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this could theoretically happen, if we just made driving more difficult without giving anyone an alternative, but implicit in this arrangement of starting to charge drivers for degrading the quality of our city life is that we would start spending money on the best and most cost-efficient modes of transport available -- namely walking and biking. and this switch to a more human-centered city implicitly improves the quality of life of the city, pulling in more people and companies (@see New York). we can and probably should, for now at least, continue to add more and better transit services. eventually we'll thin them out and just rely on walk/bike and high-quality transit lines, like Japan does in some places.

how likely is it that people will leave the city as we continue to start recouping some of those massive subsidies to drivers? not very, imo. the populations of various cities all over the US are blowing up, relative to rural areas. worldwide, we now know that more of the world lives in cities than in rural areas. there's a trend here -- we may not agree with it, but it's happening. i suspect we'll have plenty of megacities, and many more 'multi-centric' cities, but the whole massively-destructive and expensive suburban adventure is, i hope, on the wane in the US. China and India and others will have to learn the hard way, probably, and our kids will suffer for it, but we didn't do any better.

BTW Peter I recently spent 3 days (Wed-Fri) in downtown Portland at the end of May and there aren't bikes whipping around the Rose City Amsterdam

i'll say that i don't think the number of bikes you saw is actually relevant, but it's interesting you mention Portland. lots of the bikers there are not so happy with spending gajillions of dollars on mass transit when the bike scene there continues to explode with virtually no money, relatively-speaking. if we're talking about limited resources and spending our money wisely and all that type of stuff, there seems to be a clear path to success -- spend as much of your money as you can on walk and bike infrastructure.

They've got alot of one way streets downtown and in the Pearl district and do alot of the bicycle and transit solutions by pairing parallel streets.

true. and, again, bike advocates there are not necessarily happy campers with having rails to contend with on streets that they'd like to ride on. there are ways to mitigate the risk of rails (put them in the middle lanes -- leaving outside lanes to bikers, or using rubber flanges to keep bike tires from getting stuck in the rails, etc.), but in the end, rails are just dangerous to bikers. sf streetsblog just posted about this yesterday, i think.

to me, the answer here is simple -- every. single. street. and road in the District and in America should have full walk and bike access -- period. no exceptions. and this should remain particularly true for the most major corridors in the city -- meaning K Street, all major roads and avenues, etc. and it should even be true for highways (Aiken/North Augusta, South Carolina is putting the finishing touches on a highway extension with an Amsterdam-like segregated/separated multi-use path beside it for about 5 miles worth, if rumors are to be believed).

http://www.aikenstandard.com/Local/0127-palmetto-parkway-bike-path

by Peter Smith on Jul 30, 2009 7:59 pm • link • report