Raleigh – Raleigh
commuters wasted approximately 18.2 million hours of additional time on the
roads, and 11.7 million gallons of additional gas as a result of traffic
congestion in 2005. The additional wasted time and fuel cost the public an equivalent
of $346 million, according to the federally sponsored Urban Mobility Report released today by the Texas Transportation
Institute. The findings underscore the need for additional transit in the
region.
The report
shows that traffic congestion would be significantly worse if not for public
transportation within the metro area. Raleigh’s
public transit system prevented $14.1 million in additional costs and 742,000
in additional hours of travel time for drivers compared to what they would have
been if existing transit hadn’t taken large numbers of drivers off the region’s
roads.
According
to Rob Thompson of NCPIRG, “Population has increased, households own more cars,
and drivers travel further each year. Traffic congestion won’t slow down until
those trends change. The state needs to focus policy on getting more cars off
the road, particularly through enhanced rail and bus transportation.” He added
that, “each full bus can get fifty cars off the road. Drivers across North Carolina should be
calling for more and better public transportation.”
The report
calculates mobility and traffic congestion on freeways and major streets in 85
cities and is the most authoritative source on the Southeast’s traffic
conditions.
Traffic
congestion worsened steadily since the report first began tracking travel time
in 1982. Travel times for commutes have increased in each year of the study. In
addition to the growing average length of commuting trips, drivers must
allocate additional time to avoid being late because traffic problems are
increasingly unpredictable.
Congestion afflicts
more roads for increasing numbers of hours with longer delays. Whereas in 1982,
congestion problems in Raleigh
affected 13% of travel during 2.6 daily “rush hours;” the new data shows that
in 2005 a full 47 percent of travel was affected by the 6.2 hours of rush hour
congestion.
“For
decades, we’ve tried to fight traffic congestion by building new roads,” continued
Thompson. “This report is further evidence of the failure of that strategy.
Instead we need to expand bus and rail systems to reduce the number of drivers
on the road. Doing so will reduce our nation’s dependence on dirty fossil fuels
and address congestion problems before they cripple our metro areas.”
