An article in the Washington Post helps to illustrate the need for our diligence and activism. The expansion of highways and interstates has often found its way through wetlands, stream corridors, watersheds and various other ecologically sensitive areas. More often than not, proponents of these transportation projects ususally have a financial interest in the further development of the roadways. Transportation corridors, especially those associated with the Eisenhower Interstate System, have been driven by the hyper-capitalist need to consume more automobiles than necessary. Consider this alarming data gathered from the Bureau of Tansportation Statistics:
In 2007, Americans owned 136,568,083 passenger cars which cost an average of 52.2-cents per mile to operate. That 52.2-cents assumes an average of 15,000-miles per year. If we extrapolate the numbers, that's an annual cost of 1.07-TRILLION dollars spent per year on the cost of operating a passenger car.
Huh, that's quite a bit more than say, $700-Billion. And, as drivers we all know that 15,000-miles per year is unreasonable number in most sprawling areas of the United States.
If we continue to allow hyper-capitalist driven planning decisions to dominate the development of this nation, there are far-reaching consequences that will add to the already dismal state of transportation and development in our nation.
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