cross-posted from: https://jlai.lu/post/22167250
The Mayor of Calgary, Canada, just received this warning letter
Context
Alberta is a conservative Canadian province that is rich because they extract a lot of oil.
The Alberta Government opposes all measures that could reduce oil-production or reduce oil-consumption. For instance, the Government of Alberta publically protested against the Canadian Government when Canada tried to take measures to reduce plastic pollution.
Calgary is the largest city in Alberta. The city is facing the worse traffic violence in Canada.
Jyoti Gondek, Mayor of Calgary, recently suggested building more safe bike lanes to reduce car dependency. A few days later, her office received this warning letter from the Alberta Government.
You can’t maintain or expand road capacity as populations grow. It doesn’t work. Bigger roads means more cars means bigger roads means more cars, it’s an endless and pointless cycle.
“Building more roads to solve your traffic problems is like buying bigger pants to solve your obesity problem.”
And
“Traffic increases to fill the space allocated for it.”
Wider road = wider traffic jam.