Have you tried driving through Connecticut lately? Or NYC? Or Chelmsford, MA on a Friday afternoon on I-495? Or, most likely, any other thickly settled, highly populated area of the United States?
Did you have a moment when you thought to yourself, “This is insanity. Where are all these people headed? Where will they park once they get there? How close are we to irreversible, permanent gridlock?”
Did you read a while back that NYC is floating the idea of levying an entrance fee on people coming into Manhattan? Twenty-three bucks! Did you know it cost $17 as an out-of-stater to cross the George Washington Bridge? It’s much more if you’re driving an 18-wheeler.
Our nation is crying out for suitable public transit but we still don’t have the stomach for parting with our own vehicles. I’m as guilty as anyone on that score. What we’re seeing possibly has us saying to ourselves, “This can’t be sustainable.”
Multiply the congestion one sees in their own neck of the woods by a factor of, what, a thousand, five thousand, ten thousand? Then extrapolate to include similar scenarios all over the planet.
And yet, people can, with a straight face and much passion, say that we are having no effect when it comes to an accelerated warming of the planet’s atmosphere. Truly remarkable.
3 Cents' 