The Great Highway Robbery

The area where I live--just south of the nation's capital--is nationally famous for having the third-worst traffic congestion in the country. I am at the epicenter of it where the Capital Beltway girding Washington, DC, intersects with Route 66 (not the one of rock 'n' roll fame. There no kicks to be found there.)

Kindly put, it's a mess of great proportions. In the past decades, the Virginia suburbs have sustained explosive growth without a corresponding increase in infrastructure and the roads have become a chaos worthy of any Third World country. Indeed, they remind me of what I encountered while in West Africa in the 80s. Potholes, badly made repairs that engender worse conditions within months, unsynchronized traffic signals, stalled traffic in mile-long lines spewing diesel fumes into the air. The rush hour in Northern Virginia starts at four in the morning and ends at 10 at night six days a week. And we do not rest on the seventh day. We drive to Washington and create traffic problems there too.

The legislation views these issues with benign concern. The solution most often relied upon is the building of more roads, as if such a giant step sideways might indeed indeed cure the traffic ills. The result is quite opposite. Creating new roads, or adding lanes to existing ones, creates additional traffic snarls that will last well into the next decade. Since there seems to be a philosophy of denuding road construction areas of any and all vegetation for miles around, we are losing the small amount of green stuff that helps make life here pleasant while adding acres of impermeable surface to the land, and contributing to erosion, silting and degradation of the Potomac river basin. I drive (no, my car staggers) daily through red clay-colored moonscapes devoid of trees or grass, with makeshift ramps that merge 80 mph maniacs with five miles-per-hour commuters already nearing road rage.

Here's another thing: Does anyone truly believe that the surfacing materials --tar,macadam, cement and other antiquated mixtures thereof--are the best we have to offer? Is there planned obsolescence in our roadways? Many think so. Europeans, meanwhile, are experimenting with rubber-based surfaces made from recycled tires, while some developing countries are looking into plasticized plant fibers that are highly resistant to heat, wear or water.

The point here is that our roadways are disintegrating, and that building additional ones to solve this problem is a fool's errand. What we need is address not the road, but the road user--the daily drivers, commuters and truckers.

Lets give people willing to operate a van pool a free van, gasoline vouchers and discounted parking. Lets invest the single drivers during rush hours with the same shame we now heap upon smokers while offering tax breaks to carpoolers and businesses that promote flextime and ridership programs. Lets promote permeable road surfaces, bicycle and skating lanes, motorcycles and micro-cars.

Solving basic transportation issues is easier--and cheaper--than running wars across the world. Probably, better for people, too. It's not brain surgery, it's common sense. Lets make the road less traveled.