Roads come from the Romans and are part of creating and maintaining an orderly society. Romans where famous for their roads, military and commerce. We have established roads and a transportation system for the same reasons.
Roads are strategically located and must have capacity for:
1. Military and security which is the basis for the US highway system.
2. Emergency evacuation for safety
3. Commerce, the transportation of goods and services to support the economy.
Roads or transportation corridors are not about what is currently traveling on these corridors, fossil fuel propelled vehicles, but their location and capacity level. Roads keep civilization functioning. First people walked on these corridors, then came horse, wagon, steam engines, and currently fossil-fueled vehicles. Limiting our transportation corridors is damaging to our environment, economy, military and safety. It is short sighted and shows a lack of basic understanding of roads to limit them because of what is currently using the road system. Presently we must create fuels that are more acceptable to the environment. At the same time we must continue to design good strategically located transportation corridors to meet the capacity needs now and into the future. This is especially important as we work on our land use planning. Roads that go to our industrial areas and centers of commerce but not through our residential area must be developed now. Roads are a large part of our economy and help our good, services and people remain diverse.
When many of our current roads where built the environment and citizens where not a real part of the process. In the last 25 years that has changed and we involve both. A problem has developed with some in the environmental movement who think it is their responsibility to stop roads. Instead of helping with the most appropriate placements, they have stood in the way of creating a healthy transportation system. This has given us some of the worse congestion in the United States, damaged our environment, and lessened our quality of life. Balance is important, the lack of understanding of why we have roads needs to be cleared up. It is not about what currently travels on our transportation corridors, it is about these corridors being strategically located and their capacity