Wednesday, September 19, 2007
News Report: Atlanta shares the silver medal for time spent in traffic
Posted by Thomas Wheatley @thomaswheatley on Wed, Sep 19, 2007 at 5:45 PM
The Texas Transportation Institute -- a transit-information behemoth and a great resource if you enjoy reading about gridlock, roads and how transit keeps life churning along -- issued its 2007 Urban Mobility Report, and while Atlantans are spending less time on our urban freeways, we're still paying a lot because of gridlock in terms of time and money -- 60 hours and $1,177 to be exact. Sure, we're behind Los Angelenos, this year's tanned but frown-faced champions, but we're right after 'em, tied at second with San Francisco and Washington, D.C.
Nationwide, traffic delays cost $78.2 billion and motorists spent 4.2 billion hours sitting in gridlock.
The solutions, according to the report? More carpooling, managed lanes, better-planned trips, and -- what some consider a necessary evil, others an outright need, and a whole other set of others a poor waste of cash -- wider roads.
To read the full report and take in all its statistical glory, go here.
Comments (3)
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The Institute uses a really idiotic measure of traffic congestion -- Travel Time Index. I mean, if you think transportation is all about cars and trucks, TTI is a creative and thought-provoking way of measuring congestion. But all TTI measures is cars and trucks. Transportation is about the movement of people and goods, which is much more than just cars and trucks. TTI, as an index, is very simple. It's a way of measuring how much longer it takes for traffic to go from point A to point B during rush hour periods. If TTI = 1.3, that means it takes 30 percent more time for you to get home to your family (or your cat, if you're me). However, TTI doesn't care about me because I don't drive to work. The only reason TTI might ever apply to me is if I take the bus -- when there's heavy traffic, the bus is stuck with it. Some days, I bike to work. And it doesn't matter what traffic looks like between here and there -- it's always going to take me approximately the same amount of time whether I bike during peak, or off-peak periods. TTI, if it applied to me as a cyclist, would be approximately 1.00. Some days, I ride the train. MARTA increases service during peak periods. By the schedule alone, I can show that I actually get home faster if I ride during rush hour than if I ride during a non-peak period. If TTI applied to me as a transit rider, it would be less than 1.00. This is just a long-winded way of saying the Texas Transportation Institute is full of crap. They don't deserve the attention they get.
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