• lntl@lemmy.ml
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    9 months ago

    we obviously need to take money from Amtrak and public transport grants to rebuild the interstate system. Guardrails upgraded everywhere, new lanes would be added to reduce congestion

    • zalgotext@sh.itjust.works
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      9 months ago

      New lanes don’t reduce congestion. When you add new lanes, drivers who had previously avoided those routes suddenly think “oh more lanes, it’ll be less congested” and it just fills back up to capacity. Except it’s worse because there’s even more cars now in the extra lanes you just built. Adding lanes makes congestion worse, not better.

      What we need to do is get people off the roads and onto public transportation. That’s how you reduce congestion - get people off the roads. Unfortunately that means actually investing in public transportation, so that’ll never happen in the US.

    • bluewing@lemm.ee
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      9 months ago

      The guard rails are pretty good enough as is. When you hear of something like this it’s very often caused by lack of maintenance/poor installation/assembly. There is a guy on youtube that has videos of a whole bunch of guardrails that are simply unsafe because they are missing bolts or were assembled incorrectly.

      And remember - guard rails are meant to slow you down enough to try and prevent a worse situation rather than always turning you back into the roadway to create a larger accident with other traffic or stop you completely.