Around the Block

With the Trump Administration purportedly gearing up to spend $1 trillion on infrastructure, it's time for a refresher on the perils of highway boondoggles.

The mortgage interest deduction costs the federal government more than all rental subsidies combined. All that money promotes sprawl by encouraging people to buy more house, while transferring wealth to the upper tiers of the income ladder.

It's fitting that the Palo Alto headquarters for Elon Musk's flagship company, Tesla, has an epic logistical problem caused by the spatial inefficiency of its core product.

When the line between a legally justifiable stop and outright harassment is so thin, it can easily become a pretext for racial profiling.

To solve the "first and last mile problem," there's no substitute for walkability.

Seattle's massive downtown highway tunnel, originally slated at $3.1 billion, is now expected to cost at least $4 billion when all is said and done. Who's going to pay?

Cat calls, patronizing enjoinders to "smile," and more aggressive forms of harassment can make walking or biking uncomfortable or threatening. Katie Matchett, an urban planner who writes about pedestrian issues at Where the Sidewalk Starts, still recalls getting harassed on the streets of San Diego as she was beginning her career 20 years ago. She says it's up to everyone -- men and women -- to combat it.

In the 1970s, some American cities revolted against highway expansion and kept the worst excesses of the interstate construction spree in check. Those cities tend to be the most walkable and transit-oriented places in the nation today. But in Portland that legacy is in jeopardy.

When a heavily-traveled section of Atlanta's I-85 collapsed in a fire last week, the traffic predictions were dire. But the highway disruption appears to be another case of "carmaggedon" that never materialized -- and that should inform the way we plan our transportation systems.