Congestion Cost U.S. $295 Billion in 2016

Speaking of congestion (as the Antiplanner was yesterday), a new congestion scorecard from Inrix estimates that congestion cost America $295 billion in 2016, which is more than 1.5 percent of 2016 GDP. Where the Texas Transportation Institute’s previous estimates of congestion costs counted only the cost to commuters, Inrix adds costs to consumers who must pay more due to freight trucks sitting in traffic.

Press reports indicate that Inrix’s found that Los Angeles is the most congested urban area in the world. But that was only by one measure and not necessarily the most important one. According to the full report, New York City had the most costly congestion, the most-heavily congested individual highway, and the highest congestion on arterials and city streets. While Los Angeles congestion cost $2,400 per driver for a regional total of just under $10 billion, New York congestion cost well over $2,500 per driver for a regional total of nearly $17 billion.

We can quibble over who is number one, but the point is that the real cost of congestion is almost twice as much as previous estimates (the last estimate by the Texas Transportation Institute was $160 billion) and growing fast. The Inrix scorecard ranks congestion in more than one thousand urban areas worldwide, and nearly every major urban area in the United States significantly rose in international rankings since 2015. That means our congestion is worsening faster than in other countries.

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Congestion cost data are only available for cities in the U.S., U.K., and Germany, but according to one downloadable file, congestion cost more than $1,000 per driver in all of the 25 largest urban areas in the United States, and more than $500 per driver in all of the 100 largest. I’m sure everyone would like another $500 in their pockets, or at least the amount of additional time that this cost represents. Update: Detailed data are available in an appendix.

Unfortunately, congestion is something that people talk about but no one is doing anything about (except by making it worse). We know there are easy solutions to congestion–signal coordination, removal of bottlenecks, congestion pricing–but too many city and regional planners are ignoring them. Instead, as in Denver, they’d rather “prioritize people over cars” by building bike paths while they “make driving harder.” Here’s news for Denver planners: every car you are trying to discourage has someone in whose valuable time you are wasting.

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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.

3 Responses to Congestion Cost U.S. $295 Billion in 2016

  1. Frank says:

    Instead, as in Denver, they’d rather “prioritize people over cars” by building bike paths while they “make driving harder.” Here’s news for Denver planners: The average annual snowfall in Denver is more than double the average of all US cities.

    Get chains for your bike!

    Or just stay home. Who needs to be productive, anyway?

  2. JOHN1000 says:

    The failure of governments to do signal coordination is one of the greatest examples of the lack of care by governmental bureaucrats in relation to the general public. But as it is not a high-cost boondoggle, it will continuously be ignored.

    The same governments that lecture us constantly about wasting gasoline and global warming are the same governments that increase gasoline usage and carbon dioxide emissions by causing cars to constantly sit at light after light for no justifiable reason. ( For example, I just had 5 red lights in 5 blocks on a Sunday afternoon with no traffic).

  3. Frank says:

    “The same governments that lecture us constantly about wasting gasoline and global warming are the same governments that increase gasoline usage and carbon dioxide emissions by causing cars to constantly sit at light after light for no justifiable reason. ( For example, I just had 5 red lights in 5 blocks on a Sunday afternoon with no traffic).”

    These are the same governments that waste gasoline on military planes and empty buses.

    BTW, on my 20-minute commute to work this morning, I only hit one traffic light, and it turned green as I approached. Love living away from the big city.

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