Relieving Congestion Saves Lives

As the Antiplanner observed yesterday, driving increased by 3.5 percent in 2015. Along with that increase came an 8 percent increase in traffic fatalities, according to the National Safety Council.

Six years ago, data revealed that 2009 traffic fatalities had declined by nearly 10 percent from 2008, which itself had nearly 10 percent fewer fatalities than 2007. This dramatic change left many experts perplexed. Some credited safer cars, but the Antiplanner suggested that much of the decline had resulted from the recession-induced decline in driving: 2009 miles were nearly 1 percent less than 2008’s, which were nearly 2 percent less than 2007.

If a slight reduction in congestion due to less driving could result in such a large decrease in fatalities, then similarly a reduction in congestion due to increased roadway capacity or other congestion-reducing measures could similarly save lives. Conversely, the Antiplanner suggested, cities that deliberately allowed congestion to increase in order to get people to stop driving were killing people.

This idea was not well received in 2009, and since there were other possible explanations for the decline in fatalities, and preliminary data (since corrected) indicated that driving had increased slightly in 2009, the Antiplanner dropped it.
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Now, however, it appears to be true that reductions in congestion can save thousands of lives per year. Those who claim to be against new roads because cars are dangerous are being hypocritical: if they really care about safety, they should support new roads and other efforts to relieve congestion.

The National Safety Council’s numbers are a little different from those published by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). While the latter counts fatalities that take place up to 30 days after an accident, the former includes all fatalities that take place up to a year after an accident. Thus, the Safety Council’s numbers are higher (and its estimate for 2015 won’t be confirmed until the end of 2016).

However, early NHTSA 2015 estimates confirm the Safety Council’s increase: based on the based on the first nine months of the year, fatalities grew by 9 percent.

Congestion costs Americans at least $200 billion a year, and contributes to several thousand traffic deaths as well. Unfortunately, too many urban planners see their jobs as providing people with “alternatives to congestion” in the form of expensive transit projects. Such alternatives merely add to the costs without solving the real problem.

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About The Antiplanner

The Antiplanner is a forester and economist with more than fifty years of experience critiquing government land-use and transportation plans.

9 Responses to Relieving Congestion Saves Lives

  1. FrancisKing says:

    “Congestion costs Americans at least $200 billion a year, and contributes to several thousand traffic deaths as well.”

    Statistics 101 – Causation versus correlation.

  2. C. P. Zilliacus says:

    The Antiplanner wrote:

    Congestion costs Americans at least $200 billion a year, and contributes to several thousand traffic deaths as well.

    Wonder what the excess carbon emissions associated with highway traffic congestion amount to?

    Unfortunately, too many urban planners see their jobs as providing people with “alternatives to congestion” in the form of expensive transit projects. Such alternatives merely add to the costs without solving the real problem.

    I am not aware of any “transit success story” (attracting riders that might otherwise be expected to drive) in the United States that does not depend on a congested (or severely congested) highway network for at least some of that success.

    Transit might be a success in some places because it is has a lower out-of-pocket cost as compared to the highway network (because the highways are tolled – as in the downtown taxing cordons in London and Stockholm, or the tolls to cross the Hudson River from North Jersey to Manhattan).

    I am not aware of any large-scale situation like that in the United States. Even in New York City, certainly the largest and most-successful transit operation in the nation by far, efforts to impose a congestion tax cordon around employment in Manhattan (including the “free” bridge crossings over the East River) has been rejected by the New York state legislature.

  3. C. P. Zilliacus says:

    This just in from Boston, Massachusetts: This study says Boston is the third best city in the U.S. for public transit

    With those factors considered, Boston came in behind Washington, D.C. (1) and San Francisco (2) and ahead of Chicago (4) and New York (5) for the top five cities for public transportation.

  4. C. P. Zilliacus says:

    [Emphasis added in link below]

    Washington, D.C. reports in with this: D.C.’s Metro is the No. 1 transit system in the nation. Yes, you read that right.

    The people at SmartAsset, that’s who. The financial analytics firm crunched Census Bureau data to find the nation’s best public transit systems. Metro came out on top. Second place went to San Francisco, followed by Boston, Chicago and New York City.

  5. OFP2003 says:

    If WAMA is #1, then we are really in sad shape.

  6. msetty says:

    The people who should be the “experts” on this don’t seem to know, yet, why fatalities spiked, but The Antiplanner DOES know? Please… http://www.michiganautolaw.com/blog/2016/02/16/car-accident-fatalities-spike/.

    Money quote:

    NHTSA says it doesn’t know … yet.

    “It is too soon to speculate on the contributing factors or potential implications of any changes in deaths on our roadways,” NHTSA explained in its January 2016 “Traffic Safety Facts” report, “Early Estimate of Motor Vehicle Traffic Fatalities for the First Nine Months (Jan – Sep) of 2015.”

    However, in a November 2015 interview with the Detroit Free Press about traffic deaths during the first six months of the year, NHTSA administrator Mark Rosekind said:

    He “suspects increased texting behind the wheel and other forms of distracted driving are among the likely explanations” for the jump in traffic fatalities.

  7. C. P. Zilliacus says:

    Then there’s this from Governing magazine: Why Are Traffic Deaths Rising? – After years of going down, road-related fatalities went up last year. There’s two big reasons for that.

    Traffic safety advocates point to two main factors behind the increase. One is the improving economy, as Americans are traveling more. The other likely culprit is the wide variance in state laws that, according to advocates, aren’t doing nearly enough to curb fatalities.

    When the economy took a downturn, so too did traffic deaths. But economic recoveries generally coincide with higher fatality rates because families have more discretionary income, take extra vacations and travel more on weekends. Parents also tend to purchase more cars for teenagers, who face the highest risk of accidents.

  8. aldenrw says:

    Oh, my God, that is the dumbest thing I have seen in a long time.
    First, you don’t “relieve” congestion, you just move it around. The only way to truly relieve congestion is to make people pay to drive.
    Second, encouraging people to drive faster and farther *creates* congestion.
    Third, pretending “lower congestion” is what drove the decrease in traffic accidents is just inane. Less driving is what drove the decrease in traffic accidents. The vast majority of Americans are horribly crappy drivers.
    Fourth, speed kills. Not congestion. Nobody dies in a 20-mph rear-ender on a congested street. Someone goes off the road at 75 mph and whacks into a tree, without another car in sight? They’re gonna die.
    Fifth, urban freeways, in particular, are expensive, neighborhood-wrecking monstrosities. Improving safety with better surface streets? Sure. Doing it by building unnecessary freeways? No. Fail.
    Sixth, if “a congested area with a lot of people” isn’t the essential definition of a city, then what is?

  9. aldenrw,

    That’s the dumbest content I’ve seen in a long time, especially since I’ve been advocating relieving congestion through tolling for years. Second, if less driving is the simple reason for fewer fatalities, how can a 1 or 2 percent change in driving lead to a 10 percent change in fatalities? Your comment is full of oversimplifications that don’t bear up to scrutiny.

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