By the Arizona Free Enterprise Club |
Freedom-loving, car-driving residents of Arizona have long been fighting the constricting “road diets” local government officials, city planners, and corrupt bureaucrats have pushed for years. Proponents of these diets claim that by tearing out perfectly good vehicle lanes, everyone will somehow be safer, healthier, and probably save the planet too.
For those of us who live under the blazing Arizona sun, we recognize this as foolishness. Road diets have not been successful accomplishing any of the goals their proponents claim they will. Instead, the result is that the streets become more congested, you’re spending more time on the road, emergency vehicles have a harder time getting around, and everyone is mad.
Luckily the U.S. Department of Transportation under the leadership of President Trump has promised to stop funding this nonsense. After all, if local city councils are dumb enough to waste money ripping up perfectly good roads, they shouldn’t be able to use everyone else’s tax money to do it.
Of course, unsurprisingly, the residents of those very cities often don’t want their own tax money to go to ripping up the roads they rely upon. One such city is the tiny town of Page, Arizona, where in 2022, the city council approved the “Page Downtown Streetscape Master Plan” which calls for removing vehicle lanes along a 1.4 mile stretch of Lake Powell Boulevard in the heart of the downtown area. In the small northern town, residents stood up against these restrictive, dumb transportation ideas. Page is a community known for its tourism, with visitors bringing boats and heavy gear to explore Lake Powell. For locals, these roads are lifelines for tourism, commerce, and daily living, and Page residents aren’t willing to surrender any more of their precious infrastructure.
