The Mobility Trap: Why We'll Never Fix Congestion by Speeding Up Traffic
>So what do we achieve by building new highways and speeding up travel? We don't actually shorten people's trips; we just enable them to live and work farther away from each other.That is a good thing. One of the reasons why the Bay Area is so expensive is that the commute to cheaper areas in Central Valley is so long. Mobility allows choices. The type of home and the neighborhood you want to live in, is no longer as tightly coupled to the type of job you want to do, the place of worship you want to attend, the school you want your kids to go to, or the doctor your family wants to see.Yeah, having a corner grocery might be good, but without mobility, the grocers are going to realize that you don't really have much choice about buying from them, and maybe start charging higher prices, or not stocking as much variety, or higher fewer people and having less service.Mobility means more choice, and more decoupling. This means you not having to live in a high priced, crappy home because of proximity to your job. The further the distance we can make 30 minutes of commute, the more choices people have.