Monday, February 2, 2009

Two Thirds Green, One Third Black

It looks like New York will get a once in a lifetime opportunity. I trust that someone good will be found that can change the face of traffic engineering in New York City. Now if only we could pass a stimulus package that would make Danes proud. What kind of package would they pass you ask? Well one with two thirds green and one third black. Perhaps we could learn something about framing.

Last Thursday, the Danish government agreed to invest 94 billion kroner ($16 billion) to improve the nation’s roads, railways and bike lanes by 2020.

Traffic Minister Lars Barfoed was quoted by The Copenhagen Post as saying, “The shape of the agreement is clear: two-thirds green, one-third black,” meaning that most of the budget will go towards public transit infrastructure and the rest will be spent on asphalt road projects.
Much different than the 80/20 highways to transit we promote here. 4/5ths Black. Does that mean 4/5ths home ownership?

4 comments:

Morgan Wick said...

Now this is an article that everyone in Congress, Democrat and Republican, should see.

Adam said...

I'm praying it'll be someone who will work to fix MTA's problems and argue for more subways. There are lots of gaping holes in the system in the outer boroughs, as well as the SAS project. I've proposed many subway extensions, and a few of them are doable. In fact, there's a right of way in Brooklyn and Queens that isn't being used to its full potential. They oughta put a circumfrential subway on that (the former LIRR Bay Ridge Branch).

BruceMcF said...

Not sure "green versus black" is the best framing for the US.

Alon Levy said...

Adam, some people have already gotten on the Triboro Line proposal; most of what's available is due to Michael Frumin. The problem with creating a new subway route on it is that although the ROW exists, the tracks don't: in many sections the line is single-tracked, even though it has room for at least four tracks.