Quite possibly not. It is extremely difficult to get Americans out of their cars, no matter how arduous and time-consuming a trip they face. That is increasingly true. A delay is not so maddening to an affluent motorist sitting behind the steering wheel in a plush leather seat, listening to a CD and talking on a cell phone. Still, transportation is a hotly debated issue in Northern Virginia, suburban Maryland and numerous other places around the nation where motorists cannot move as fast as they would like.
Drivers say they want more asphalt, and politicians are scrambling to find money to pay for it.
What few politicians will admit is that more roads beget more vehicles. The proposed Outer Connector around Fredericksburg, for example, would not relieve traffic congestion in the long run because a beltway makes rural land accessible for development. The new subdivisions and commercial areas would generate traffic. The Outer Connector would eventually become the problem it was built to solve. Beltways always follow that predictable pattern of failure, according to historian William Withuhn.