Why do we need a 4 lane highway?

I just watched Will Hodgman's youtube video on upgrading the Midlands Highway to 4 lanes (http://www.youtube.com/user/HodgmanWill?gl=AU&hl=en-GB). Admittedly, I drive something old and robust enough that a couple of pot holes don't tend to bother me ('91 Triton Ute), but I'm rather surprised at the lack of creativity that has gone into this proposal and it seems like a bit of a step in the wrong direction to me.

There are so many important infrastructure projects that should be put ahead of a 4 lane midlands highway, and before a Kingston bypass for that matter. First and foremost is getting the hospital under control. Coincidentally I was in the RHH earlier today, my wife compared it to the last public hospital she was in (Chiang Mai, Thailand) and the RHH didn't get a favourable report.

Spending huge amounts of money so more cars can fit on our roads seems like lunacy to me. Money would be better spent on:
1. Improving public transport availability.
2. Promoting carpooling and cycling.
3. Implementing free park and ride shuttlebus services.
4. Using the NBN to get businesses to conduct meetings online rather than drive between Launceston and Hobart constantly. Online meeting software is getting very advanced and very affordable - see www.dimdim.com, every Tasmanian business should be equiped and trained with such software.

If dimdim for linux supported desktop sharing I might even use it a bit more myself, but that's a story for another blog post.