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posted by janrinok on Saturday March 08 2014, @12:52PM   Printer-friendly
from the you-can't-get-there-from-here dept.

Papas Fritas writes:

"Michelle Rindel reports at AP that despite being two of the largest cities in the Southwest, Las Vegas and Phoenix are linked by a road that narrows to two lanes, hits stoplights in a Depression-era town and until recently backed up traffic over the Hoover Dam. An effort to improve what's now a 4 1/2-hour drive to cover the 300 miles of desert between Sin City and the Valley of the Sun with a more reliable road has heavy-hitting allies, including business leaders and the Republican governor of each state. 'Long-term jobs are created by our connectivity,' says Steve Betts, noting that the stretch would be the first piece of a new shipping route between Mexico and Canada.

That the cities aren't already linked by an interstate is a fluke of timing. The Phoenix and Las Vegas populations exploded just after the national road-building frenzy that started in the 1950s. The Las Vegas metro area, population 2 million, is 40 times larger than it was in 1950. The Phoenix area, population 4.3 million, has grown 13-fold over that span. Highway supporters won a key victory last year when Congress formally designated Interstate 11. The legislation provides no funding, but it allows builders to tap into interstate construction dollars. An interstate could link Los Angeles, Phoenix and Las Vegas as partners in a 'megaregion' that competes with other regions, and could open a trade route from Mexico to Pacific Ocean ports and Canada. Arizona and Nevada are currently losing much of that flow and its attendant development to Texas and California, according to Betts, chairman of CAN-DO, an acronym for Connecting Arizona and Nevada-Delivering Opportunities. Still, other critics worry that pushing further toward the interstate dream would contribute to urban sprawl and hurt the environment. 'The last thing we need is another freeway,' says Sandy Bahr, president of the Arizona chapter of the Sierra Club. 'We need to look for other transportation modes.'"

 
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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Maow on Sunday March 09 2014, @04:44AM

    by Maow (8) on Sunday March 09 2014, @04:44AM (#13438) Homepage

    The low number of comments per article is an indication that stories are rushing by too fast.

    I don't think that's the reason.

    When scanning the front page and seeing ~5 to ~50 comments per story, it doesn't take long to scan through them for nuggets of wisdom, continue on to next story and finish up in half an hour.

    I think it's due to

    a) the low number of users,
    b) the even lower number of active users,
    c) the stories not being of interest to some users (unavoidable, our interests do not and can not completely overlap),
    d) ... profit?

    Here's hoping that we'll soon have an average of 100 comments per story so that there is some serious reading to do - and serious learning opportunities.

    I always waited 'til there were 100-200 comments on a story on the other site before reading. It'll be great if this site grows to that level of activity.

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