This is a continuation of Monday’s blog post

So there is a vicious cycle of ever expanding cities, highways, and increased traffic across the U.S., and it is even happening in Wausau at a rapid pace. What used to be top quality farmland is now turning into pavement and subdivisions. I lament the fact that former greenery is now concrete, however, as a society we need to know how many people share this view before we decide how to fix it. People love to live in the burbs, have there own house, and drive their own car. Most folks offer platitudes about keeping greenspace intact but who among us is willing to give up their car or house in order to live in a condo or apartment downtown and ride the bus or train to work and school. Not many I suppose. So is it a lost cause from the get-go?

The one big factor that is changing people’s attitudes is the price of raw materials – including gas. The increased price is going to make commuting long distances and maintaining all of the transportation infrastructure a near impossible task within the next 5 to 10 years (in my estimation). So the choice will be to cling on to the traditional suburban home and multiple autos and go broke, or switch to a life closer to work and most likely in an Urban center. There is no question that Urban living is better for energy efficiency and reducing pollution but it takes some getting used to. Will people change? I doubt it. Look how long it took for people to adjust to the high gas prices. The price spiked 3 years ago and there are still people today who think taxing the oil companies "windfall" profits will help bring down the price of gas or at least help out in some way. Pure Fantasy. So how long do you expect people will complain about higher gas taxes (and taxes in general) to maintain our aging transportation infrastructure? I have no doubt there will be many years of griping before the majority of people will take the matter into their own hands and make adjustments to their lifestyle.

I like having my own house and growing a garden, but I would much prefer having financial stability (if it came down to that choice). Living in an apartment or condo "downtown" is do-able and even desirable for a few people, but not for most. In order to maintain suburban living, while at the same time reducing the need for ever expanding roadways and ending congestion, we would need mass transit (such as high speed trains), and a lot of it. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a high speed train running between Point and Wausau? You could make the trip between the 2 downtown areas in about 15 to 20 minutes. Unfortunately, the U.S. government has performed quite poorly  at instituting mass transit (understatement of the year) and this has soured most people opinion’s of rail service. If more private companies got involved in the biz, then I think we could end up with a more desirable and beneficial mass transit system. But these things take a lot of planning and need approval from local, state, and national governments – which wastes a ton of time.

Sorry to end on a down note for all of you hoping for a more efficient nation, preservation/expansion of greenspace, less traffic congestion, and clean gleaming cities with useful mass transit. It ain’t gonna happen anytime soon. Change will be incremental and it will take a lot longer than anyone expects – even with high gas prices (although $10 per gallon gas would speed the process up). (2nd caveat: if you accept the premise of the technological Singularity then all bets are off the table).

What incremental progress will we see in the next 5 to 10 years? You get a hint of these things from this blog every week and I have a lot of recent news to share, but it will have to wait until tomorrow.

Present Weather:

There is a chance of showers and isolated thunderstorms today, then is looks like clear sailing all the way through the weekend and even early next week. Normally this would be a good thing, as it gives everyone an opportunity to get outside, however, precipitation has been below normal and we could use some heavy rain. At this point it doesn’t look like any good soaking rains are int the works until the mid to latter part of next week. Looks like I’ll be watering the garden a couple more times.

Meteorologist Justin Loew

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