A new study (9.2 MB PDF) from the Reason Foundation finds that relieving traffic congestion in American urban areas can significantly increase the productivity of those regions. As page 6 of a short version (0.5 MB PDF) of the study reports, spending several billion dollars to relieve congestion by 2030 would typically increase annual productivity by roughly the total cost of such congestion relief.
Click to download the full 9.2MB study.
In most cases, such increases in productivity would lead to increased tax revenues that would pay for the costs of relieving congestion in less than 20 years. Details are available for each of the seven urban areas studied (Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, and Seattle), or you can go to the study’s web page to download reports for each city.
