Stop building new roads!

I was just handed some information on transportation by Renew Lehigh Valley. I found some really fascinating statistics on transportation in the Lehigh Valley. The information points out the relatively dire circumstances that roads are facing in Pennsylvania.

For starters, nearly 25% of Pennsylvania's bridges are structurally deficient, compared with just 12% in the U.S. This does not mean that a bridge is unsafe, but it does mean that a bridge needs to be closely watched and that repairs will be needed in the near future.

Repairs and new bridges are not inexpensive. Like everything else, materials used in road building have increased significantly. Since 2003, the cost of concrete has increased 53%, hot mix asphalt has increased 88% and fabricated structural steel has increased an astounding 156%. During this time period, gasoline increased 185% and diesel increased 215%. 18% of an average houshold budget has been spent on transportation, and in auto dominated regions (suburbia), that figure can exceed 30%. And here's an even more interesting fact: Gas prices today are actually equal to gas prices in Europe five years ago.

Future land use in Pennsylvania absolutely MUST be tied to transportation issues. We are already paying dearly (quite literally) for land use and planning decisions that have not kept the transportation network in mind. The best way to do this, as far as I can tell, is to build denser and more mixed-use - in other words, to build traditional urban areas.