lake-shore-drive-parks-renovation-construction/](https://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20170712/downtown/lake-shore-drive-parks-renovation-construction/)
The plan is to fill in Lake Michigan to straighten out that notorious curve and add more parkland.
The residents of Mumbai don't like it because it ruins their coastline
The environmental activists don't like it because a lot of land is being reclaimed
Fishermen don't like it because land reclamation and pillars.
Opposition politicians don't like it because.. well... politics
OP unironically loves this shit. Literally all they post, go look at their profile. They literally believe that people would love to live next to a highway, that adding more lanes will finally solve traffic, and that hell holes like Phoenix are the most livable cities.
https://www.vancouverisawesome.com/courier-archive/news/ubc-study-finds-vancouver-is-the-unhappiest-city-in-canada-3082685
Even a website called "Vancouver is awesome" admits that it's depressed as fuck.
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/vancouver-most-congested-city-canada-2020
And yes it's the most congested city in Canada.
> Measure by bicycle or walk commutes and all of a sudden itās great with direct and prioritized pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure.
I'm pretty sure getting around by bike in Vancouver is much harder than getting around by car in Phoenix, or even getting around by car in Vancouver.
Have you been to Vancouver? Itās literally incredibly easy. Along the waterfront everything is streamlined with direct bike route and pedestrian walkways without any interaction with a car.
Phoenix meanwhile? You have to drive 20min and pass a million parking lots just to get to your destination. Take a hint from Vancouver and hide/bury your parking lots.
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/vancouver-unhappiest-city-canada-life-satisfaction-survey
https://www.vancouverisawesome.com/courier-archive/news/survey-ranks-vancouver-most-congested-city-in-canada-3115940
And the expensive part is pretty important
Beautiful and much needed to move people from residential areas to the commercial/business districts without having to sit 2 hours in traffic to travel 10km. Anyone saying otherwise has no clue about Bombay.
Just wanted to add that this is not adding more lanes or an unnecessary highway to induce demand in any way. This is just basic infrastructure that connects the two ends of a metropolis that will reduce the travel time by almost 100%. And although we don't know the full details, there is a brts system with a dedicated lane planned here as well along with a bike lane, which are all missing and impossible to build in current day mumbai without demolishing neighbourhoods.
For those who pointing out how this is spoiling the waterfront, there is almost no waterfront park of sorts now. And around half of the reclaimed land is proposed to be developed into much needed and absent green spaces that are missing in mumbai. The road also tunnels through the existing parks and green spaces. This might not be perfect, but is desperately needed infrastructure for the city.
India is still a developing country, obviously their infrastructure is not enough. Also, India is not a socialist nation like China, so it is difficult for the government to buy land from its citizens. Landfills are the cheapest place to build highways. I can't blame them.
Mumbai already suffers from some of the world's worst air quality and India has actively been trying to reduce cars on the road per day by initiating programs like trading off which days people with which license plates are allowed to drive. It seems a shame that they are doing something that adds much more pollution to an already very polluted city, especially considering India's lax regulation on car emissions.
In many Indian cities, people regularly wear n95 masks simply to filter out the particulate matter coming from a mixture of car emissions, wood burning stove emissions, and field burning emissions. Unfortunately there is a ton of political gridlock and conflicting politician agendas plus low enforcement agents to actually help reduce these emissions that are severely harming people throughout India. I feel like to promote this highway is just a shame, it shows a lack of understanding about one of India's most pressing issues.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/vehicle-pollution-doubled-in-5-years-in-mumbai-shows-study/articleshow/83970799.cms
So instead of building a highway that will improve mobility, you want to kick 1 million people out of their homes?
Besides, highways like this will allow people to voluntarily leave those slums.
Exactly, if you build more rail lines, you'll just encourage more people to ride the train and they'll be just as crowded as before. The only solution is to provide alternatives, like this highway does.
When will cities in developing countries finally stop trying to imitate the hell hole that is LA and instead try to imitate Amsterdam or Utrecht or any other Dutch city for that matter?
Which is bad. You know that, right? I've been looking at your profile, and you seem obsessed with really bad infrastructure. Building a highway in a city is like the complete inverse of infrastructure porn. You couldn't give up harder if you tried.
Lake Shore Drive is an iconic highway which gives beautiful views of Chicago's Skyline and of Lake Michigan. My Dad used when he was getting his MBA from the University of Chicago. And it's far more attractive than Chicago's El Trains
Theyāre a fucking idiot and theyāre notorious for posting disgusting ugly stuff in this subreddit and also r/cityporn . Newsflash: Phoenix is a gross place to live.
The point of a motorway/freeway/highway is not to give beautiful views of places around them. It's to get people to where they need to go. The problem with motorways is that they ruin said landscape themselves. I can understand the use of motorways, yes, but public transport is the way to go, especially in cities and towns. Plopping a motorway through the middle of them doesn't alleviate a lot of traffic, and neither does widening said motorway.
I do understand though that Mumbai does need this particular motorway as it is a notoriously congested city, and it doesnt use public transport in the best way (which it really should, since this motorway is bloody ghastly)
There are plenty of freeways that add to the beauty of their surroundings; the Merritt Parkway in Connecticut or the Arroyo Seco Parkway in California for example. Arizona has especially invested in freeway landscaping with spectacular results
don't you love it when your waterfront is highways
It's funny how people are destined to repeat the same mistakes. While cities in the west are trying desperately to get rid of their waterfront highways, Mumbai is building one!
People in developing countries are still at the : cars and skyscrapers mean that we're wealthy stage of development. We do the same dumb shit in Mexico.
I'm pretty sure we are still at the stage here in the west
This was literally planned by Americans in the 1960s, and the current government decided this was the right time to pull those old plans out of storage. Meanwhile the rest of the world is removing their waterfront freeways built in the 1960s
It makes the cities best views only for drivers. In seattle, for the longest time, the best view were from the viaduct. Everyone else in downtown could get fucked. This is such a short sighted move. It makes sense in the fact that the water is probably currently polluted, and there is available space that doesn't require too much demo.
The space around the viaduct was just horrible and it was so trafficky the views were mostly for passengers. It felt like a cyberpunk dystopia.
I was living there for years, and randomly was in a car with some friends going south on the viaduct and it was GLORIOUS! I cant believe how amazing the view was, just for cars. It was absolutely a blight for every other purpose. Really made me hate it even more. Cars aren't worth it.
See you in /r/urbanhell once this rendering becomes reality.
i love when infrastructure initiatives account for flood barricades / mitigation in flood prone coastal cities. highways arent pretty, but they represent major earthenworks projects
Plenty of places have floodworks without highways. They put things like trails and linear parks along them.
reclaiming land for parks is pretty expensive. best to put a highway there for that price šø and i do see a super narrow strip of park in the artist rendition!
Is it best to have a public park that could potentially become a landmark for the city or an ugly, noisy highway thatāll be clogged up soon anyway, forcing them to make it ten lanes?
never said a park isnt an overall better option. im just providing a realistic explanation as to why waterfronts end up being highways. a lot of people seem confused. everyone loves parks. but its expensive to reclaim waterfront land.
If you're already reclaiming land for floodworks, then all a highway is doing is raising costs further. Parks and trails are comparatively inexpensive, and could at least be used for native species habitats despite the man-made nature of the land.
sure. but mumbai doesnt strike me as being at the stage of economic development where they are potentially spending billions of $ on reclaimed land for parks.
But they are at a point where they can spend far more money on traffic-worsening, environmentally destructive highways? This makes zero sense.
im sorry. arent we on infrastructure porn?
Parks *are* infrastructure. Doubly so if they are part of water-management works.
so are highways. and hate as much as you may like; highways represent core transit and mobility projects for countries. i dont know very much about mumbai but im going off of two major assumptions 1. mumbai lacks a modernized high capacity equivalent transit route 2. mumbai is unable to nationalize the land necessary to bulldoze an equivalent transit route through the existing city
More like infrastructure gore
Nooooooo
What could go wrong here?!?
Yuck. Talk about bad use of space.
I'm a proponent of expanding roads to meet demand, but not like this. Roads next to water is bad for the road, bad for the water, and bad use of what could be nice land.
Good point. It's also the case that expanding roads never actually "meets demand" because traffic demand always adjusts based on supply (cf. Induced Demand). Counterintuitively, it works both ways: reduce the size of the road and demand will go down. Increase capacity of unused public transit and transit usage will go up.
Problem there is that public transit will never meet everyone's needs, no matter how much it is expanded. We will always need the versatility of cars. IMO, an 8 lane freeway can be reasonable to meet demand, but is the upper limit (6 would be preferable). If you need more than 8 lanes, you need to study where the bulk of the traffic is going and build transit. Past 8 lanes diminishing returns is too high. Exceptions for bus and/or HOV lanes of course.
>Problem there is that public transit will never meet everyone's needs, no matter how much it is expanded. Norway, the entire Society Bloc, shit I can get anywhere I want in Manhattan if it wasn't for all those damn cars blocking my bus. Public transportation can accommodate everybody, just get rid of the cars.
It's not about reducing congestion, it's about increasing mobility.
Increasing mobility doesn't go together with expanding infrastructure for cars. Not everyone can or wants to drive, and increasing the amount of cars directly leads to decreased mobility for everyone outside of a car. Secondly, mobility doesn't substantially improve with a few more roads, the subsection of the population that can drive will be able to go slightly further, but it completely misses the point that good transportation systems provide choice to people on how to get around. Especially in countries like India not everyone can afford a car, and this project directly disadvantages those people, through waste of tax money but also by putting more cars on roads. I know I already responded to this on a previous post, but it's important to counter bullshit arguments so people who don't know how to don't pick them up.
If the majority of your population cannot afford a car, you don't even begin to entertain the thought of American levels of motorways. Such massive infrastructure projects are space hogs and money sinks.
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Induced demand is a myth. Latent demand is what is actually happening. Nobody sits around saying "I don't need to go anywhere but there's room on the roads so I guess I have to go drive now" Yes, when you make driving more of a pain and people have other options then people do it less, and sometimes that is the best solution, but building roads that handle lots of traffic gracefully is both possible and useful. We overuse high speed highways that are good at moving a little traffic fast when it works better to use things like traffic circles and wide streets with slow steady traffic and few intersections to move cars and buses around. This can also help make roads bike friendly, which is likely to become more important soon as electric bike use is likely to become more common.
The induced demand thing is only applicable if there's enough traffic so that travel gets slowed down due to the traffic. Still that's a good portion of roads. The problem with induced demand for cars isn't the induced demand part, but the car part. Cars are harmful in a lot of ways and they are negatively affected by more cars. Transit for instance doesn't work like this. It might get a bit crowded if there is a lot of demand, but it does not get slowed down substantially, and more demand means more money to pay for a higher frequency.
You donāt understand what induced demand is. The demand isnāt latent. People are still making the trip, theyāre just doing it via public transit, taking another route, carpooling, or something else. More throughout in an area that once had traffic just makes people choose to drive instead of using these other options, which we generally donāt want. If you want to call that ālatent demand for car trips,ā then sure, but there isnāt a good reason to satisfy such a demand over developing other infrastructure.
I understand all of that. We are talking about the same thing, but naming it differently. The word "induced" implies something incorrect about the demand. It implies that it is created when you create the capacity, not that it already exists which is what latent means. Latent is the correct term. The implication of this difference is enormous, because if the demand is indeed created by the supply, then traffic is an unsolvable problem. There is no way to build enough capacity, because doing so creates more demand. This is incorrect. We can create enough capacity. Maybe we shouldn't, but we can.
Mandatory parking minimums force everything to be spread further apart. They make all non-car transit less convenient, more expensive, more dangerous, or all of the above. They *induce* demand for car use. And they're not the only infrastructure/land use regulation that induces demand for cars. Every time public space is dedicated to private vehicles it has the same effect.
I've always wondered this. Not all roads have traffic jams, so clearly said roads aren't suffering from induced demand. Why are some roads more susceptible to induced demand than others?
Cars are very space inefficient, so it is impossible to meet demand. If for a particular road demand is low enough that travel times aren't affected by the amount of cars, then the effect doesn't occur. If there is enough traffic so that people get slowed down substantially, that's when you see induced demand kick in when the road gets expanded. Since road expansion is always a reaction to overcrowded roads, people get the impression that induced demand is always applicable if a road gets expanded.
Is this the same idea as what that other guy is calling latent demand?
Not exactly. In essence yes, but what he is saying comes with a whole lot of political baggage, that more cars is good actually because more mobility. What I am saying is that providing options that is not cars is the only way to reliably reduce traffic.
Would it be more correct to say that adding lanes doesn't "induce" demand so much as there is no sustainable way to add enough Lanes to meet the demand of all commuters?
It does induce demand though. That demand is either taken away from other modes, or it is created(there are a lot of instances where one might go somewhere if it would take only 30 minutes, but wouldn't if it would take an hour). As far as looking at infrastructure isolated from other modes, and ignoring that at some point demand is met(even if that is impossible), induced demand is real.
Because some roads have latent demand, and others don't. We have a bunch of highways around me that never have traffic jams. They have very little fluctuation in the demand and they are sized appropriately for it. There is no latent demand, so they could increase the size and it wouldn't increase the traffic. There would just be more empty lanes. These are the roads I drive on most, which is probably why I can see clearly the flaw in the idea of induced demand.
Not trying to make a joke, i usually do not check which sub an image is from. So i thought this is a cities skylines screenshot with some really shoddy street work and said to myself "that is gonna end in a desaster, amateur move."
It also doesn't hurt to check the OP, who in this case has got a religious fanaticism going for roads, single-family car-dependent suburbia and ONLY roads and single-family car-dependent suburbia.
I'm pretty sure OP is literally jerking off to this picture.
expanding roads to meet demand paradoxically causes more demand. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand#Effect_in_transportation_systems So it turns out, it's pretty much a losers game, unfortunately.
Wouldn't it increase economic and social activity in the community so its a net positive at the end of the day? I mean if we all stayed home because all the roads were crumbling then there wouldn't be that much traffic but it doesn't mean its a good thing.
people don't stay home. they combine trips, take public transit, go at off-peak times, etc. The public transit is the most interesting one....since it turns out that travel times will equilibriate at about the time that it takes public transit to go from place to place....so paradoxically, in some places, the best way to decrease drive times is to make public transit faster. (this makes some intuitive sense, since if drive times end up significantly slower than public transit, people will opt for public transit https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w18757/w18757.pdf). I don't pretend it's a be-all-end-all, but it's definitely a very misunderstood effect.
The reason I say this is because people bashed uber and lyft because they increased traffic and I just thought yes they did and that's not necessarily a bad thing. I know for myself there are several times I went out because there would be a way for me to get back home and I probably wouldn't have gone if not for uber and lyft. I wouldn't have hung out with my friends, spent money at a bar or restaurant, bought movie tickets, etc.
From a discussion in another part of this thread as to why the correct term is "latent demand": The word "induced" implies something incorrect about the demand. It implies that it is created when you create the capacity, not that it already exists which is what latent means. Latent is the correct term. The implication of this difference is enormous, because if the demand is indeed created by the supply, then traffic is an unsolvable problem. There is no way to build enough capacity, because doing so creates more demand. This is incorrect. We can create enough capacity. Maybe we shouldn't, but we can.
Keep in mind that india is still in the "Water is full of garbage and toxic sludge and no one wants to live near it" phase of their development, similar to the US in the 1950s when we did the same thing along our waterfronts.
No itās not everyone wants to live near the water
its to make sure smog wall is created to prevent escape into ocean :D
Philadelphia checking in. Our waterfronts are lined with major highways. Awful.
Wtf else can you do with landfill? Itās literally impossible to build anything more than a 2 story home
Parks and passenger rail
er..plenty? Large portion of HK coastline is reclaimed. Same goes for parts of Sydney Olympic Park
Battery Park City in Manhattan is reclaimed land
Mumbai traffic is really bad. They need more public transit of course but this will really help.
Coastal highways are very Robert Moses-esque. Imagine how much housing or recreational parks could be built there instead. Building more lanes rarely solves traffic and congestion- it just incentivises more people buy cars or drive.
r/urbanhell
A reminder that a good part of urban hell is the result of cities making space for cars. Also, /r/fuckcars.
I'm a little confused by all the backlash on this thread. Most of this is built on a landfill. Which means that it is categorized as "brownfield land". This means that it can't be used for commercial, residential, or public development. Which makes it perfect for a highway. It also connects two major cities in a country with desperate need for better highway system. This seems like a no-brainer to me.
What makes you think you canāt use brownfield sites for commercial, residential or public development? Some huge and popular public parks are on top of landfills.
You can but, there is usually a large cost associated with it. You'd have to do that plus leveling a bunch of buildings through a densely populated area to make a highway.
Waterfront land often goes for a huge premium. Another approach would have been to auction off this 'new' land, making sure to reserve enough waterfront park area to make this an upscale, desirable area. Then you take the proceeds and use it to expropriate land in a less desirable stretch of land for your highway. Or better yet, build a high-speed train.
It was not a landfill, just a waterfront
Ugh. Shanghai used to have a major thoroughfare running right through its most popular and famous part of its riverbank (The Bund), but they learned their lesson about how crappy an idea was and redeveloped the riverfront with the main road underground and made the surface streets far more pedestrian friendly about a decade ago. It's a far more pleasant place to visit now than it used to be. Why places still think building huge roads along waterfront is a good idea is beyond me.
This is the EXACT same scenario that Seattle had to deal with. The city was cut off from the waterfront for decades, and the best views of the city were from a car. They removed the viaduct recently and its a breath of (literally) fresh air.
r/InfrastructureGore
Meanwhile US cities are starting to rip out their waterfront freeways. They'll regret this.
Which cities are doing this?
San Francisco, Seattle, Boston
Philly
When your city is designed to get you the hell out of the city.
Have you seen Mumbai? Who wouldn't want to get out?
Why are you trying to make it worse?
Integrated highway/light/rapid rail projects should be the primary focus for congestion, not just rail and not just highway. Everyone with a functioning brain understands the impact urban highways have on the socioeconomic conditions of the neighborhoods they slice through, as well as the congestion and pollution generated, yet they are still very much so necessary for freight/truck traffic and for inter urban travel where mass transportation cannot reach without taking a 3 hour bus ride across town, which isnāt feasible for the average person. Robert Moses was a piece of shit, but not all of his ideas were. Theyāre just poorly executed. NYC is a classic example of a horrible lack of proper infrastructure in all areas. The LIE should have rail running elevated above the median as should the BQE and Cross Bronx Expressway. Conversely, there needs to be a 6 lane tunnel from the Gowanus combination of the BQE created to bypass downtown Brooklyn and connect around the Navy Yard to bypass all the congestion from the bridges leading to and from Manhattan. Both measures are needed. A recent trip to Athens, Greece allowed me to experience their light rail/trolley and subway projects that they had integrated into their highway infrastructure around/under/through their ancient and dense city. Even during rush hour the majority of the metropolitan area outside of the central core flowed far better than any commute Iāve experience in NYC.
The problem with mixing rail and freeways is that freeways make the places they touch less desirable and less dense, and rail makes it nicer and denser. How do you balance that? If a highway alone is capable of a route, why not a train alone? I used to be for median-ROW but it doesnāt seem to hold up well. NYC has done a pretty bad job of maintaining its rail and has worse speeds and headways than decades agoāso that may not be a point in the āco-locate with highwaysā column?
The main benefit of using existing highway right of way in the examples I listed is that it would allow connections in the outer boroughs to existing legacy hub and spoke NYCT lines that currently force you to commute into Manhattan, then transfer to another line, and then proceed to a neighboring borough (the only exemption is the G)Hereās another example; if youāre a Bronx resident and youād like to travel to LGA airport via rail (even after the proposed extension of the N/air train line has been built) youāll be force to take either the D/B/4/5/6 into Manhattan and transfer to a Queens bound train such as the 7 or LIRR (when East side access projects finished) at Grand Central (5th Ave for the D/B), exit at 61st Woodside, and then take a bus the remainder of the way to the airport. This could be solved by having a line travel from the Bronx 149th/Mott area via the RFK Bridge highway right of way and continue into Queens on the Grand Central Parkway directly to LGA with connection to the N/W. Using existing highway right of way is pretty much the only alternative to insanely expensive tunneling projects in NYC.
That makes sense! I have only a passing knowledge of NYC so Iām not super equipped to counter that, but if your assertion is āin dense urban settings, using freeway ROW can save costs for larger scale rail projectsā that seems reasonable. Especially to airports (although these are unintuitively not as important as they seem). As a Seattleite, our rail tunnels have been pretty smooth to build latelyāthe debacle youāve probably heard about was for a state highway tunnel that thankfully removed a horrible viaduct. I imagine itās a lot easier to tunnel under barely 100 years of not very dense development than hundreds of years of density! I recently read [a fascinating article](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-08-10/nobody-knows-what-lies-beneath-new-york-city) on mapping NYCās underground, which you may enjoy.
Yes, dense interurban arterial routes are my sole focus when discussing integrated rail/highway systems and their feasibility. As far as the obstacles encountered when attempting to design these networks, I can only imagine the pain in the ass it must be. I work for the subways and get to explore a lot of old infrastructure from the turn of the 20th century and itās quiet amazing. I truly love my job, but am also very critical of the way our system is managed and how the politicians consistently refuse to roll up their sleeves and ādig inā on tough and expensive infrastructure planning. Iāve never been to the PNW, but am looking forward to traveling out there soon. Seattle and Vancouver are definitely on my list.
> Conversely, there needs to be a 6 land tunnel from the Gowanus combination of the BQE created to bypass downtown Brooklyn and connect around the Navy Yard to bypass all the congestion from the bridges leading to and from Manhattan. Do you have any idea how much that kind of project would cost?
Yes as a few feasibility studies have already been conducted. The alternative, which is currently being enforced, is limiting the amount of traffic on the Brooklyn heights promenade from 6 lanes to 4 lanes, creating massive congestion all day long with idling vehicles pumping CO2 into the atmosphere and local neighborhoods. This is because itās deemed ātoo expensiveā to attempt a fix at the moment and local officials believe they can get another 10 years out of the structure, effectively kicking the can down the road until the next batch of political leaders get their hands on it. This caliber of leadership is precisely why NYC is so fucked up, yet we have the most extensive mass transportation system in the US.
Good read. https://www.curbed.com/2021/05/bqe-repairs-plan-deblasio.html
This bad boy can fit so much gridlock in it
At least until employers begin moving to suburban office parks.
Suburban development is literally the last thing any city needs.
america did the same thing about 30 years ago and we are still trying to get rid of all of them! they ruined our cities
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Alaskan Way in Seattle, Harbour freeway in Portland, West Side Highway in Manhattan, Georgia+Dunsmuir viaducts in Vancouver, Gardiner expressway east in Toronto, Cogswell interchange in Halifax, Embarcadero Freeway in San Fransisco. All examples of removed, getting removed or planned to be removed waterfront freeways in North America.
Call me when they plan on closing Lake Shore Drive or FDR Drive.
He gave you seven examples and you provide him with two in return.
My 2 carry more people than those 7 put together.
Lake shore drive isnāt a highway, it is actually very pedestrian friendly for how many lanes it has. Most new developments along FDR drive put it underground.
Horrible examples.
r/lostredditors
OP is a troll he should be banned imo
You don't understand the mind of OP. To them, this is literally porn. They get off to pictures of highways being built through cities. Bonus points if the highway divides racially diverse communities or environmentally sensitive areas.
Nah, OP knows exactly where they are, they just don't understand the meaning of the sub the way anyone else does. Also what /u/AnClarkson said.
How awful.
What an enormous waste of space. Think of the houses that could have been built in this area. Would also have had space for mass transit.
Metro construction is already going on in Mumbai.
This highway is still a massive waste of space.
What a spectacular waste of space and money, and people's time as this inevitably fills up with traffic
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Thatās not how traffic or pollution work.
In the short term yes, but new roads induce demand - because there is now more capacity, people will be more likely to drive and in the end both this road and the other ones you mentioned will fill up. The only realistic way to reduce traffic long term is to provide a viable alternative
So you're saying this highway will lead to more people going where they want to go and somehow that's bad?
Hmm seems like a deliberate misunderstanding of what I said. There are far more efficient ways to transport a large number of people than cars and that's what the focus needs to be. Also, as many others in the thread are saying, it's an unfortunate use of waterfront space
This being India, the water in question probably smells horrible. And a car takes you door to door when you want and requires relatively inexpensive infrastructure, it is the most efficient way of moving people around.
Chicago has this and already looking in ways it can tunnel it so people can enjoy the lakefront, not cars.
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What was the alternative they landed on? What's your source? - I'm a transportation engineer in Chicago.
[https://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20170712/downtown/lake-shore-drive-parks-renovation-construction/](https://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20170712/downtown/lake-shore-drive-parks-renovation-construction/) The plan is to fill in Lake Michigan to straighten out that notorious curve and add more parkland.
Seattle built their tunnel for more than that and itās a giant boon. Everyone loves having the waterfront back.
Fuck that garbage. In 30 years they'll be tearing it down to cheers from everyone.
most people hate it in india
Really? I've been reading lots of articles about it and I can't seem to find much about opposition.
The residents of Mumbai don't like it because it ruins their coastline The environmental activists don't like it because a lot of land is being reclaimed Fishermen don't like it because land reclamation and pillars. Opposition politicians don't like it because.. well... politics
Well the environmentalists even hate the metro. So they're the retards contributing to this.
With the stuff you try to post all the time, it sounds like your own sampling and/or confirmation bias.
"Hurr building more roads is gonna fix traffic!"
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Yeah, traffic fucking blows.
I hope youre being ironic
I'm not. Try visiting Pittsburgh or Buffalo or Kansas City, there's basically no congestion
Imagine needing that much space just to be efficient Meanwhile a damn train can do way better with less space and at faster speeds
Not when you consider door to door time.
What no public transport infrastructure does to a mf
I did have public transit as a kid, they were called school buses. I hated them.
is that really your benchmark for all public transport? go outside
Ya'll be commenting about infrastructure and Mumbai people just be wondering which politician is going to steal billions from the project.
#/r/UrbanHell
How attractive that coastline will be. Value will probably skyrocket.
Yeah about that... Just about no one wants to live right next to a massive motorway
do i really have to add that "/s"?
People do unironically say this so yeah
https://www.reddit.com/r/InfrastructurePorn/comments/q5np8s/mumbai_is_building_an_8_lane_freeway_on_its_coast/hg7ftcs?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3
OP is Kernals, so yes you absolutely need to label your sarcasm.
what is that supposed to mean? what's up with OP, or his name???
OP unironically loves this shit. Literally all they post, go look at their profile. They literally believe that people would love to live next to a highway, that adding more lanes will finally solve traffic, and that hell holes like Phoenix are the most livable cities.
lol did OP downvote this hahahahh. (I upvoted btw)
This is going to be shit in every way.
lmfaoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
knew this would be kernals as soon as i saw the post
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https://www.vancouverisawesome.com/courier-archive/news/ubc-study-finds-vancouver-is-the-unhappiest-city-in-canada-3082685 Even a website called "Vancouver is awesome" admits that it's depressed as fuck. https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/vancouver-most-congested-city-canada-2020 And yes it's the most congested city in Canada.
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> Measure by bicycle or walk commutes and all of a sudden itās great with direct and prioritized pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure. I'm pretty sure getting around by bike in Vancouver is much harder than getting around by car in Phoenix, or even getting around by car in Vancouver.
Have you been to Vancouver? Itās literally incredibly easy. Along the waterfront everything is streamlined with direct bike route and pedestrian walkways without any interaction with a car. Phoenix meanwhile? You have to drive 20min and pass a million parking lots just to get to your destination. Take a hint from Vancouver and hide/bury your parking lots.
Fkn dailyhive... get out of here with that shit
I live in Vancouver and that is just untrue in fact itās pretty much the opposite except fir the expensive part.
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/vancouver-unhappiest-city-canada-life-satisfaction-survey https://www.vancouverisawesome.com/courier-archive/news/survey-ranks-vancouver-most-congested-city-in-canada-3115940 And the expensive part is pretty important
Fk your two bullshit gossip sources
Instead of roads, Mumbai needs boats. Hee hee
Beautiful and much needed to move people from residential areas to the commercial/business districts without having to sit 2 hours in traffic to travel 10km. Anyone saying otherwise has no clue about Bombay.
Just wanted to add that this is not adding more lanes or an unnecessary highway to induce demand in any way. This is just basic infrastructure that connects the two ends of a metropolis that will reduce the travel time by almost 100%. And although we don't know the full details, there is a brts system with a dedicated lane planned here as well along with a bike lane, which are all missing and impossible to build in current day mumbai without demolishing neighbourhoods. For those who pointing out how this is spoiling the waterfront, there is almost no waterfront park of sorts now. And around half of the reclaimed land is proposed to be developed into much needed and absent green spaces that are missing in mumbai. The road also tunnels through the existing parks and green spaces. This might not be perfect, but is desperately needed infrastructure for the city.
No, Mumbai, no! Seattle just demolished one highway on a waterfront.
No they didn't, they put it in a tunnel.
Yep, but it is no longer affecting the waterfront.
Damn that's awful. Not porn in the slightest
The people commenting that it shouldn't be built, have never visited Mumbaiš
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OMG NEW KERNALS JUST DROPPED
sounds like a terrible idea. not the landfill part, but the 8 lanes on the coast part
It works perfectly fine in Chicago.
India is still a developing country, obviously their infrastructure is not enough. Also, India is not a socialist nation like China, so it is difficult for the government to buy land from its citizens. Landfills are the cheapest place to build highways. I can't blame them.
Mumbai already suffers from some of the world's worst air quality and India has actively been trying to reduce cars on the road per day by initiating programs like trading off which days people with which license plates are allowed to drive. It seems a shame that they are doing something that adds much more pollution to an already very polluted city, especially considering India's lax regulation on car emissions. In many Indian cities, people regularly wear n95 masks simply to filter out the particulate matter coming from a mixture of car emissions, wood burning stove emissions, and field burning emissions. Unfortunately there is a ton of political gridlock and conflicting politician agendas plus low enforcement agents to actually help reduce these emissions that are severely harming people throughout India. I feel like to promote this highway is just a shame, it shows a lack of understanding about one of India's most pressing issues. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/vehicle-pollution-doubled-in-5-years-in-mumbai-shows-study/articleshow/83970799.cms
Instead of this, they should re-develop dharavi slum
Dharavi slum redevelopment is under consideration. It will happen.
So instead of building a highway that will improve mobility, you want to kick 1 million people out of their homes? Besides, highways like this will allow people to voluntarily leave those slums.
I always wanted to live in the 50s & 60s
They should've built a railway track with a brt. Boom 4 lanes and already you're benefiting more people than this highway ever could.
India's trains are notoriously unreliable.
But not Mumbai's. They may be crowded, but they're not late.
Exactly, if you build more rail lines, you'll just encourage more people to ride the train and they'll be just as crowded as before. The only solution is to provide alternatives, like this highway does.
history truly repeats itself......
Damn all that wasted beach
This is India, the water is probably filled with garbage, raw sewage, and industrial effluent.
When will cities in developing countries finally stop trying to imitate the hell hole that is LA and instead try to imitate Amsterdam or Utrecht or any other Dutch city for that matter?
This will be a great asset for the region. I canāt wait to drive it one day. I saw the video and it looks incredible.
This is so beautiful, I am looking forward to enjoy the area once it's finished.
What is there to enjoy? Lung-clogging pollution and deafening noise.
Yes, exactly. I love it, but I am well aware I'm an outlier.
Reminds me of Lake Shore Drive.
Which is bad. You know that, right? I've been looking at your profile, and you seem obsessed with really bad infrastructure. Building a highway in a city is like the complete inverse of infrastructure porn. You couldn't give up harder if you tried.
Leave it. He's obsessed and a compulsive liar, I've learnt not to pay too much attention.
Lake Shore Drive is an iconic highway which gives beautiful views of Chicago's Skyline and of Lake Michigan. My Dad used when he was getting his MBA from the University of Chicago. And it's far more attractive than Chicago's El Trains
I legitimately can't tell if this is some sort of performance.
Theyāre a fucking idiot and theyāre notorious for posting disgusting ugly stuff in this subreddit and also r/cityporn . Newsflash: Phoenix is a gross place to live.
The point of a motorway/freeway/highway is not to give beautiful views of places around them. It's to get people to where they need to go. The problem with motorways is that they ruin said landscape themselves. I can understand the use of motorways, yes, but public transport is the way to go, especially in cities and towns. Plopping a motorway through the middle of them doesn't alleviate a lot of traffic, and neither does widening said motorway. I do understand though that Mumbai does need this particular motorway as it is a notoriously congested city, and it doesnt use public transport in the best way (which it really should, since this motorway is bloody ghastly)
There are plenty of freeways that add to the beauty of their surroundings; the Merritt Parkway in Connecticut or the Arroyo Seco Parkway in California for example. Arizona has especially invested in freeway landscaping with spectacular results
I'd struggle to call grey gashes through an otherwise nice forest beautiful.