Duing the ’80s and ’90s, dire predictions said that violent crime in America was going to grow far worse, even as the rate was beginning to plummet. Could the same be true of traffic, which we seem to accept will only become more severe? Ownership of cars and motorcycles declined even before the Great Recession, as personal technology became more important to young Americans. They “drive” in their smartphones now. But for people who’ve always known congestion and jams, it’s difficult to imagine this brave new world. I think some points in “What Happened to Traffic?” David Levinson’s retrofuturist post at the Transportationist blog are too hopeful, but it’s a piece very worth reading. An excerpt:

“Workers no longer ‘go’ to work 6 days a week. Workers got Saturday off in the mid-20th Century. Getting every-other Friday off (the 5/4 schedule) became standard by 2015, establishing the 3-day weekend every other week as the norm. By 2020, this was every weekend, as people moved to a 9 hour day, 4 days per week at the office, and the other 4 hours were ‘at home’ work – checking email on the long weekend, erasing once strict separation of home and work. By 2025 taking every-other Monday off (the 4/3 schedule) was established in most large employers. Today we are seeing half-days on Wednesdays for many office workers, with only Tuesdays, Wednesday, and Thursdays as interactive collaboration days. The ‘flipped’ office, where people were expected to do “work” at home on their own computers, and only show up for meetings is now standard.

The empty office buildings across the landscape led to the famous Skyscraper Crash, the Real Estate Office – fueled recession of 2021. Many of those empty buildings were converted to apartments, as we had about twice as much office space as we needed with the new work arrangements. Some cities were virtually abandoned by business in this process. This helped undercut new residential construction in the suburbs, and suburban land prices fell, attracting lower income immigrants, who subdivided large tract mansions into housing for large extended families, and leading to a measurable ‘white-flight’ back to the center city. So while the suburbs were now less expensive, some actually gained population. Lower income residents still own cars, but not as many, and many a 2 and 3-car garage is being transformed into a workshop or small store.”