How can land use planning and zoning help?
New York Citys traffic mess is due to a wrong-headed land use policy that governs the entire metropolitan region, and other regions throughout the country. Low-density suburban sprawl, made possible by the vast interstate highway network, cheap gas and autos, lead to a dependency on auto use. The U.S. is an auto-dependent society, in love with its cars. While New York City is one of the most densely populated cities in the U.S., most of its suburbs are about as sprawled as Los Angeles. That means more people who work in the city drive to work, more people drive in to dinner and a Broadway show, and on weekends more drive in to shop on Fifth Avenue. Every time a lane is added to the New Jersey Turnpike, it feeds more traffic into New York. So one of the few things over which city government has any control is to limit traffic coming into the city, even though this doesnt get to the real heart of the problem. Thus for decades, city planners have wanted to put tolls on all the bridges int
