As has been proved time and time again, more highway lanes don't mean less traffic — but that did not stop the city of Houston, Texas, from ending up with an even more gargantuan Katy Freeway in an attempt to accommodate an increasing number of cars.
A viral Reddit thread in which one user shared a picture of the freeway baffled other Redditors, who were impressed by the sheer magnitude of the world's widest freeway, as well as just how ineffective its 26 lanes are at keeping traffic moving.
"Houstonian here. Driving on Houston highways is wonderful … at night. At almost any time during the day, there is traffic, even with all those lanes," wrote one Redditor.
"On the Katy Freeway, you're either going 90 MPH or you're completely stopped. There is no 'in between,'" wrote another.
Overreliance on cars has long been a major problem in the United States, which lags behind most other countries when it comes to public transit options. However, experts agree that enhancing public transit is the best way to curb planet-overheating gas pollution — better, even, than increasing the number of electric cars on the road.
Nowhere is this failure more glaring than in incredibly car-centric cities like Houston.
"Houston also has 'sidewalks' that randomly end in the middle of the path and force you to walk next to high-speed traffic. Some real world-class urban infrastructure," wrote another commenter on the Reddit thread.
"That is my definition of hell," wrote another.
"What a f***** nightmare. I pity the US peeps who have to rely on cars, because of the lacking network of public transportation," another chimed in.
The transportation sector is responsible for nearly 40% of the United States' planet-overheating gas pollution, causing the Earth to get hotter and extreme weather events to become more intense. It is vital for us to turn away from gas-powered cars and monstrously wide highways and toward solutions like high-speed rail and more bikeable infrastructure.
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