Billions of Hours and Dollars Lost In Traffic Congestion
Sumayal Shrestha on July 8th, 2009
Texas Transportation Institute reports that congestion caused travelers in 2007 to waste 2.8 billion gallons of fuel and lose 4.2 billion hours in traffic in the U.S. The report titled The Urban Mobility Report calculates that a combined national cost of at least $87.2 billion in 2007 was wasted in traffic congestion. Although this finding is lower than statistics of 2006 due to increased fuel costs and truck delays, the report warns that congestion is getting worse in America’s 439 urban areas.
Three major causes that are choking up the American roads are:
1. Economic activity: congestion exists in large areas because of the number of people and amount of freight moving in many directions over the course of two peak periods of two or three hours. Although, the 100 largest metropolitan regions contribute 70 percent of gross domestic product and have 69 percent of jobs.
2. Public transportation unable to catch up with urban travel growth rate: While travel to metro cities has increased by 72% , public transportation riders has increased by only 47%.
3. Increasing frequency of unexpected irregularities such as accidents, operational break downs, and in terms of time signals.
The Urban Mobility Report points out that that potential solutions are not being implemented fast enough, and suggests that the most effective strategy is a combined action of agencies, businesses, manufacturers and travelers. An estimated 957 million hours and $20.2 billion dollars can be saved by solutions such as ride-sharing, flex-time, and better alternate routes and toll lanes, and public transportation improvements.
See the full report here.
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This is a problem that will keep existing with an incompetent government.