How Urban Planning Decisions Made Fifty Years Ago Still Cause Traffic Today
April 9, 2025 · Frisian News
A generation of urban planners in the 1970s widened highways and zoned suburbs far from city centers, betting that cars would solve congestion. That bet failed, and cities still pay the price in traffic jams and sprawl.
On a Tuesday morning in 1974, planners in Rotterdam presented a map that would shape the city for decades. They proposed widening the A13 highway and building suburban neighborhoods so far from the center that commuters needed cars for everything. The theory was simple: more road space would cure congestion. Today, that same highway clogs with 400,000 vehicles daily, and those distant suburbs produce traffic that creeps through the city for hours.
The 1970s remake of European cities followed an American blueprint. Planners believed cars were progress and that building outward was growth. They tore down mixed neighborhoods, separated work from housing, and cut sidewalks in half. Many cities zoned nearly all new development as single-family homes reachable only by car. Nobody asked whether this served people. The ideology of sprawl ruled, and local councils rubber-stamped the plans.
What these planners refused to see was obvious: you cannot solve car congestion with more roads. Extra capacity invites extra drivers. The city absorbs the new roads, fills them, and demands wider ones. Meanwhile, the neighborhoods people actually want to live in, close to shops and transit and other people, grow scarce and expensive. Rotterdam, Amsterdam, and Utrecht all learned this lesson the hard way, yet they are still paying off the debt of bad zoning from five decades back.
Breaking the pattern takes courage that most officials lack. A few cities have started removing highway lanes and converting them to trams and bike paths. Utrecht reversed car-first zoning in its center and saw congestion drop and foot traffic rise. But most of Europe's urban cores still carry the genetic damage of the 1970s. The roads remain too wide, the suburbs too sprawling, the mixed neighborhoods too few.
The cost compounds yearly. Traffic wastes fuel, pollutes the air, and makes cities unpleasant. Real estate prices stay inflated because demand crushes supply in the few livable areas. The people who made the bad decisions in 1974 have retired. The public now lives with their legacy, and fixing it takes far more effort than building it wrong did.
Op in dinsdinemiddei yn 1974 presintearden planners yn Rotterdam in kaart dy't de stêd desinnialang bepale soe. Sy stelden for de A13-snelwei te ferbreedjen en buitenbuerten sa fer fan it sintrum te bouwen dat ynpendelers auto's foar alles nedich hienen. De teory wie ienfâldich: mear wegkapasiteit soe ferkearsopdrip geneaze. Hjoed-de-dei stopt deselde snelwei mei 400.000 auto's deistich, en dy fiere buitenbuerten produsearje ferkear dat oeren troch de stêd troch kruipt.
De jierren 1970 herfiering fan Europeeske stêden folge in Amerikaansk bleau. Planners learden dat auto's foarút waren en dat nei bûten útwreidzje groei wie. Se reuzken mingde buerten del, skieden wurk fan libben, en halsierden trotoirs. Mony stêden skaakelen hast alle nije bouw as ienstaande huzen allinne bereikber per auto. Nimmen frege of dit minsken tsjine like. De ideologje fan sprawl rearre, en lokale rieden stempel de plannen goed.
Wat dizze planners weigerje te sjen wie dúdlik: do kinne auto-ferkear net oplosse mei mear wegen. Mear kapasiteit nodicht mear bestjoerders út. De stêd absorbeert de nije wegen, fult se, en easkje breder. Undertuzen wurde de buerten dêr't minsken werklik wenje wolle, ticht by winkels en iepenbier ferfier en oare minsken, skaars en djoer. Rotterdam, Amsterdam en Utrecht learden dizze les op heard wize, mar betelje noch altyd de skuld fan slechte skaakeling fan fiif desennialang tebek.
It patroan trochbrekke fereasket mod dy't de measte ambtenaren misse. In pear stêden binne begûn snelwegstroken te fuortsmite en om te setten yn trams en fietsrouten. Utrecht keerde auto-earst skaakeling yn it sintrum om en seach ferkearsopdrip falle en trotinaksje omgean. Mar folle fan Europas stêdcentra drage noch altyd de genetyske skea fan de jierren 1970. De wegen bliuwe te breed, de buitenbuerten te ferspreide, de mingde buerten te lyts.
De kosten steane jierlik omgean. Ferkear fersjpilet brânstof, fersmoaget de loft, en jout stêden in net-aardige oanblick. Estaitepriizen bliuwe opblaazen om't fraach oanboaad smertele yn de bysakâ leefbere gebieten. De minsken dy't yn 1974 slechte beslissingen nemen hiene binne mei pensjonering. It publyk libbet no mei har erfskip, en it reparearje derfan freget folle mear muoite as it ferkeard bou die.
Published April 9, 2025 · Frisian News · Ljouwert, Fryslân