LA Is Number One American City...in Traffic Congestion
Nick Gillespie | September 19, 2007, 7:33am
The Los Angeles metropolitan area led the nation in traffic jams in 2005, with rush-hour drivers spending an extra 72 hours a year on average stuck in traffic, according to a study released on Tuesday.
The metropolitan areas of San Francisco-0akland, Washington, D.C.-Virginia-Maryland, and Atlanta were tied for the second most gridlocked areas, according to the study by the Texas Transportation Institute.
More here.
There are solutions to such problems, but they all require rethinking the current (public) ways that roads are planned, built, and maintained (or not maintained).
As readers of reason know, "Traffic Jams Are Made In City Hall," and they can be solved, or at least greatly reduced through a series of five improvements ranging from creative construction, smarter management, market pricing for roads, market pricing for parking, and privatization. Read all about it--while you're stuck in traffic wasting as much as an extra 72 hours a year--hey, watch out for that stopped car!--here.
Dan T. | September 19, 2007, 2:12pm | #
Dan -
Do you not subscribe to the belief that small communities should be able to determine what is best for them, rather than some feds 1,000 miles away creating a uniform system for everyone? You're always saying that if a community has rules that you don't like, you should move. A HOA is a lot like that, only the rules of your contract can't change after you sign it, unlike they can in a community after you move there. The HOA can't seize your property to build a wider road. HOAs, if compared to governments, would be extremely small ones where literally every person in the association has signed a piece of paper agreeing to the terms. In regular governments, all you need is 51% of the people to agree to the terms, and 49% of the people to get screwed.
Reinmoose, my position is that HOA's are effectively a
type of government, not that they are identical in powers and methods to other governments.
But membership is compulsory, taxes are levied, rules are created and enforced, officers elected, and contracts are signed on behalf of the community.
It seems to me that the main quibble here is that when you move to a city, state, or country you don't explictly sign a contract saying you'll agree to the rules.
Frankly, I have no idea why this is such a point of contention. For people who claim to put individual liberty as the most important ideal you folks seem to put a lot of stock in the notion that an group can limit the liberties of its members as long as its "private".
Consider this hypothetical: you own a house in a city, and the city council votes to pass a law that says you have to mow your grass once a week or be subject to a $50 fine. Most libertarians would consider this to be an unnecessary infringement of government upon the individual.
Now take the same scenario, except this time it's your HOA that decides that you must mow the lawn once a week, under punishment of a $50 fine. I guess most here would consider that okay.
But from the individual's point of view, he's still being compelled to mow his lawn against his will, even though having an unkept lawn does not violate the rights of anybody else.
So at least in the case of government vs. HOA, we've got a distinction without a difference.
