Last year, the headline of a New York Times article read, “Widening Highways Doesn’t Fix Traffic. So Why Do We Keep Doing It?” Let’s ask the Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT).
UDOT’s website proclaims core values of “better mobility, good health, connected communities and strong economy.” But spending $3.7 billion to expand I-15 from Salt Lake City to Farmington violates every one of those core values.
Better mobility
UDOT claims an I-15 expansion is needed to reduce “travel delay by 47%.” But their models ignore what has been repeatedly documented since the 1960s —”induced demand.”
Increasing capacity only draws more cars onto the freeway.
A 2019 study found “vehicle miles traveled increase in exact proportion with lane-mileage, and that congestion relief … vanishes within five years of capacity expansion.” For every 1% increase in road capacity, traffic increases 1%.
In 2008, $2.8 billion was spent widening Katy Freeway in Houston to 26 lanes. Two years later, 85% of drivers saw commuter times increase. Three years later, morning commutes had increased 25%, and afternoon commutes had increased 55%. Research shows that from 1993 to 2017, new freeway lane-miles in the largest 100 urbanized areas increased 42%, while the population rose 32% — yet congestion increased 144%.
Good health
More freeway lanes mean more pollution, period. UDOT’s modeling found I-15 expansion will increase Wasatch Front pollution, PM10 and PM2.5, but that barely scratches the surface of the hazards. EPA requirements for assessing harm from air pollution is decades behind the medical science. Measuring the tiniest particles, ultrafines (UPM), is not required by EPA, despite being by far the most toxic components of particulate pollution. Freeway corridors have especially high concentrations of UPM, as much as 25 times higher than urban background levels. Newer, more efficient, less CO2 emitting direct injection engines produce five times more UPM than older port fuel injection engines. They’re better for the climate, but worse for public health.
Freeways increase urban temperatures, which catalyzes the formation of more ozone. EPA requirements allowed UDOT to ignore toxic gasses like ozone, NOx and VOCs, heavy metals, carcinogenic chemicals like polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and 6PPD-quinone.
The chemical 6PPD is mixed into vehicle tires to resist corrosion, and 6PPD-quinone is formed when tires are exposed to ozone. Embedded in tire/road nanoparticles, this compound can remain suspended in air around freeways for up to a month and are readily inhaled. 6PPD-quinone is a potent neurotoxin. Salmon exposed to minute concentrations die in less than five hours. Human toxicity studies are just beginning, but it is strongly correlated with Parkinson’s Disease.
Electric cars aren’t a panacea, either. Because of increased weight, they emit more tire wear nanoparticles. The world’s foremost researchers on non-tail pipe emissions found that tire wear particles are typically about 400 times greater than tailpipe particles.
Asphalt itself is a significant source of pollution. Toxic VOCs are emitted likely as long as the life of the surface, especially under hot sunshine. Researchers estimated that in southern California, this was a greater source of VOC precursors of particulate pollution than all the cars on their freeways. And before freeway concrete is poured, someone inhaled the dust from a local gravel pit that produced it.
Connected communities
Freeways are monuments to environmental injustice. They have long been recognized as hollowing out city populations, promoting “white flight” to the suburbs, leaving minority and low-income neighborhoods to bear the brunt of freeways’ collateral damage. Much has been written about the inherent racism in the original citing of freeways, dividing intact neighborhoods of color and disconnecting them from business districts. Politically impotent neighborhoods have long been the target of freeway construction plans because they represent “the path of least resistance,” exactly what’s happening with the I-15 expansion.
Strong economy
Freeways are long term economic losers. They diminish real estate values nearby. Freeway expansion doesn’t produce new economic gains beyond temporary construction jobs. They merely redistribute economic activity to the suburbs and away from city centers. Freeways obligate cities and states to long term, costly maintenance commitments compared to mass transit alternatives.
Some states are finally addressing their freeway addiction, and the Biden Administration and some cities are paying to tear some down. But in Utah, reality denial is practically institutionalized.
UDOT, politically powerful aggregate and construction companies, labor unions, legislative leaders and frustrated commuters combine to make a formidable freeway lobby. But rather than allowing UDOT to lure us deeper into the vicious cycle of ever larger freeways, more gridlock, more pollution and more urban sprawl, let’s solicit an independent analysis of the best way to spend $3.7 billion to improve Wasatch Front mobility and quality of life.
You don’t improve public health by handing out free cigarettes, and you don’t improve Wasatch Front quality of life by endlessly laying more asphalt.
(Brian Moench)
Brian Moench, MD, is the president of Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment and a former adjunct faculty member at the University of Utah Honors College, where he taught about the public health consequences of environmental degradation. He has authored two books on environmental contaminants and public health, “Death by Corporation” and “The Great Brain Robbery: Why Women Have Become Smarter Than Men/Science With an Attitude.”
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