Traffic and Transportation

Traffic congestion is as old as cities; a quiet and uncrowded market place is no proper market place at all. Transport within and among urban centers is always most valued when most heavy; a broad highway or commercial street that is rarely busy with traffic is just a waste of resources. The basic problem of traffic and transportation is always the same-to balance the seesaw of needs and facilities. The present difficulty in urban areas is that existing streets and highways and rail facilities no longer match the new demands created by recent population growth and new location patterns of economic activity. The dominant driving force in metropolitan growth is sheer increase in population and industrial production, but the future shape of urban areas is determined by the fact that nearly all of the increase occurs in the suburbs and takes place mainly as a filling-in of the spaces between the older suburban clusterings along rail lines and main highways.