Teen captures 'wild' view from airplane window while flying over the US

A teen's "wild" view from an airplane window of a complex Dallas freeway interchange has sparked a fierce debate about the merits of cars versus public transit.

In a viral Reddit post uploaded to the r/Dallas group, which can be seen here, the user shared a photo taken above the intricate interchange as the plane arrived at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW).

"As someone who hasn't lived in the USA for a long time, this is wild to me," the caption above the post said.

The Reddit user said he left the U.S. at a young age, did not remember a lot about his life in America, and had mostly traveled around Europe where roads and public transport are more interconnected.

"I recently came back to the U.S. and took that picture while flying into DFW airport and I was fascinated at how giant these roads are," the Reddit user told Newsweek.

"I've seen stuff about it online but actually seeing it in person was insane to me. I also didn't realize how much controversy these intersections held until I made the post."

Dallas Transport Preferences

There are more than 4.27 million vehicles registered for Dallas-Forth Worth's estimated 5.2 million residents. In comparison, the Dallas Area Rapid Transit said on its website that it registers more than 220,000 passengers per day across its 700-square-mile service area.

According to a 2019 American Community Survey report by the Census Bureau, about five percent of all workers in the U.S. commuted to work via public transportation.

With exceptions like New York City, where over 2 million people commuted via public transit, and San Francisco, where over a third of workers did so, a sizable 75.9 percent of U.S. employees preferred to drive alone and 8.9 percent chose to carpool.

While Dallas and other cities outside the Northeast have fewer public transit users and more people who are reliant on owning cars, they have ranked high in infrastructure potential.

Dallas ranked seventh for smart city potential across the U.S. with a score of 69.9 points. according to a 2022 report by Swedish real estate technology company ProptechOS.

The report, based on 11 metrics, judged cities based on three categories—technology infrastructure, green infrastructure, and the technology jobs market.

Austin, Los Angeles, and Seattle were the top-rated U.S. cities based on the categories scoring between 75.4 and 73.3.

Newsweek has contacted the Texas Department of Transportation for comment via email.

Online Reaction to Photo

Despite Dallas having fewer regular public transit users compared to cities such as New York City, many people who commented on the Reddit post said they preferred the city's orientation toward favoring car owners, while others bemoaned it.

Reddit user TheBlackBaron said: "This is frankly a modern engineering marvel. Highways are not inherently bad. Designing a complex intersection that allows them and their frontage roads to transition from one direction to any other direction in a relatively efficient manner is actually pretty cool."

EvadTB added: "I agree that Texas highways are impressive in terms of engineering, but that doesn't make them good or cost-effective uses of space. The predominance of urban highways here also comes at the expense of all other forms of transit, so I can't really blame those who are a bit resentful about being forced to own a car to live here."

Dmmee posted: "I was just visiting NYC a couple of weeks ago. I was marveling at how local people deal with that. I cannot imagine a daily commute in and out of the city on a crowded subway five days a week [and] twice a day. And the thought of having to shop for groceries every other day because you can't haul a week's worth on a subway well, the stress must be constant."

Fll3nBTW commented: "Odd to compare NYC subways to Dallas expressways considering their massively different use cases. Above-ground trains can be much faster than driving. America just never invested in the infrastructure."

Update 2/1/24: The headline and body of this article were updated with new information.