All Day Rush Hour Traffic
This article on CNN is pretty stupid. It claims that by 2030, NYC will not have enough electricity to meet its needs, that there will be so many people that rush hour traffic will last all day.
Umm...hello? The electricity bit? Well, they assume the population will continue to grow, but that no new power plants will go online. At the same time, they assume many of the older power plants will be shut down. If that's not a recipe for a skewed observation, I don't know what is.
Ditto for roads. More people and more cars, but not more roads. And presumably, the number of people who can telecommute to work (that wonderful internet thing) won't increase. Gotta love "massaged" numbers.
The article raises good points, about how NYC needs more power plants, more housing, etc. Of course, ideas like deregulation or reforming rent control and housing laws are out of the question. They also ignore that little thing called...the market.
See, the way it works is this: If people have to spend more than x hours in traffic, they just won't go to work. So what will happen? Businessess will relocate outside of Manhattan. They'll hope over the bridge to Jersey.
The real argument is that, in order to continue growing, NYC needs to invest in infrastructure. But they don't tell you that. NYC will continue to exist period, and I doubt it'll fall from 8m inhabitants to 2. It just might not grow as much. But they don't make that argument. They really do say people will be in traffic. All day. Idiots.
Umm...hello? The electricity bit? Well, they assume the population will continue to grow, but that no new power plants will go online. At the same time, they assume many of the older power plants will be shut down. If that's not a recipe for a skewed observation, I don't know what is.
Ditto for roads. More people and more cars, but not more roads. And presumably, the number of people who can telecommute to work (that wonderful internet thing) won't increase. Gotta love "massaged" numbers.
The article raises good points, about how NYC needs more power plants, more housing, etc. Of course, ideas like deregulation or reforming rent control and housing laws are out of the question. They also ignore that little thing called...the market.
See, the way it works is this: If people have to spend more than x hours in traffic, they just won't go to work. So what will happen? Businessess will relocate outside of Manhattan. They'll hope over the bridge to Jersey.
The real argument is that, in order to continue growing, NYC needs to invest in infrastructure. But they don't tell you that. NYC will continue to exist period, and I doubt it'll fall from 8m inhabitants to 2. It just might not grow as much. But they don't make that argument. They really do say people will be in traffic. All day. Idiots.
posted by Romach at
3:13 PM
