highways and car culture in general is super inefficient. and adding more lanes just generates more traffic. what if we didn't design our cities to be so car dependant?
@@eazy-333 nah, I think there's still hope. just remember that all this car infrastructure madness started about 60 years ago. imagine what can be done in 60 or 100 years from now. public transport works, like so many European countries have demonstrated. even in the us, public opinion is changing. not quickly, but it is changing.
@@vemundkremund3221 100%. I don't have a clue how you fix a place like Houston. If you look at 1920s compared to now, it looks like the city has been bombed.
I feel like these massive freeways need a light rail system running along the middle. That way there's more options to get around then just driving. More freedom that way.
@@hashiramasenju6058 if you have an effective light rail system, people will use it. It’s called induced demand. The reason why so many ppl in Houston use cars is because the infrastructure is designed such that the only way to get around is by car.
@@dudeman4184 I assume this road is going from the suburbs to the city. The problem with this is that the entire American city planning is garbage. The suburbs need better regulation allowing for the construction of cafe`s, restaurants, shops, parks, etc so that "villages" can be created. Doing that would allow public transport to be effective. The current suburbia layout is inefficient because - you can`t have public transport with it - it`s more expensive to maintain roads, cable and pipes - you don`t really have communal places - travel is too expensive Another thing you Americans should do is just ditch the skyscrapers since they require 40% more gas and 2,5 times more electricity. Just ditch this model all together and start over. That highway is money down the drain.
Imagine what could have been build with the money which was spend to widen the highway more and more. they could have one of the best trains, metro, cycling lanes, for their cities, suburbs and quality of live will rise, if you are not able afford a car, be a teen, elderly, you are prison in your home bc you cant go anywhere. But Austin started changes for cycling lanes for children, adults and commuting ppl. So there is hope.
compact cities with good public transports like Japan and Europe - more efficient people - less commute time - less stress. - more disposable income from not needing a car and expensive maintainance. - less carbon footprint - less air pollution - higher life expectancy - less dependency on foreign oil imports. - less segregation between people. - less fatal and minor accidents. urban sprawls - good for oil companies - good for car companies.
@@azulaquaza4916 American cities existed before cars were invented and they used to have public transit that was good for its time before they were bulldozed for cars.
@@lol-ih1tl Car culture isnt formed just because a country can't provide it Americans look down on people riding buses as poor and the fact stalkers, predators, and criminals use them to search for their next victims doesn't help its appearance. People prefer their own independence and deciding where they go, and cars offer that. Cities such as Seattle, San Francisco, Boston have excellent public transportation people still prefer their own vehicles.
This video makes me sad somehow. I mean, it is kind of impressive. No doubt about it. But i would not like to live in such an inviroment. Lots of concrete heating up in the sun, while there is almoast no shade where one could hide. Uncountable cars and trucks poluting the air, so there is almoast no oxygen but in return you get a lot of dust and smell. I want to mention, that i do not want to offend anyone living there. But for me as an European this just seams like a bad place to live.
@@tomot919 As a Chilean who doesn't live in Santiago, I'd rather they'd build a metro so I wouldn't have to use a car lmao... At least over here there isn't (wide) highways.
@@choosingbegger9799 cars are expensive and expensive to maintain also gas prices high plus if your car breaks down or crashes what now? Get in bigger debt to get another car?
@@choosingbegger9799 As a European I can answer that - unnecessary expenses - air pollution - noise pollution - deprivation of minimum daily exercise as an afterthought Cars basically make you fatter, poorer, death-er and more poisoned but hey you`re "free" to be the slave of car and oil company lobby`s.
I live in the Los Angeles area, and I am very impressed with the engineering of the Houston freeways. Of course, yours are much newer. There is no longer any freeway construction, except for improvements in the Los Angeles area. They have been trying to build an adequate metro system. They built one line that ended a short distance from the airport. Years later, they are going to rectify this. I could write a novel about the absurdity of traffic and public transportation in the Los Angeles area. That is why New York City and Paris are my favorite cities. And I could care less about the wonderful weather.
I visited Houston, I am from overseas. I stayed in Katy and drove over this freeway. It's massive and a feat in engineering. Where I am from we have intersections like this but not at this magnitude. It like real life Jetsons.
I left there in 1991 to Austin and went back for the first time last year. Came in on 10 and my head exploded. In 1990 I was sitting at the bar at Landry's Sea Food in Katy when came on the TV, SRV dead.
But to be honest this is just like any other modern high way in a rich place of the US. When I moved to Katy I didn’t think it was so different than the high way from Alexandria to DC because over there it was huge too
This is not standard nor good. If you think this is normal, then you should examine it. This type of development is completely unsustainable. After the last expansion of the Katy Freeway, transit times went UP. Now NHHIP is planning to add another 4-ish lanes, which I'm sure will solve the problem for good, at the expense of like 26,000 jobs and homes. Houston is a city that's been constructed for cars, not people.
@@Tysca_ Manhattan is 34 sq miles. Houton is 627 sq miles. Good luck trying to make that walkable or coming up with the money to make a mass transit system that will get you to work anywhere near as quickly.
@@Tysca_ Have you ever been to Houston? Horribly hot and humid ir raining most of the year. Walking paths in most of the city would be a waste of money. The distances to everything are impossibly far to walk anyway.
With such number of lanes, entry/exit points and driving habits (eg a lot of overtaking on the right, high speed drivers etc) I wonder how often someone driving daily on this highway will be hindered by accidents. Also with no visual separation between the two directions I guess an accident on one direction will end up quickly in congestion on the other direction (rubbernecking). Perhaps someone local/driving daily on this road can give an estimate on often this will happen on a year basis?
I live in Houston and I didn’t know we had the world’s widest freeways 😂😂😂 to be honest, I thought we had the one of the world’s thinnest freeways. But after I checked St. Paul and Minneapolis and they have the thinnest freeways 😂😂😂
Bhai. M from India. N watching this video from home.. n really i love USA interstates/Freeways.. bhai. Our india is also now building expressways of uptop 16 lanes wide n with speed limit of 120+kmph. N upto 2024 BHARATMALA Expressway will be complete. Which wll cover entire nation roundly from north to west , west to south , south to east, east to north
Too much or too little of something cant be good. The freeway is definitely a feat, but i believe traffic occours where there are forks, entry and exit points, and at those point’s lights
I enjoyed the ride from Denver to Dallas last year before Covid pandemic, 2019 December. I spent around 15 hours to reach relatives house ( We stopped for food, rest room etc). If you shared the details journey time, it would be appreciated.
I thought this was going to be in another country :/ I’m from Dallas and we have highways like these all over. Don’t know if it’s because I drive them all the time or not but I was expecting something bigger. I used to live in NYC so I know how narrow streets/highways can be. I guess it just seems normal to me now.
Ugh, as a European... It just looks so flat and empty. Is this really how sparse American cities are? I've been through the Bilbao-Zaragoza stretch of road, a very empty and large one, and it was far more intresting. It was less flat, more intresting, and had only two lanes. The only time such an amount of lanes is needed is when you're navigating a complex city, like Barcelona. Only then is it excusable to have 5 lanes, with 3 per direction.
This is the state of Texas, which is larger than Europe and it is mostly desert and flat land 🤦🏽♀️. United States is massive and yes, we have a lot of beautiful land left, mountains, large cities and proud of it. Europe can’t compare to how massive the United States is. It takes hours just to drive from one side of Houston to another. More time than the size of England 😂. I am worried about European education, if you don’t know the size of the United States 😂
