There’s more good news on the roads front, as congestion continues to decline–albeit slowly–in US cities. A new report from the Texas Transportation Institute finds that in 2007 Americans wasted an average of 36.1 hours stuck in traffic, down from the 2005 peak of 37.4 hours.
Collectively, the numbers are still large, of course. TTI figures congestion cost the economy $87 billion and was responsible for our squandering 3 billion gallons of gas and 4 billion hours of our time. The latter figure works out to 500,000 years.
Los Angeles came out worst among cities, with congestion costing drivers there an average of 72 hours a year. Washington DC was second (62 hours), followed by Atlanta (57), Houston (56) and San Francisco (55).
Wichita, Kansas, ranked best (but who lives in Wichita?).
Of course, this all feels a bit dated as the study year of 2007 only takes us to the cusp of the recession and a sharp and unprecedented reduction in how much we drive. The authors note this, but they frame it as a “lull” before the coming shitstorm of congestion when the economy recovers. You know, when everything starts ticking along like it was in 2005.
It’s our humble opinion, however, that the “recovery”–whenever and however that might occur–is not going to resemble what came before. Right now, “recovery” feels inevitable to all of us, because that’s how we’re wired to think. If you’d asked a Japanese economist in 1992 when that country’s economy would recover, he certainly would have given you a date prior to 2009. But things have never quite recovered there.
Many measures of American life have probably topped forever–vehicle miles traveled being an obvious one, but also things like retail space and car sales.
We might cite it a bit too often, but the fact that oil costs $70 in the depths of a catastrophic global recession is sending a very strong signal about what energy prices might look like going forward. Whatever the health of the broader economy, high oil prices will require a lot of painful structural adjustments. One upside of that is that a lot of these adjustments–depending more on rail, transit and ride sharing, and spending less on consumer goods–will tend to have the benefit of further reducing road congestion.
Which is all to say, that congestion might not be in the top three things we need to be worrying about from a transportation perspective in this country.
A few random observations on the report:
- In 2007, we saved $13 billion because of public transportation (i.e. less congestion because those people weren’t driving). If more cities had systems that met even the most basic performance standards, it’s not hard to imagine that could be a much, much larger number.
- Depopulation doesn’t necessarily reduce congestion. Detroit still ranks in the 10 most congested cities. Lost hours there have continued to rise even in the last 10 years, as the city has gone into freefall. Of course, this is because while the city itself has emptied the Detroit metro area has actually continued to grow in population (if very slowly). Then again, congestion in St Louis is down by a third between 1997 and 2007 as population has plunged.
- Houston and Dallas have a *really* lousy ten years for traffic. Both are among the most congested cities and both have seen an enormous rise in the amount of time drivers spent stuck in traffic over the past ten years (up 38% and 55% respectively since 1997).
- The authors suggest Americans could watch “more than 600 average online video clips” in the time spent stuck in traffic. No doubt that’s true, but maybe framing it in terms of the Star Wars Kid and porn is not the best approach–how about 20 bike rides and 5 novels?
UPDATE: Stupid math mistake in original post and headline. Please pardon the error.
City specific data below:
Metro 2007 2006
Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana 70 72
Washington D.C.-Va.-Md. 62 59
Atlanta 57 59
Houston 56 56
San Francisco-Oakland 55 58
Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington 53 55
San Jose, Calif. 53 55
Orlando, Fla. 53 55
Detroit 52 53
San Diego, Calif. 52 54
Miami 47 48
Tampa-St. Petersburg, Fla. 47 48
Denver-Aurora 45 48
New York-Newark NY-NJ-Conn. 44 45
Phoenix 44 45
Riverside-San Bernardino, Calif. 44 45
Baltimore 44 44
Las Vegas 44 43
Seattle 43 45
Boston 43 44
Chicago 41 43
Tucson, Ariz. 41 43
Charlotte, N.C. 40 39
Sacramento, Calif. 39 42
Austin, Tex. 39 39
Minneapolis-St. Paul 39 40
Jacksonville, Fla. 39 38
Indianapolis 39 42
—
Source: Texas Transportation Institute
July 8th, 2009 at 9:12 pm
St. Louis population plunged? Who the hell wrote this….obviously someone who is not very informed. St. Louis City has actually stabilized in the past few years and the region has never stopped growing or shrinked. Its a slow growth region, but when people say stuff like “Then again, congestion in St Louis is down by a third between 1997 and 2007 as population has plunged.” It is just uninformed and downright bad irresponsible journalism.
July 9th, 2009 at 12:02 am
“4 billion hours of our time. The latter figure works out to 175 million years”
Uh. My math might be wrong, but I don’t think it does…
http://www06.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=4+billion+hours+to+years
July 9th, 2009 at 12:19 am
175 million years is 175MM * 365 * 24 = 1.533 Trillion hours. You are off by a factor of 383.5…
As Dallas points out, 4 billion hours is 4B/(24*365)= 456,621 years, still a lot, but much much less than 175 million years.
July 9th, 2009 at 1:18 am
Dumb mistake. Fixed, and apologies.
July 9th, 2009 at 1:25 am
“Plunged” was toying with overstatement. But I recall that St L city’s population fell every year from 1950 to 2007. Am I incorrect? It did fall rather steeply from 1990 to 2000.
-JR
July 9th, 2009 at 1:39 am
“shitstorm”
Awesome editorial comment!
July 9th, 2009 at 9:42 am
Two points:
1. You say: “In 2007, we saved $13 billion because of public transportation (i.e. less congestion because those people weren’t driving). If more cities had systems that met even the most basic performance standards, it’s not hard to imagine that could be a much, much larger number.”
So mass transit commuting times are shorter than driving times? Could have fooled me, I’d love to see some stats backing that up. A mass transit commute of just a few miles can take an hour or more. This is why people drive rather than endure transit travel even under horrific traffic conditions. There are arteries in NYC that are clogged at all hours. You can get on the GW bridge and see hour long delays even before 6 a.m. NY drivers know this and are well aware of the availability of transirt. But even the transit-savy population of NYC knows that there are many circumstances under which a trip must happen by car or not at all. In other words, the assumption that replacing a car trip with a transit trip likely slows travel, rather than speeds it up. This is why you don’t rush your friend to the hospital via subway or send a FedEx package across the county via a freight train.
2. You say: Many measures of American life have probably topped forever–vehicle miles traveled being an obvious one, but also things like retail space and car sales.
This I think is the notion that we are becoming Europeanized. And I think that’s right. However, look at 10 year trends in Europe. Is transit use growing as a mode there relative to vehicle use, or is the opposite happening? If we are heading to a European lifestyle, does that actually mean increased transit use? I think the hard data will surprise you.
July 9th, 2009 at 10:14 am
Be sure you don’t jump to unstated conclusions, Eric. I agree with the author that increased public transportation use in the United States would contribute to economic savings for drivers due to less time in congestion. You quickly assume that the author implies that transit commute times are shorter, which they aren’t in many cases, and you note this. But, by a significant portion of the population switching to transit, a number of cars are removed from roadways, thereby reducing congestion for those who choose to drive.
You’re right - a number of urgent trips are more likely to happen by car, but this doesn’t mean that transit is exclusively HBW trips.
I think the real question here is: what is the net economic benefit of people switching to transit? Some may argue that the time spent commuting on transit, because it is probably longer than a car commute in the US, would contribute to an economic loss. But, by removing people from roads, economic gains take place for drivers and society at large. I would be willing to bet that there is a great net economic benefit to increasing the number of transit commuters. In other words, any economic loss that takes place from transit use is likely much smaller than the economic gain that is realized from people switching to transit commutes.
July 9th, 2009 at 10:55 am
Eric:
I think you are looking at this as an either/or proposition. In terms of congestion, transit and cars complement each other. New York, as you probably know, has both high transit usage and the highest average commute in the nation. Now, imagine if you wiped away the subway, the commuter rail, and most of the bus network, and people had to drive to work. Congestion would shoot up, and NYC’s commutes, already long, would be INSANE. It is physically impossible to fit that many cars into Manhattan. Repeat: physically impossible.
Commute time is a poor indicator of the impact of public transit, in the U.S. anyway, because the American cities with decent transit options are all huge. The reason commutes in New York take so much longer than commutes in Wichita is not because of some defect with New York’s subways or the idea of public transit. It’s because New York’s metro area has 20 million people spread out over dozens of counties and Wichita, well, doesn’t. It’s a basic geographical fact that a 25-mile commute will take longer than a 5-mile commute nearly every time. The biggest cities are ALWAYS going to be more congested and ALWAYS going to have longer commutes because they’re the biggest. On a certain level, no number of train lines or highways can fix that.
July 9th, 2009 at 10:57 am
Transit - Subways, street-rail and LRT, and busses - have a great deal of use, WHEN they run to and from serious destinations of high congestion, with continuous traffic. Places like government complexes (Shall we say, central Washington?), university campuses, airports and other transport nodes, or heavy concentrations of commercial business - like lower Manhattan are ideal. Dispersed suburbia, where many of us live, is not an ideal ground for transit.
Cycling is a real alternative - under some circumstances. These include a realistic cycling season, preferably all year round, relatively flat grades - well, that applies to many of our cities - and reasonable distances. As a “commuting cyclist” of over fifty years standing, I would suggest that cycle commuting, in general, makes sense if a) distances involved are moderate - i.e.: no more than an hour’s travel in one direction, b) there is little or no demand for additional stops, particularly for passengers, on the way, and c) the bike can be realistically used for more than half the year. (Ten months of winter, and two of tough skidooing make it less attractive, f’rinstance.)
However, given that we still insist on living away from both work and neighbours, on isolating ourselves, that we are still, at heart, a rural society of loners, we’re going to need cars (of some sort), and we will have to accept the congestion and waste of time involved with that for some time to come. I think the end of freeways - and it is desireable, in my opinion - is far from near. I’ll stick to town, and my bike, except for longer pleasure trips.
July 9th, 2009 at 11:12 am
Yes, Todd C states it succinctly: “by removing people from roads, economic gains take place for drivers and society at large”
For instance, look at this piece we linked to on Monday–Charles Komanoff figures the total costs to society of driving a car in Manhattan (below 60th St) is $160. This is an extreme case, but it would be great to know what the equivalent figure is for, say, driving a car on DC beltway or 405 in LA.
I’d need to look deeper, but I suspect Komanoff did a more complete job of capturing the real extent of the costs than does the TTI report.
-Jebediah
July 9th, 2009 at 11:54 am
I agree with Todd. But you have to be careful when arguing that transit use benefits “drivers and society at large.” That way, you make it sound as if transit riders are “taking one for the team.” It reminds me of an old article in the Onion, whose headline read “98% of Americans Support Public Transportation for Others.” Transit use is good for the users as well (and I realize that this point may have been an innocent oversight on your part, as you were more concerned with responding directly to Eric than to providing a broader view of the benefits of transit).
Sure, given good traffic conditions, driving is almost always faster than transit, but you have to consider the quality of life aspect of transit (and at this point I’m now responding to Eric). I realize that in NYC’s case, there’s nothing about the subway that screams “quality of life,” but in places like DC, the subway is squeaky clean, and almost everybody is relaxing cross legged, with a book or paper in hand. It’s just a beautiful way to live. Kick back, relax, no worrying about the asshole that’s tailgating you, or the speed demon that’s trying to burn through a yellow light as you’re trying to make a left turn. And no more combing through the blocks surrounding your destination looking for parking!
It isn’t always about getting there faster, but about relaxing on the way, and arriving at your destination calmer.
-Kenney
July 9th, 2009 at 7:11 pm
You should really look at changing the font choice for your website. I can hardly read the actual article.
July 13th, 2009 at 2:59 am
Here in Southern California, we have gone from zero miles of rail transit to hundreds (if you add up diesel Metrolink and electric Metro Rail) in less than 20 years. At the Los Angeles County Fair they now have a section for “commuter crafts”–items created while the crafters were speeding along Metrolink rails. Many trains have “regulars”–passengers who form unofficial “clubs” sharing fellowship while the engineer runs the train. The first present-day rail operation, the LA to Long Beach Blue line runs 3-car trains all day long. The Gold line terminal in East Pasadena is usually almost full by 8 AM on weekdays. Somebody (a lot of somebodys!) must be finding riding a train preferable to driving.
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