CityNerd explains 'Why Traffic Is Worse Than Ever (and can NYC fix it?)'

I promised "evergreen and holiday entries until the end of the month" yesterday and I'm following through with an idea I proposed in last June's Colbert, Klepper, and Kimmel come to comedic terms with Hunter Biden's conviction.

Klepper and Kosta are covering Governor Hochul's stopping congestion pricing. That's a subject that deserves another post. Maybe if or when CityNerd uploads a video about it.

Ray "CityNerd" Delahanty uploaded that video this week, Why Traffic Is Worse Than Ever (and can NYC fix it?).

I was told traffic is worse than it's ever been, especially in New York City. So I went on a research expeditions to find out if it's actually true, and if so — given how many people are working from home and how much vacant office space there is these days — WHY?

This entire video is an exercise in three of Commoner's Laws: "Everything Is Connected to Everything Else" — changes in one part of the transportation system, in this case people moving from transit for commuting to private vehicles for non-work trips, affect the rest of the transportation system, which leads to "Everything Must Go Somewhere" and "There Is No Such Thing as a Free Lunch" — all those personal vehicle trips have to go somewhere, causing more traffic congestion, and working from home has unforeseen costs, like more non-work trips and longer trips to work when people do commute because of moving away from work. Where's "Nature Knows Best?" Sorry, walking doesn't seem to enter into the equation, although horse-drawn carriages merit a mention for historical comparisons and bicycling barely makes a mark on the pie charts.

The pandemic also appears in the story, serving as another instance of "Everything Is Connected to Everything Else" and "There Is No Such Thing as a Free Lunch." Fear of infection seems to be a big driver, pun intended, of shifting people in general and New Yorkers in particular from transit ridership to work from home, with personal car use for non-commuting trips. This connects back to "perceived safety" near the beginning of the video; people working from home don't seem to be factoring in the risks of driving. As I wrote in CityNerd explains 'All the Ways Car Dependency Is Wrecking Us', 46,980 Americans died in traffic accidents during 2021 and one million died worldwide.

Seeing that CityNerd has joined the Ground News sponsorship bandwagon reminds me of what I wrote in Randy Rainbow sings 'I Think I'm Gonna Hate It Here'.

Randy's plug of Ground News reminds me of what I wrote in Future Proof examines 'The RISE and FALL of Malls in America,' a tale of the Retail Apocalypse, "the paid promotion by Ground News reminds me that I promised a comparison and contrast between AllSides and the Media Bias Chart three years ago." I still haven't done that, but it really is time. Maybe when I make my monthly page view goal and write evergreen entries near the end of the month.

That would make a good post to share next month. Stay tuned to see if I actually write it.

I have a work project due by the end of this month. Maybe after I get that done. Otherwise, I have in penciled in for the last week of February, when I'm off from work. In the meantime, stay tuned for more evergreen entries worth sharing next month through the end of January.