Monday, August 29, 2011

Why government services stink, part CXXI

Because governmental agencies are incentivized to prolong (or worsen) the problem:
“Congestion is our friend,” says Florida [transportation] planner Dom Nozzi, echoing a popular belief that getting a few people out of their cars is worth any cost. My review of long-range transportation plans for the nation’s 72 largest metropolitan areas revealed that more than half of them included policies aimed at increasing congestion rather than reducing it, and a third of them focused almost exclusively of such policies
See, if you actually solved the problem of traffic congestion, you wouldn't need transportation planners, right?  And so, why should we expect the agencies to produce workable solutions?

7 comments:

Chris said...

They make those sort of plans because they realize they cannot plan individually-operated cars. (It's that "individual" thing, dontcha know.) So their plans revolve around narrowing everyone's options to some kind of "mass transit". That, they can control and plan.

Rev. Paul said...

They won't, don't, and can't. I was a member of the American Planning Assn., a couple of decades ago, but finally didn't renew the membership.

Everything they put forward, all the latest and greatest ideas, involved totally-planned communities, built from scratch, where everyone lived within walking distance of work.

They could never explain exactly how this was all supposed to come about, or what magic might induce employers to put their companies in the Utopian Greenworld the professional planners envisioned.

I've rarely seen such willful ignorance & arrogance on display, except from government. And that takes us full circle back to your original point.

NMM1AFan said...

As a veteran Masshole commuter, I would like to kick those traffic planners in the nuts, repeatedly.

chiefjaybob said...

How do you pronounce that guy's last name? I keep trying something different, but it always comes out the same. Ironic.

Guffaw in AZ said...

Kinda like doctors, getting you well...?

Stretch said...

Shared a house with 2 social work interns. Both changed majors that year after realizing the system they wanted to join was not designed to fix the problem but actually expand it.

Anonymous said...

As a Transportation Engineer (low in the chain of command), I have a hard time swallowing the actual truth of this statement. Most of the problems encountered have to do with land aquistion and available money. I see more money wasted by the Dept of Transportation making huge design changes late in the design process (even after the final plans have been submitted). Huge design changes take time and cost money. I know for a fact that a two lane highway was not expanded to three lanes because the land belonged to upper middle class land owners who did not want to have their land taken. People with money also have money for political contributions - if you catch my drift...