money lanes

Riding up and down highway 85 near Atlanta, Georgia, USA, people have the option to pay to go past the other traffic in an almost empty lane just for them. If you can’t or don’t want to pay, then you can’t use the fast lane. You can use the clogged slow lanes or find another route or means of transportation. But I can tell you, you will feel like an idiot watching the cars go past. And there are not many other options for commuters.

This whole concept is amazing. People with other people’s money who try to develop a solution that particularly aids the wealthy, without being too obvious about it. After all, everyone can use it. In this case it is essentially the road planner saying, “you know this traffic jam that you experience every day, the one that is my job to design a solution for, what I have done instead, in a real paradigm shift, is to plan on that traffic jam being there for a long, long, long time to come.” “In fact,” he said, “avoiding the traffic jam is going to be my new cash cow. I will build a new road next to the old road but only for people who pay. Everyone will pay to build it (hahaha – the best part).” Only the wealthy will be able to take full advantage of it. But that’s not really who is paying for the road. All the poor slobs stuck in traffic also paid for the road that goes around them.

A final blow to this new business would be if mass transit came to town – like good, frequent buses and a reliable metropolitan-wide subway system, which would take away from the clog of cars on major interstates. If the interstates are not clogged they stop earning money on the bypass lanes for the wealthy. And so, we must be steadfastly against any kind of efficient mass transportation system.  It would ruin our plans for the roads.

Are there any winners?

David