“Mythbusting: Exposing Half-Truths That Support Automobile Dependency.”

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Suggesting that one think outside the boundaries of self-imposed boxes can have the “teaching pigs to dance” effect. Contemplating the future of the street grid in the context of traffic altered by tolled bridges across the Ohio is such a case.

The default (boxed) reaction seems to be: How could we possibly limit street lanes and slow traffic through New Albany when more people will want to use our arterial streets to pass through New Albany?

The better and unboxed question: What can we do to reduce traffic seeking to use our streets for pass-throughs, thuMythbusting: Exposing Half-Truths That Support Automobile Dependencys lessening volume? The answer: By imposing a cost (added time) to use our streets for reasons that don’t benefit city residents, thus taking cars off the streets, and leaving streets available for use by those who live here and wish to come here.

How do we get from here to there? Start thinking, and grow some balls.

, by Todd Litman (Planetizen)

Some commentators recently expressed outraged that governments spend money on cycling improvements. Examples include Christopher Cadwell’s Drivers Get Rolled: Bicyclists Are Making Unreasonable Claims To The Road—And Winning, in the Weekly Standard, and Bob Poole’s A U.S. Bicycle Route System? in Surface Transportation Innovations #121. You could call them cycling critics, because they assume that bicyclists have inferior rights to use public roads and that cycling facility investments are wasteful and unfair, or call them automobile dependency advocates because their general message is that transportation planning should focus on facilitating automobile travel with little consideration for other modes …

… Critics’ arguments that pedestrians and cyclists receive an excessive share of roadway resources is more evidence that automobile travel makes people selfish. Automobile travel requires expensive facilities and large amounts of energy, imposes significant risks on other travelers, and causes significant air and noise pollution, yet motorists only see the costs they bear, ignoring the costs they impose on others.

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