
Iowa Makes a Bold Admission: We Need Fewer Roads - atomatica
http://www.citylab.com/commute/2015/07/iowa-makes-a-bold-admission-we-need-fewer-roads/398021/
======
mholt
I'm from Iowa. There are a handful of population centers, and a sprinkling of
homes and small communities between miles and miles and miles of farmland. The
thing is, most people don't travel between the small communities - most
driving takes people to or from town. If they're not going to town, they're
going to visit neighbors or their fields, in which case gravel roads work
great. Gravel roads work better than deteriorated pavement and have much lower
maintenance costs.

I think "the entire system is unneeded" is a bit of a stretch, but I agree
that, outside of cities, most routes don't need to be paved - you can safely
travel 50 mph on a flat, straight gravel road. Of course the main arteries -
Hwy 52, Hwy 20, I-80, and many others need to stay maintained. But there are
so many small roads that, although quaint and a pleasure to drive, are
probably unnecessary from a utilitarian/practical point of view.

~~~
ryen
When it snows, how effective is it to shovel the gravel roads?

~~~
douche
Better, in many cases actually. The gravel mixes with the snow, and for added
traction you just run a sander in your road plows (with actual sand, not that
calcium chloride/salt mix they mostly use on pavement now). Fun fact about
putting salt on the roads to melt snow and ice: when it gets cold enough, it
starts refreezing and gets slippery than a bastard.

------
w1ntermute
Charles Marohn of Strong Towns
([http://www.strongtowns.org/](http://www.strongtowns.org/)), who is quoted in
the article, did a great podcast interview a while back on "how the post-World
War II approach to town and city planning has led to debt problems and
wasteful infrastructure investments":
[http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2014/05/charles_marohn.html](http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2014/05/charles_marohn.html)

------
cjslep
"The [Iowa] primary highway system makes up over 9,000 miles (14,000 km), a
mere 8 percent of the U.S. state of Iowa's public road system." [0]

So while laudable, it would be very nice if North Carolina followed suit with
its ~79,000 miles of maintained roads (largest of any state) [1]. But I doubt
that would happen, my friend at NCDOT says the culture emphasizes building new
roads (or the ones that get wiped out by hurricanes out on the outer banks),
and change intersections in a manner that borders on the whimsical.

We like to build roads in challenging places, it seems [2].

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iowa_Primary_Highway_System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iowa_Primary_Highway_System)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Carolina_Highway_System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Carolina_Highway_System)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Carolina_Highway_12](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Carolina_Highway_12)

~~~
gtCameron
North Carolina does not have the most maintained roads of any state, they have
"largest _state maintained_ highway network in the United States."

This is a function of them choosing to maintain roads at the state level
instead of the county level. If you look at road miles by state [0] regardless
of the actual entity that maintains them, they are 16th.

[0] [http://blog.cubitplanning.com/2010/02/road-miles-by-
state/](http://blog.cubitplanning.com/2010/02/road-miles-by-state/)

~~~
amyjess
Their highway network is still pretty large, though.

Texas also has an all-state-maintained system (except for toll roads, which
are private, but the free service roads are still state-maintained... and
Texas tends to favor adding service roads wherever possible), and their road
network is the _second_ -largest state-maintained highway network in the US.
When you compare the physical size of the two states, NC really comes off as
having an excessive amount of roads.

~~~
gtCameron
Texas as roughly 5x the size of NC by landmass, and has approximately 3x the
number of road miles. However, NC is more densely populated than TX. If you
look at it by road mile per person they are almost identical.

------
programminggeek
At one point in time an extensive road system is a competitive advantage. At
another, it makes less sense.

The same thing happened with Railroads during their heyday. I remember seeing
an old railroad map with stops at all these small towns in Nebraska. Now,
railroads are almost entirely commercial with very few passenger stops in
small towns.

It makes sense that at some point you just don't have the need for so many
roads. If more people move to urban or even suburban city centers, things like
public transportation, ride sharing, Uber, and even self-driving vehicles
start to make a lot of sense and cut down a lot on driving volume and the need
for roads.

~~~
angersock
Well, to be fair, the history of railroads in the US is kinda crackheaded.

~~~
Yhippa
What do you mean by that?

~~~
angersock
See:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amtrak#Pre-
Amtrak](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amtrak#Pre-Amtrak)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_rail_transport_in_t...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_rail_transport_in_the_United_States)

Basically, an ongoing waterfall of corruption, regulation, NIMBYism, unfair
(arguably) competition from other sectors, and a lot else.

It's not quite accurate to just say "Well, passenger rail is dead" as though
it was some natural progression of things--especially when you look at it
working in other nations.

~~~
Aloha
Show me another nation /of our geographical size/ with active well used long
distance passenger rail outside of a few highly dense corridors - a hint, it
doesn't exist - people will nearly always choose speed. There are very few
passenger rail systems with higher than 90% farebox recovery - and none in a
country of our geographical size.

That said, I'm in favor of keeping amtrak for strategic reasons (a trained
pool of operating talent for national emergencies).

~~~
CamTin
What kind of emergencies? Ones where we suddenly have to run a lot of
passenger trains?

~~~
Aloha
Ones where for a variety of reasons airspace is closed - WWII would not have
been possible for us without railroads - the railroads moves huge numbers of
men and materiel cross country faster than aircraft could - railroads also use
much less fuel to do it than nearly any method of transport. While I cant
think of a tactical situation where we couldn't airlift troops inside the
continental US - the skills pool is worthwhile to keep for the 500 million a
year is costs the country (a drop in the proverbial bucket compared to the
rest of the federal government).

~~~
CamTin
WWII wasn't possible without the railroads because the interstate highways
hadn't been built yet. They are now, and as a result our rail network has
become useless for personnel and troop transport. Sure, we can press our
amazing freight network into service for logistics, but there's no reason to
prop up Amtrak to keep those skills and infrastructure around, since the
freight carriers show no signs of being in danger of extinction anytime soon.

But that's freight. If there's really a situation where we need to move vast
numbers of /people/ around the country, the few dozen passenger consists that
Amtrak owns or leases are just not gonna do the job. It would need to be the
highways (probably pressing transit and school buses into service) or nothing.

It's possible that the NE corridor services could be helpful in an emergency,
but for the vast majority of the country, the idea that Amtrak could be
pressed into service as anything other than a minor sideline during a major
evacuation or emergency is a just a weird fantasy.

~~~
tsotha
On the west coast Amtrak is more of an amusement park ride than a practical
transportation option. If you want to go from San Francisco to Los Angeles the
Amtrak trip planner has you on two trains and two buses before you arrive
after nine hours. If you want to take a train the whole way there's only one
each day and it takes 12 hours (as compared to about 6.5 driving).

It's kind of a joke. We should either get serious about a rail system or kill
Amtrak altogether.

~~~
orbifold
Well a high speed rail like the TGV going ~300-350km/h would cut that down to
roughly 2.5 hours, admittedly that is still higher than going by air, but a
lot better than 12 hours.

~~~
tsotha
Flying isn't any faster than 2.5 hours once you figure in the extra time at
the airport.

In any event I would be happy to take a conventional train if took less than
about eight hours. I don't like flying and the drive is grueling, particularly
in traffic.

The problem is AFAIK Amtrak doesn't own any track on the west coast. It's all
single track, routing is optimized for freight, and passenger trains have a
lower priority than freight trains.

------
kylec
Per capita driving may have peaked, but as long as the capita is still growing
there will still be more and more cars on the road.

~~~
toomuchtodo
> but as long as the capita is still growing there will still be more and more
> cars on the road.

As long as those drivers can afford the tax burden to maintain the aging
infrastructure, sure.

~~~
refurb
Transportation infrastructure spending at the federal level is currently
3%.[1] You could always argue that is low due to a lack of investment, but it
pales in comparison to federal entitlement spending (59%).

I'd be much more worried about the tax burden due to entitlement spending than
I would about transportation infrastructure.

[1][http://www.cbpp.org/research/policy-basics-where-do-our-
fede...](http://www.cbpp.org/research/policy-basics-where-do-our-federal-tax-
dollars-go)

~~~
superuser2
The social good supported by entitlement spending is sick people not dying and
poor people not starving or being homeless.

The social "good" supported by highways is geographical separation between the
middle class and the poor (which largely means the white and everyone else.)

~~~
kps

      > which largely means the white and everyone else.
    

Ah, that explains why highways only exist in the United States.

~~~
superuser2
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_flight#Roads](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_flight#Roads)

------
darkstar999
So how do you let roads "deteriorate and go away"? Wouldn't there be huge
unsafe potholes in the transition?

What kind of roads would they abandon? I didn't click through to all the
references, but this article doesn't give any solutions.

~~~
sophacles
Huge chunks of the midwest are a paved checkerboard of roads spaced at 1 mile
intervals. Many of these get 3-5 cars passing a day, if that. There is no need
for a lot of these to be paved, as they serve as field access roads. The
houses off these roads are farm houses, and most of the farmers I know don't
mind either way if it's a gravel or paved road. Some actually prefer gravel,
as in the winter, when it is icy, the gravel can provide better traction, and
the county doesn't do a good job plowing.

~~~
computmaxer
That's a bit of an exaggeration - there are definitely roads checkerboarded at
1 mile intervals, but most are gravel in between some paved ones.

~~~
sophacles
This may vary state to state. I know that in IL it seems that well over half
of them are paved, or tarred gravel. The southern end of IL has less of this
tho... but the amount paved is increasing. When I was a kid visiting
relatives, I learned to drive on a lot of gravel roads, but heading down there
for a funeral not long ago, most of the gravel I learned to drive on is paved
now.

------
raldi
The article has a map showing which states have already hit peak traffic; does
anyone know of a per-municipality or per-county list?

I'm really curious about whether this has happened in San Francisco.

~~~
vl
Yep, it's unclear how it's measured and if the metric applied correctly. For
example, in Seattle traffic jams get only worse over years. Clearly it hasn't
"peaked". Yet map from the article shows that it peaked in the Washington
state as a whole.

~~~
nulltype
Hilariously, the graph in the article is "Vehicle Miles Travelled" not "Hours
spent in vehicle" which could be increasing while the other decreases.

~~~
tsotha
Yeah, something like "average highway speed" would be a better metric.

------
gremlinsinc
I think the a lot of places should focus on expanding major
roads/thoroughfares, and cities.. But look into bricks/dirt/gravel for
country/side roads. would be nice if after self-driving cars, comes self-
flying aerocars, cause then we won't need roads at all except in the city
where air traffic would get super bogged down.

------
dredmorbius
Related: I need to confirm the trend held, but as of a year or two ago, US FAA
RITA data showed peak aviation fuel in 2000. Total departures and passenger
miles have been higher since, but due to smaller and more fully loaded
aircraft.

By 2010- 2012 or so, actual fuel use was ~50% of year 2000 forecast estimates.

------
mark-r
I've always thought that total vehicle miles are capped by the availability of
gas. Since fracking has expanded that supply, at least in the short term, I'd
expect those mileage charts to start upticking again.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Total vehicle miles are goverened by both oil prices and demographics. You're
seeing a huge shift in demographics currently in the US, which will drive down
vehicle miles.

[http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2015/03/dot-vehicle-
miles-...](http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2015/03/dot-vehicle-miles-driven-
increased-49.html)

> However gasoline prices are just part of the story. The lack of growth in
> miles driven over the last 7 years was probably also due to the lingering
> effects of the great recession (lack of wage growth), the aging of the
> overall population (over 55 drivers drive fewer miles) and changing driving
> habits of young drivers.

------
closetnerd
This may make sense in Iowa but it makes no sense in California. Gravel roads
would would slow the effective max speed down to a crawl which would further
exasperate traffic. If anything we need a higher driving speeds.

~~~
CalRobert
Higher speeds generally increase traffic rather than decrease it, as following
distance increases (or, if it doesn't, traffic due to wrecks will slow you
down anyway).

That being said, I live in CA and would love a model much like Germany, with
unrestricted freeways in the rural areas and speed limits around 15-20 mph in
towns and cities. Going down I-5 to socal? Sure, do 150. Driving in a town
where there could be people walking, cyclists, vehicles stopping often, etc,?
Maybe 15 makes more sense.

Of course, not giving a license to just anyone with a pulse would be a start.
My grandmother (lovely woman, but 91 and clearly past her driving years)
failed her written driving test a few weeks ago. What did the DMV do? They
_extended_ her license another two months, for reasons that escape me. "You
can continue to drive despite a demonstrated ignorance of driving law" is
pretty much what we're saying there.

Also, California is big. A lot of it probably resembles Iowa more than SF in
terms of road infrastructure - ever head out to the more remote parts?

~~~
hn9780470248775
The German Autobahn (equivalent to Interstate highways here) is entirely
limited-access, high-speed (minimum speed limit 100 km/h; often no speed
limit).

The German Bundesstrasse (equivalent to U.S. or state highways?) does have
highly variable speed limits, as you describe, and I found them
correspondingly maddening to drive on, due to the incessant need to accelerate
or decelerate.

~~~
CalRobert
Indeed - in my view this correlates to one of the best places in the world to
drive. Variable limits seem more logical than assuming one speed can always be
the best for current conditions. Road throughput (vehicle-miles per hour) can
be maximized at a lower speed when traffic is heavy, so limits are reduced.
Conversely, when traffic is light the minimization of individual travel time
can be prioritized, so limits can be raised.

------
dataker
I briefly studied in South Dakota and Iowa without a car and it was a living
nightmare.

Relying on friends and "taxis", I had to go through negative temperatures to
get a simple can of soda.

After that, I could never complain about BART.

~~~
bkjelden
Cars are pretty much a requirement in a rural area like that.

But on the plus side, cars are a lot easier to own in those areas. Parking is
usually free/cheap. Traffic is very low, etc.

------
ashmud
One thing I learned, whether accurate or not, from the original SimCity is
road maintenance is expensive. I almost invariably ended up peaking city size
as the roads entered a constant state of disrepair.

------
AcerbicZero
A bit old, but still relevant -
[http://archive.gao.gov/f0302/109884.pdf](http://archive.gao.gov/f0302/109884.pdf)

I'm no expert on the topic, but it seems to me that if heavily loaded trucks
are causing a disproportionate amount of damage they should be taxed at a rate
which allows for proper maintenance of those roads.

~~~
ams6110
Trucks are taxed more already. The problem is legislatures using those tax
revenues for other pork and then claiming to not have enough money for roads.

~~~
jessaustin
Semi trucks reduce the quality of the roads _much_ more than lighter vehicles
do. The slightly greater tax they pay doesn't begin to make up for it.

[http://fhwicsint01.fhwa.dot.gov/policy/hcas/addendum.cfm](http://fhwicsint01.fhwa.dot.gov/policy/hcas/addendum.cfm)

