Rush hour? It's actually closer to 3 hours--twice a day
By: Drivers.com staff
Date: 2001-06-01
The last time that "rush hour" actually lasted that long, Richard Nixon was the U.S. President, lava lamps were popular (the first time around), and Rowan & Martin's "Laugh-In" was the hottest show on TV.
Things-including traffic-have truly changed since 1970. In fact, the time frame we refer to as "rush hour" in the USA's major cities has doubled in less than 20 years, increasing from nearly three hours (morning and evening combined) in 1982 to almost 6 hours in 1999. Congested travel periods today consume nearly half of the daylight hours in any given workday.
That's one of several findings from the 2001 Urban Mobility Study , published recently by the Texas Transportation Institute . In the annual study, TTI Researchers David Schrank and Tim Lomax use a variety of measures to illustrate the nation's growing traffic problem. The findings are intended to provide elected officials, policy makers and everyday commuters a collection of easily understood measures to support local decision-making related to freeway and street systems as well as a variety of other land-use issues.
Researchers say there's no single solution to the worsening problem of traffic jams. "Widening roads is part of the solution, but it's only one of many elements we need to address the problem," Lomax says. He and Schrank stress that other means-including demand management, operational efficiency improvements and better management of construction and maintenance projects-must also be employed as part of an overall mix of solutions.
The report illustrates trends from 1982 through 1999, and this year's statistics include a wide variety of findings in the 68 urban areas that were studied:
- The cost of traffic congestion nationwide totaled $78 billion, representing the cost of 4.5 billion hours of extra travel time and 6.8 billion gallons of fuel wasted while sitting in traffic.
- The average delay is 36 hours per person per year.
- The average rush hour trip takes 32 percent more time than the same trip taken during non-rush hour conditions.
Detailed conclusions
Congestion is growing in areas of every size. The 68 urban areas in this report
range from New York City down to those with 100,000 population. All of the
size categories show more severe congestion that lasts a longer period of time
and affects more of the transportation network in 1999 than in 1982. The average
annual delay per person climbed from 11 hours in 1982 to 36 hours in 1999.
And delay over the same period quintupled in areas with less than 1 million
people.
Congestion costs can be expressed in a lot of different factors, but they are
all increasing. The total congestion "bill" for the 68 areas in 1999 came to
$78 billion, which was the value of 4.5 billion hours of delay and 6.8 billion
gallons of excess fuel consumed. To keep congestion from growing between 1998
and 1999 would have required 1,800 new lane-miles of freeway and 2,500 new
lane-miles of streets-OR-6.1 million new trips taken by either carpool or transit,
or perhaps satisfied by some electronic means-OR-some combination of these
actions. These events did not happen, and congestion increased.
Road expansions slow the growth in congestion. In areas where the rate of roadway additions were approximately equal to travel growth, travel time grew at about one-fourth to one-third as fast as areas where traffic volume grew much faster than roads were added.
By themselves, however, additional roadways do not seem to be the answer. The need for new roads exceeds the funding capacity and the ability to gain environmental and public approval. The answer to the question "Can more roads solve all of the problem?" doesn't lie in esoteric or theoretical discussions as in practical limitations. In many of the nation's most congested corridors there doesn't seem to be the space, money and public approval to add enough road space to create an acceptable condition. Only about half of the new roads needed to address congestion with an "all roads" approach was added between 1982 and 1999. And the percentage is actually slightly smaller in the smallest areas-where one might expect roads to top a shorter list of improvements than in larger and more diverse urban areas.
The "Solution" is really a diverse set of options that require funding commitments, as well as a variety of changes in the ways that transportation systems are used. The chosen options will vary from area to area, but the growth in congestion over the past 18 years suggests that more needs to be done.
- More roads and more transit are part of the equation. Some of the growth will need to be accommodated with new systems, and some older system elements expanded.
- More efficient operations can derive benefits from existing systems. Some of these can be accelerated by information technology and intelligent transportation systems, some are the result of educating travelers about their options, and providing a more diverse set of options than are currently available.
- The way that travelers use the transportation network can be modified to accommodate more demand. The longer periods of high travel volume (the "peak period" instead of one "rush hour") already accomplish this, but there are ways to give incentives and improve conditions for working, shopping and a variety of other activities as well as improving the travel situation.
- There are a variety of techniques that are being tested in urban areas to change the way that developments occur-these also appear to be part, but not all, of the solution. Some of these have been labeled "smart growth" actions, but most are just familiar methods of arranging land use patterns to reduce the use of private vehicles and sustain or improve the "quality of life" in urban areas. The typical suburban development pattern will be part of most cities for many years, but there are a number of other patterns and modifications to existing developments that make transit, walking and bicycling more acceptable for some trips.
Improving the reliability of the transportation system is an important aspect of the programs in most large cities. Identifying and clearing accidents and vehicle breakdowns, addressing construction and maintenance activity impacts on congestion and providing more reliable and predictable travel times are goals for congested corridors. Future reports will examine the impacts of these activities and their role in urban congestion as it relates to moving both people and freight.
This year's report is the product of a cooperative arrangement between the Texas Transportation Institute and 11 state transportation agency sponsors. The Urban Mobility Study continues to research new data and new estimation methods to measure and communicate transportation issues to a range of audiences.
-More information and the full report in PDF format is available on the study website: http://mobility.tamu.edu .
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