Feeling congested? Americans may love driving their cars, but most folks don't
like just sitting in them; especially when they're stuck in traffic.
As minutes turn to hours and then add up to days, the time we are stuck crawling
at a snail's pace, making progress only by the foot seems to have increased
exponentially. When it comes to the Rat Race, we are running in it at ever-slower
speeds with an increasing amount of company. According to data collected by
the Texas Transportation Institute for it's 2003 Urban Mobility study,
here are the top ten worst cities for traffic congestion:
The 10 Most Congested Cities
1. Los Angeles, CA
2. San Francisco, CA
3. Denver, CO
4. Miami, FL
5. Phoenix, AZ
6. Chicago, IL
7. San Jose, CA
8. Washington, DC
9. Portland, OR
10. Boston, MA
Burning up the clock
The costs of traffic are many, but the most obvious and egregious is the cost
in time. The average commuter spends over an entire work-week per year stuck
in traffic. Because there weren't records and statistics to fall back
upon, urban and highway planners, faced with growing sprawl, opted for what
seemed sensible: they built more highways where there were none, and put more
lanes in where there were. What they found out was that you can't build
highways fast enough to satisfy the increasing demand. Increasing the amount
of pavement just causes an even greater increase in the amount of vehicles using
an area. As a result, the vehicle population has grown seven times faster than
the human population since 1960.
Congestion: Now draining wallets on a highway near you
According to transact.org, the website of the Surface Transportation Policy
Project, owning a car in Portland, Oregon is the biggest household expense other
than shelter. And while Portland is a victim of growth, it doesn't compare
to Atlanta, a city synonymous with unbridled sprawl and longer commutes, where
transportation is now the largest single household expenditure.
The highest cost of traffic
If the time and money loss isn't bad enough, there are health and social
costs. Where people drive more there is a greater risk of road fatalities. The
air quality worsens. Nor do you need a sociologist to tell you that increased
traffic means increased stress. Even cities known as "polite" cite
an increase in rudeness on the road, a pervasive vehicular selfishness that
results in everything from road rage to increased accidents. Family dinners
are missed, hours of on-the-clock time at work are lost, and the inevitability
of the twice-a-day grind wears people down.
In a jam? What's a car owner to do?
We've already seen that we'll never be able to build highways and
additional lanes fast enough to keep up the demand. If you have the mobility
and the luxury, you can look for the cities where traffic and sprawl are kept
to a minimum. If you're stuck, well, you might as well just sit back,
relax, and listen to the radio or a good book on CD.
Please note that this description/explanation is intended only
as a guideline.