Originally Posted by
DetroitPlanner
I think many of you have forgot that freeways bring us parts to make our Mustang's, Cadillacs, Dodge Trucks, F-150's, Volts, Focuses, Mazda 6's as well as get them to markets.
Without a way to get these products to market cheaply, there ain't no Detroit.
This is not to say that in many places freeways could be put on a road diet or eliminated. However we have to remember what butters our bread. Even though the loaf is much smaller than it used to be, we still are tied to it.
In order to address the sprawl issues we would need to have stringent land-use standards and controls at the state level. Otherwise local municipalities will continue to steal stores, offices, and manufacturing facilities from each other and developers will still build way more homes than our market should naturally allow for. Access to good roads is not the issue here, its how we use our land that is the difference. Remember folks we will need good roads to run these light rail cars in the future, but light rail won't be successful unless we can address land-use issues.