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on Thursday, January 22nd, 2009 at 3:55 pm and is filed under Thoughts.
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I wonder what effect personal aircraft would actually have on traffic and congestion. Most city planners agree that building more roads/bridges/tunnels leads to more cars, not less congestion. For instance, when they opened the Triborough Bridge here in NYC in the 30s, traffic briefly eased on the other bridges; however, within a year, Triborough was running at capacity and the other bridges were back up to their pre-Triborough levels. It’s a pattern that has been repeated frequently in other cities, too. Would a flying car ease congestion on the highways or increase it?
At the same time, the idea of the same idiots who can’t operate terrestrial vehicles safely (or at all) swooping through the skies scares the hell out of me. I mean, really: do you want [insert name of drunken celebrity whose mugshot was in the news this week] behind the controls of the flying car headed toward you?
January 23rd, 2009 at 7:39 am
I wonder what effect personal aircraft would actually have on traffic and congestion. Most city planners agree that building more roads/bridges/tunnels leads to more cars, not less congestion. For instance, when they opened the Triborough Bridge here in NYC in the 30s, traffic briefly eased on the other bridges; however, within a year, Triborough was running at capacity and the other bridges were back up to their pre-Triborough levels. It’s a pattern that has been repeated frequently in other cities, too. Would a flying car ease congestion on the highways or increase it?
At the same time, the idea of the same idiots who can’t operate terrestrial vehicles safely (or at all) swooping through the skies scares the hell out of me. I mean, really: do you want [insert name of drunken celebrity whose mugshot was in the news this week] behind the controls of the flying car headed toward you?