I quite liked All Infrastructure Is Not Created Equal. Devilstower makes a good point about minimizing the maintenance burden for the future.
Reading the comments, however, I was struck by the outright disdain for the automobile contained in some of them. I'm as progressive as anyone here. I favor single-payer universal health care, gay marriage, a progressive-as-hell tax code, and education for all. But I've never been able to agree with the Green-or-buster advocates living under our big test.
I feel that technology makes our world a better place, and I suspect almost everyone would agree with this sentiment, taken in isolation. Nevertheless, there is a contingent that wants us to avoid certain technologies because these technologies have unsolved deleterious effects or unctuous corporate sponsors. Perhaps these technologies don't fit a particular personal vision for society. Regardless of the cause, I feel that the merits of a technology are often ignored and the faults taken as unsolvable.
There are many examples, but today I'd like to talk about the automobile. Far from being a "habit we need to kick", as one comment read, the automobile is actually one of the greatest boons of the modern age.
A few weeks ago, I listened to fascinating NPR interview with Steven M. Gelber, the author of Horse Trading in the Age of Cars. What fascinated me is how little the attitude toward personal transportation has changed, and how little the shenanigans involved in selling that transportation have changed. Whimsically, I find myself imagining sleazy used chariot dealers in ancient Rome. Still, humans have always been drawn to better and more effective personal transportation.
The automobile, then, is progress is the most literal sense: it's the greatest stride we've made toward fulfilling a universal and eternal human goal. And it's a fantastic step, too: in terms of range, cargo capacity, and sheer flexibility, it's unlike anything we've seen before.
Never before have we been able to visit so many places so easily; a weekend trip to Niagara Falls from New York would have been unthinkable a century ago; now, that's nothing special. Someone with a disability, in a car, can go anywhere anyone else can. It's simple and easy to get groceries for a week without arduously dragging them down the street or waiting on a cold train platform. The automobile, all in all, has given us leisure time and freedom, opened up entirely new ways of living, and improved the quality of life for millions. If that isn't progress, what is?
It's easy, however, to take the automobile for granted. After all, nobody can remember life without it. In some circles, it's even become fashionable to see it as a barbarism, and rail as the enlightened choice. The ironic reality is that for the vast majority, cars are the choice, and rail the occasional necessity, usually forced upon them by population density.
Anti-car people decry the automobile and point out its problems, including pollution, safety, and alleged deleterious effects on society. Of course automobiles have problems. So do computers, sewing machines, fire and the wheel. But solving problems is what we do best. We need to stop using fossil fuels; we need to make our vehicles more efficient and our roads safer. We need to reduce congestion and build rail where it makes sense.
At the end of the day, though, cars have done a great deal for us, and are here to stay. At the risk of sounding like a DuPont commercial, we need to make them work better. We should create a fleet of the efficient, safe, and sustainable automobiles that people are increasingly coming to prefer. That way, we have all the advantages of sustainable infrastructure without any disruption of our society or regression in our standard of living.
Speaking of infrastructure: I agree with Devilstower. Most new highways would be white elephants. It's a disgrace that we don't have high-speed intercity rail (to compete with flying, not driving), and that the 2nd Avenue Subway had to wait 70 years. But the automobile should be treated as a desirable and integral part of our society, not some kind of embarrassing bad habit that must be kicked, popular opinion be damned.
The notion of ripping up highways smacks of the worst kind of hubris: it's trying to cajole the vast majority into giving up a lifestyle they've manifestly chosen for one that a select few prefer, and is anti-democratic and anti-progressive. Frankly, it's Luddism disguised as enlightenment, and not only flawed, but futile.