This Gristmill post introduces the news that due to rising gas prices, asphalt too is becoming more expensive. That makes it more difficult for tight-budgeted local governments to keep up their roads. Kif at Gristmill comments that this is an indication of how oil reliance drags us down. I’ve been thinking recently about cross-state highways and how such existing infrastructure might be perfect to convert into mass transportation networks. Eliminate, say, the leftmost one or two lanes on either side of the highway, and replace them with some sort of high-speed tracks. The reduction in roadspace would cause worse traffic until people realized that they could where they were going faster by taking the train along the same path. The problem is how you get people from this central line to wherever they’re going, because their destination is usually not going to be in walking distance of a station. Hmmm…any thoughts?