AUSTIN: Rethink35 is suing TXDOT: Why this action has global implications (Bonus Episode)

[@thetrainguy1]

I hope you guys win. We don't need anymore expanded Highways!!!! We need High Speed Rail/Public Transportation, walking and cycling infrastructure.

[@ActiveTowns]

Yes! For sure. Thanks so much for watching. I hope you will help share this video and spread the word. Cheers! John

[@qjtvaddict]

Maglev and we got a deal

[@graemetunbridge1738]

If they win the law suit on car emission particulates - it will be impossible to extend roads anywhere. We can only hope.

[@ActiveTowns]

😎

[@qjtvaddict]

Ohh fine transit it is

[@kailahmann1823]

One message from the country of the legendary "Autobahn": You do not want such a road going through a city _as a driver_, because you get incompatible traffic patterns. Freeways are for fast, continuous traffic, while traffic within a city enters and exists a road at very short intervals. Because of this, urban freeways *always* have much more congestion and crashes than one around the city and thus are much slower.

[@ActiveTowns]

Yes! Exactly 😀

[@knarf_on_a_bike]

And to top it all off, induced demand means the expansion will only add to congestion, not alleviate it. Thank you ReThink35 for your efforts to stop this travesty!

[@ActiveTowns]

Precisely! Thanks so much for your support! 🙌

[@kelseyhuse]

Thank you!

[@karikling6751]

In Philly, the government is trying to do both, cap 95 *and* expand it. It's frustrating. When they take a step forward, it seems like they take a step backward somewhere else.

[@ActiveTowns]

Yep, it's so hard for them not to want to keep adding lanes... even when it is well-known that they will just fill up in a matter of months when construction is complete. Thanks so much for tuning in. Cheers! John

[@karikling6751]

Always good to listen to your podcast! I guess you can still call it a podcast if there's video on KZbin? You would think that, with the recent collapse of 95, they would have learned because traffic didn't really increase when that portion collapsed. Some drivers took other routes and some drivers took SEPTA. It all kind of evened out. Philly just...gives me hope and then takes it away, lol. Another example is the city implementing parts of the Chinatown Stitch, which is supposed to undo decades of bulldozing Chinatown, but now they want to move the 76ers arena to Chinatown despite opposition from the community.@@ActiveTowns

[@ActiveTowns]

@@karikling6751 Hehe, yeah sure go for it! KZbin has definitely leaned into the whole Podcast space, although I don't personally know of any other content creators in the urbanism and mobility world that produce their episodes in the engaging manner with visuals as I am trying to do. Hang in there and keep pushing for more people oriented places. 😀

[@perrondenais684]

Great episode! Feels like momentum is really building!!!

[@ActiveTowns]

It is and now it definitely a critical moment in time - please spread the word 🙌

[@daveassanowicz186]

Yeah man!!

[@ActiveTowns]

😎

[@MongoosePreservationSociety]

Highways divide communities! Delete I-35 from Austin!

[@ActiveTowns]

␡

[@qjtvaddict]

Fine now redo the train as a proper subway NO street running deal?

[@cadriver2570]

It makes sense. Why route noisy polluting through-traffic next to where people live? And with this expansion, literally where people live before their homes will be seized through eminent domain. I avoid everything within several blocks of i-35 as it is. Our addiction to never-ending highway expansion that inevitably fails to even solve congestion problems is a modern tragedy.

[@peternouwen]

Added my two cents (read: 50 €) Because we’ll drown if you (among others, like us ourselves 😇) won’t stop building highways.

[@ActiveTowns]

Thanks!🙏

[@Allocated_Brain]

lucky bonus episode

[@ActiveTowns]

Enjoy! 😀

[@Nicholas.mala1997]

If I have learned anything about Texas politics it’s this, whenever somebody sues the government, the government is so corrupt that they will find some loopholes to not have them take any responsibility and then they’ll still do whatever they want anyway. Good luck though I really hope yall can change something finally.

[@ActiveTowns]

Yep. Pretty much. However, it may help to swing public opinion. But even that is a stretch.

[@An3z-u5h]

So I posted a comment here yesterday and then it disappeared. I dont get it. Anyway, I was just commenting on how much the US could do with reversing the spatial segregation policies of the past. I think that would change everything. I grew up in both the US and the Netherlands. In the US we lived in an upscale neighborhood and the nearest supermarket was miles away. In the Netherlands we also lived in an upscale neighborhood but the big difference was that the neighborhood next to us was a high density working class neighborhood. The end result is that the population density was high enough so that a (chain) supermarket could do business in our area. And it was all planned out so that the supermarket was in walking distance of every house in our area. This is a common thing you might see in the Netherlands; upscale neighborhoods with apartment buildings and row houses just down the road with some neighborhood shopping facilities in the middle of it all...

[@ActiveTowns]

No clue what happened to your earlier comment. I definitely never saw it. Yes, what you are referring to are the land use codes that most cities in North America have adopted, those coupled with car parking minimums for all new developments (commercial and residential) lead to the dynamics you describe. The good news is that these codes are beginning to be rolled back, the bad news is that progress is happening much too slowly. Thanks so much for watching and commenting. Cheers! John

[@vincewhite5087]

Wrong on PM 2.5 if you check EPA, & NIH. Most is from incomplete combustion, gasoline, oil, wood, diesel. This is why forest fires also spike PM2.5. So EV’ s & Ebikes & E buses help a lot,provided the fuel used to make electricity is is cleaner.

[@ActiveTowns]

Granted... I apologize if I oversimplified the facts. "Brake and tire wear particulate matter (PM) represents a large fraction of traffic emissions from on-road vehicles. Over the past several decades, PM emissions from tailpipes have significantly decreased through technological innovations and legislative regulations (Wallington et al., 2022). However, many of these advancements have not extended to the non-tailpipe related PM emissions which have been suggested to surpass tailpipe emissions in their contributions to total traffic emissions in California (Yao, 2021)." www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969723021800#