Now, there are rumblings of a grassroots backlash against asphalt. Some in the Bronx are even demanding that an existing highway be torn down. The key to revitalizing their neighborhoods, they say, is to destroy the concrete barriers that divide them. There were 19.4 percent more trips to work by car in the metropolitan region in 1990 compared with 1980, according to census figures compiled by the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council, a planning agency. In 1990, 52.4 percent of trips to work were made by car in the metropolitan region, compared with 49.8 percent in 1980.
Traffic is likely to increase in the coming years.
The council forecasts an 8 percent increase in the number of New Yorkers traveling to work in cars between 1995 and 2005. And truck traffic is likely to increase as well. At the same time, it's clear that the huge highway expansion of the past 50 years is over. Many transportation planners now believe that wider highways cause congestion rather than ease it. The more highways that are built, the theory goes, the more people drive and the more crowded the highways then become.