"MYTH 4: Bigger roads are safer roads" "MYTH 5: Bigger roads increase people's mobility"

MYTH 4:
Bigger roads are safer roads

While planners build roads that encourage greater speeds they must bear some of the blame for a rising road toll.

IF IT IS TRUE as many planners claim that "bigger roads are safer roads", why does the road toll keep escalating?

The answer is simple. Planners are ignoring two fundamental factors.

Firstly, while "upgraded" roads decrease the number of accidents per vehicle kilometer, researchers such as Jeff Kenworthy and J. Michael Henderson show that such figures are misleading. They do not take into account the extra trips which such upgrades encourage or the increased length of trips encouraged. Accident rates per trip or per hour spent on the road remain much the same...

Secondly, straighter wider roads encourage greater speed. Accidents that do happen are therefore more severe, resulting in more injuries or a greater likelihood of death. The death rate for pedestrians hit in a 30km/h zone is only 15%. In a 50km/h zone it is 60%...

MYTH 5:
Bigger roads increase people's mobility

...Building bigger roads has a number of consequences...

The city is encouraged to spread out. The result is that people must travel further to reach facilities - for example their jobs. ...

Compact, functioning communities are destroyed by the new roads. ...

Larger roads encourage a decline in public transport. This puts more cars on the road. ...

The net result of bigger roads is that we are condemned to spend more and more time behind the wheel of a car to reach fewer and fewer destinations. Believing the myth that "bigger roads improve mobility" has put us on a technological treadmill. We have to run faster just to stand still.