In a week where infrastructure spending is often justified by fear of gridlock, Joe Cortright delivers a stinging reality check: we are planning to spend billions on roads that are actually emptying out. This isn't just a critique of bad math; it is an indictment of an entire planning culture that prefers the comfort of outdated models over the messy truth of current data.
The $10 Billion Delusion
Cortright opens by exposing a glaring disconnect between the proposed Interstate Bridge Replacement project and the reality on the ground. While the Oregon and Washington transportation departments are pushing for a massive expansion, the actual usage tells a different story. "Traffic on the I-5 bridges today is lower than it was in 2005," Cortright notes, citing ODOT statistics that should have killed the project years ago. Yet, the project's justification relies on forecasts claiming traffic would be 172,000 vehicles per day, rather than the 127,000 that actually used the bridge in 2024.
The author highlights the absurdity of the project's defense when confronted with these declining numbers. He points out that the project director's response was essentially to rely on personal anecdote: "every time I use that bridge, it is congested." Cortright finds this defense particularly galling given the millions spent on consultants and complex models. "In sum: ODOT and WSDOT are proposing to spend as much as $10 billion to widen a roadway where traffic is declining, is less than it was twenty years ago, and shows no signs of ever reaching the levels claimed in the project's modeling and environmental analysis." The argument here is that we are being asked to base a decade-long, multi-billion dollar investment on "vibes as reported by a project staffer" rather than hard evidence.
Critics of this view might argue that current traffic is low due to temporary factors like remote work trends, and that long-term planning must account for eventual population growth. However, Cortright's point stands that ignoring a decade-long downward trend in favor of speculative spikes is a dangerous gamble with public funds.
The Myth of Indivisible Traffic
The commentary then shifts to New York, where the implementation of congestion pricing in Manhattan has provided a real-world test of a long-held traffic theory. The prevailing fear among opponents was that tolling the city center would simply push cars onto surrounding streets, creating gridlock in neighborhoods like the Bronx. Cortright leans on the data analysis of Charles Komanoff to dismantle this fear. "There was no discernible change in vehicle speeds in Mott Haven and Port Morris [two key routes in the Bronx] in those 25 weeks vis-à-vis the same period a year earlier." The data shows speeds remained virtually identical, dropping a negligible 0.5 percent.
Cortright uses this to challenge the "naive view of traffic" that assumes a fixed volume of vehicles that must go somewhere. He explains that the naive model treats traffic like an incompressible liquid, but in reality, "traffic behaves more like volatile, dynamic gas." When you price a route, people don't just move; they change their behavior entirely. "Pricing actually changes the total volume of traffic, and shifts traffic across time." This insight reframes the entire debate from one of displacement to one of demand management.
The naive view of traffic--embodied in many traffic models--is the idea that there is an irreducible volume of travel between all the sets of points in a city, and that limiting or dis-incentivizing traffic on one route automatically produces diversion to other routes.
This is a powerful corrective to the political rhetoric that often surrounds tolling proposals. While some might argue that the Bronx data is specific to Manhattan's unique geography and may not apply elsewhere, the fundamental physics of driver behavior Cortright describes—elasticity of demand—remains a robust principle in transportation economics.
The Oxymoron of the Urban Freeway
Perhaps the most philosophical turn in the piece comes from a newsletter called "What Cities are For," which Cortright cites to define the inherent contradiction of building freeways inside cities. The argument is simple yet profound: freeways are designed for speed and limited access, while cities are designed for access and proximity. "Traffic engineers understand that throughput and access are competing values. Increasing access impedes both throughput and average vehicle speeds." Cortright agrees, noting that "an urban freeway is plainly a logical contradiction in terms; an oxymoxon."
The author explains that the very mechanism that makes a freeway efficient—limiting entry and exit points—destroys the fabric of the urban environment it is supposed to serve. "Limited access roadways--freeways--slash and unravel the the accessible, interconnected, and dense fabric of the city." This section serves as a theoretical underpinning for the earlier practical arguments: we are trying to solve urban problems with tools that are fundamentally anti-urban.
The Paradox of Vacant Affordable Housing
Finally, Cortright turns to Seattle, where a different kind of planning failure is playing out in the housing market. The city faces a paradox where thousands of publicly subsidized apartments sit vacant while homelessness reaches record highs. The Seattle Times reports that "thousands of apartments reserved for people who can't afford market-rate rent were empty at the end of 2024." The cause is a misalignment in targeting: developers have focused on "moderate income households, say at 60 percent or 80 percent of median income," leaving the lowest-income residents behind.
Cortright uses this to argue that affordability is not just about building specific units, but about the overall market condition. "Affordability is effectively a system condition: it's a product of a market where, in the aggregate, housing supply is abundant relative to demand." He warns that "niche-filling products often fail to address this problem at scale." This is a crucial distinction for policymakers who might think targeted subsidies are a silver bullet. The data suggests that without a massive increase in total supply, even well-intentioned affordable housing projects can miss their mark.
Critics might argue that the vacancy issue is a temporary mismatch that will resolve as incomes rise or rents fall, but the sheer scale of the vacancy alongside record homelessness suggests a deeper structural flaw in how these units are priced and allocated.
Bottom Line
Cortright's strongest move is his refusal to accept the official narratives of transportation and housing agencies, instead forcing a confrontation with the actual data. His biggest vulnerability is that his solutions—slashing highway budgets and flooding the market with supply—face immense political inertia. Readers should watch for how these data-driven arguments hold up against the entrenched interests that benefit from the status quo.