And those tracks tended not to traverse the “better” neighborhoods, did they? No, they were conveniently nearby. Let’s not forget that the toffs have the option of taxis and limos (how you think those folks on the Today Show get there?)

As for commuting by car, audio books are equally suitable for that and tend to make the trip far more productive. Why, I’ve recently finished LotR and will be staring on McCullough’s Truman soon.

These are the days of $4 a gallon gas here in the US, a fact which does not generate much sympathy from most other people in the world (who saw the back end of $4 gas a long time ago)

Yust a minute dere, feller! Dee $4 a gallon gas dat Youropeens bin buyin’ (actually, more like $5 or $6 — you have to translate liters to gallons and figure exchange rates) costed dee same as ours (in America.)

Strip away the gasoline taxes and the prices were the same last time I looked — admittedly a decade or so ago, last time folks were comparing Eurogas and American. But the Euros have been taxing gas at a far higher rate, making their retail, at the pump price, much higher. What the heck – didja think Eurogas was so much more expensive to refine or import from the M.E.?

The big difference has been that taxes on American gasoline have been dedicated to highway construction and maintenance (at least until the Clinton Administration started picking that particular pocket) while Eurogas went into the general fund, enriching bureaucrats (in America the payola was limiting to politicians’ friends in the highway construction business.)

As someone who witnessed the opening of the Verrazzano Narrows Bridge:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verrazano-Narrows_Bridge

I can tell you that it wasn’t just minorities who were displaced, unless you are using the term to mean people who are summarily crushed under the plans of their government.

There are still people in Brooklyn who bemoan its construction and the huge bifurcation it created in Brooklyn neighborhoods. There was even talk after its opening of an expansion that would have allegedly put where *I* was living in the path of new demolition. (I don’t know if the rumor was true or just scare talk, but it never happened.)

We at least have the ability to sit back and reflect on these things as well as criticize them. Think of all the people in China who have been uprooted due to Olympics construction, as well as all the new high-rise buildings. They have to take it and shut up.

I live in a East Coast rural area — 20 minute drive to a grocery store. It’s less dense than some rural areas of England (where there was sufficiently-frequent bus transport — at least when I was travelling) and much more dense than some rural areas of western and central US. I think public transport if becoming much more viable — give us $5/gallon gas and I think I’ll see more up here. Mass transit though — hardly. Not enough people.

Funding is tricky. How should they spend/distribute our taxes? To the best of my knowledge, oil companies (yeah, Exxon & crew), interstate highways, and Amtrak are all subsidized by (receive money from) the Federal Government (assuming a state “behaves” itself. I think I recall some noise about yanking Fed Highways funds if Vermont didn’t comply with every provision of the No Child Left Behind act). As far as I know, the local (in my state) city buses and inter-town buses are subsidized by the state (more, yet different, taxes). At least one local bus is grant-funded and the ride is free; others sell tickets. They all run on petroleum and/or biodiesel. Our Front Porch Forum has regular rideshare/carpool/save you a trip posts.

Just a bit more to factor in.

Was the latter the actual intent? No, I don’t think it was. Was it a fairly foreseeable effect? I think so.

Boston has a particularly interesting example in the Southwest Expressway (I-95). The 1948 Master Highway Plan for Metropolitan Boston:

Because of the heavy concentration of population within the entire area traversed, selection of a suitable route was difficult. However, by studying a number of locations one was found where, by utilizing existing highways and vacant areas, and by traversing sections where property values were lowest, it was possible to find a route that could be developed at a reasonable cost. (emphasis added)

The plan was cancelled after the “bad” neighborhoods had already had a three-mile long right-of-way bulldozed; it was later used for commuter rail and rapid transit, with a linear park put on top.

Of course, it was cancelled because the demolition was starting to get to the “good” neighborhoods with actual political power….

Bombers, not ICBMs. Both the US and SU developed working intercontintental rockets within 4 months of each other in 1957 and the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act of 1956 was passed the year before that.

Ike’s motivation had less to do with Soviet nukes than a the 1919 Transcontinental Convey, which took two months to cross the US and which suffered a 7% casualty rate. The Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways lets the US move its military assets around the US quickly and reasonably efficiently.

I’d think it would be easier to solve the rush hour one first.

ObSF here is “Chronopolis” by JG Ballard.

Cheap gas made for a lot of decisions that might not otherwise have been made, no doubt.

I lived, worked, and travelled in Europe, and I really appreciated the ability to use public transportation in lieu of a car, assuming I lived close enough to a rail or bus line that didn’t demend I leave 2 hours for travel time. I doubt any of the public transportation efforts there sprang from any idea to support the community rather than the individual.
Europeans might complain about the price of fuel, but they drive to work about as much as Americans do, from what I have observed. I have been in hellacious rush hour jams, and their August vacation season sees roads across the continent packed. Since they have moved away from the factory oriented shifts, the number of busses and trains have decreased. Also, as more Europeans can afford to move out of cities, they do. Don’t kid yourselves that suburban sprawl is solely the problem of Americans.
I do wish I had reliable train service from southern Virginia to DC, I’d probably go there more often. I do prefer to take the train when I can.