Quote Originally Posted by cramerro View Post
Keeping in line with the "magic" part... economics is not magically tied to highway funding. The only magic formula is the highway engineering manual that says all your roads have to be Level of Service C or you have to expand them.

Now, your last statement is still valid, we are wealthier becuase of good TRANSPORTATION... but becuase the "good" part for Detroit area is highways only, we are not as wealthy as we would be if all of our transportation was better. I could even argue that if all of our transportation was 'just OK' instead of highways 'good' and everything else 'blows,' we would be much better off.

Detroit has less congestion than other cities... you could extrapolate that to say that other cities have spent less proportionately to expand thier way out of congestion based on the fact that they have a lot while we have a little. Now compare the economic success of Detroit and its suburbs to any other city and suburbs that has highways and more investment in transit and frieght [[which would be all of them) and tell me that we're better off for having what we do.
I'll tell you: You are better off for 'having we we have'.

Your logic is not sound.

A successful Detroit in the future will depend on good transportation for goods and services.

Good transportation for goods and services alone will not make Detroit successful.

This logic extends elsewhere...

A successful Detroit in the future will depend on civic financial responsibility.

Civic financial responsibility wiill not alone make Detroit successful.

Its all about doing everything right. No 'magic' bullets, unfortunately.

But you can't argue that we're a failure because we have no congestion, when in fact we have no congestion because we're a failure.

Good transportation helps. It is not by itself sufficient. We are better off than we would be without the ability to move about our goods efficiently around our area.

Investment in transportation is of course not the only thing that has to be done.