We Must Put an End to the Asphalt-Industrial Machine

I missed something the other day. I was so happy to see that the connectivity project for the Franklin Mountains State Park (the access and animal corridor to Tom Mays) was still a "GO", that I overlooked the rest of the report. The rest can be summarized easily: miles and miles and miles of concrete and asphalt.

Project after project widens freeways and highways and spurs. Project after project eats up more land. There is no mention by the Texas Department of Transportation of mixed used roads. There is no mention of narrowing roads and reducing speed limits to make livable, walkable places, promote communities and neighborhoods and health. 

It's a vicious circle. We create asphalt corridors for traffic. The added highways increase traffic which we must accomodate by widening roads, creating more spurs, laying more asphalt, etc. ad nauseum.

Please read a Better Cities & Towns blog post by Robert Steuteville: They paved paradise, put up a parking lot . . . “Big Asphalt” has compromised our health, safety, and welfare — but we can defeat it if we try. Don't just skim or scan it. Read it. Learn all the ways that asphalt harms us. 

Steuteville tells us that it's time to fight the asphalt-industrial machine and take back our communities and countrysides.

He's right.