BellingenNSW<p>Funding for highways outpaces public transit - a ‘climate time bomb’ US/ AU</p><p>"Roads, roads and more roads. <br>The US is continuing to spend billions of dollars on expanding enormous highways rather than fund public transport, with a landmark infrastructure bill lauded by Joe Biden only further accelerating the dominance of cars at the expense, critics say, of communities and the climate."</p><p>“Nothing is fundamentally changing in terms of modes of transport. This much money going into highway expansion is, for one, a liability into the future, and two, it just doesn’t work. We’ve been expanding highways for decades on decades, and everyone consistently finds themselves stuck in traffic.”</p><p>"The US’s fixation with hulking roads – along with the growth of supersized cars that are responsible for about 40,000 deaths a year in accidents, a toll that has ticked up in recent years – has led to calls for a rethink. This month, around 200 climate, biking and walkability groups called for a national moratorium on highway expansions due to the ills they bring.<br>The highway system we have built in our country is unsustainable, both financially and environmentally, and disproportionately harms low-income and Black and brown communities,” an open letter from the coalition says."<br>&gt;&gt;<br><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/feb/29/biden-spending-highways-public-transport-climate-crisis" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://www.</span><span class="ellipsis">theguardian.com/business/2024/</span><span class="invisible">feb/29/biden-spending-highways-public-transport-climate-crisis</span></a><br><a href="https://mastodon.au/tags/roads" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>roads</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.au/tags/cars" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>cars</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.au/tags/harm" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>harm</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.au/tags/expansion" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>expansion</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.au/tags/HighwayUpgrades" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>HighwayUpgrades</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.au/tags/ClimateChange" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>ClimateChange</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.au/tags/FossilFuels" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>FossilFuels</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.au/tags/MobilityDesign" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>MobilityDesign</span></a></p>