All traffic is not created equal and what is the purpose of a city?
Recently, a fellow Homewood-er responded to “How Drivers Making Route Decisions” with this comment:
Traffic is good. It shows health in the area. The people who don’t like traffic in Edgewood must not have realized there were cars in Homewood when that bought their house.
First off, I largely agree with him that “traffic is good” and “traffic shows health”. Some cities in Alabama would love to have Homewood’s level of traffic. Homewood traffic is a constant flow of cars and people in those cars have money. That money gets spent in Homewood businesses, which flows into our local economy and coffers. The businesses along those roads get advertising and acknowledgement as cars drive past. So, I agree that traffic is a proxy for demand.
However, where I disagree is that all traffic is not good traffic. I would only classify “good traffic” for Homewood as traffic with a Homewood origination or destination. Said in a non-fancy matter: people in cars who either start or end their drive in Homewood. The traffic that is neither good nor bad is traffic that drives through Homewood, but moves deliberately and safely. The traffic that is bad is aggressive thru-traffic trying to find a faster way across our city.
As with anything good, at some point, there is a diminishing return for traffic. If Homewood had so many cars that traffic is stopped, it has obvious diminishing returns for the livability of the city. Thus, traffic can be used as a metric for the vitality of a city, but don’t confuse it with being inherently good.
Letting the past dictate the future
His final statement is where I have issue:
The people who don’t like traffic in Edgewood must not have realized there were cars in Homewood when that bought their house.
His statement says don’t try to change the future. I completely disagree with this statement. Homewood’s council should be charged with building a city as a platform that allows residents to extract the maximum amount of enjoyment from their city. If traffic is preventing residents from enjoying their lives, then the council should be in charge of resolving those issues.
This philosophy of enjoyment maximization is one that is both serving the collective and serving the self. If the city determines the next generation of Homewood residents want bicycle access, then the city should improve bicycle-ability of the city (study’s show this is what most 20–35 year olds). If the city looks forward and decides it needs to build a high-tech hub in downtown, it should create a high-tech business incentive. By building the infrastructure that makes the city progressively better, Homewood builds demand for our city. That demand means each homeowner in Homewood has an increasingly valuable house.
This has deviated from a traffic question to asking the question “what is the purpose of a city?” From my perspective, it’s important for cities to be the platform that allows residents and businesses to thrive.
