Tag Archives: highways

The most congested urban area in America in 2022 was Chicago, where the average auto commuter lost 155 hours to traffic delays. That was only one hour less than London, the most congested urban area in the world, or at least the most congested city evaluated in the latest INRIX global traffic scorecard.

Prior to the pandemic, more than half the people who worked in downtown Chicago took transit to work, but the city was still very congested and — according to INRIX — is even more congested today. Photo by Michael Kappel.

The second-most congested U.S. urban area was Boston, with 134 hours of delay per driver, followed by New York at 117 hours. Los Angeles, which has often been at the top of the list, was way down in 2022, suffering 95 hours of delay per driver, and was edged out by San Francisco at 97 hours. Miami and Philadelphia were between New York and San Francisco. Continue reading →

In 2018, Jersey City adopted Vision Zero, the goal of reducing traffic fatalities to zero. In the past year, it had zero fatalities on city-owned streets. Mission accomplished!

A street in Jersey City. Photo by schokker64.

A Bloomberg article yesterday breathlessly reviewed all the things the city did to reduce fatalities to zero, including roundabouts, road diets, bike lanes, lower speed limits, and the closure of one street to automobiles. Yet there isn’t any real evidence that any of these steps contributed to reduced fatalities. Continue reading →

Americans drove 0.6 percent more miles in October 2022 than the same month in 2019, according to data released yesterday by the Federal Highway Administration. This is the second month in a row and the twelfth month in all that driving exceeded pre-pandemic levels since the pandemic began.

See previous posts for information about data from Amtrak and transit and air travel.

Driving exceeded 2019 miles in 26 states, while it fell short in 24 states and DC. The states that saw the greatest increase in driving, relative to October 2019 miles, were South Dakota (22.6%), Arizona (18.8%), Rhode Island (17.6%), Montana (15.4%), Missouri (11.2%), and South Carolina (11.1%). States that are still furthest from full recovery include California (-8.7%), Massachusetts (-8.0%), Delaware (-8.0%), Pennsylvania (-7.4%), and Maryland (-6.1%). Also, DC is -12.6%. Continue reading →

According to Wikipedia, constructing the Interstate Highway System cost $535 billion in 2020 dollars. Now, three economists from the University of Colorado and Florida State University have calculated the amount of benefits the highway add to our economy.

Interstate highways carry a quarter of all vehicle travel and probably more than a quarter of all heavy truck travel. Photo by Rupert Ganzer.

Their answer was $601.6 billion. Per year. In 2012 dollars, meaning $760 billion in today’s dollars using the GDP deflator. And that’s for freight only; the value of passenger travel is probably at least equal to that. Continue reading →

Despite record fuel prices, Americans drove almost 1 percent more miles in June 2022 than they did in June 2019, according to data released on Saturday by the Federal Highway Administration. Driving declined on urban interstate freeways, but it increased on other urban roads as well as all types of rural roads.

See the previous post for sources of Amtrak data and the post before that for sources of data for transit and air travel.

The nationwide average price of regular gasoline climbed from $4.58 a gallon on June 1 to a record $5.02 on June 14. Supposed experts claimed that prices would “stay high for a long time,” but instead they have fallen every day since the 14th, reaching $4.80 at the end of June and $3.90 as of yesterday.

On a miles-per-day basis, Americans drove 1.1 more miles in June than in May and 5.1 percent more in June than in April, when gas prices were 60 to 80 cents a gallon less than in June. This suggests that people are less deterred by high fuel prices than auto opponents would hope.

As noted a few days ago, transit ridership made a leap in June, with average daily ridership being 4.5 percent greater than in May. But since Americans travel almost 100 times as many passenger-miles per year by automobile as by urban transit, a large increase in transit ridership translates to a small decline in driving. That increase in transit ridership may have compensated for the decline in urban interstate driving, but lower fuel prices in July and August will probably lead to an increase in urban driving and a compensatory drop in transit travel.

When compared with June 2019, driving grew the most in Indiana (18%), Florida (16.5%), Connecticut (12.9%), Georgia (11.6%), Louisiana and Texas (each 11.7%). It fell the most short of 2019 miles in the District of Columbia (-19.2%), Delaware (-16.1%), Montana (-11.5%), Oregon (-8.7%), and Washington (-8.5%).

Induced demand is not a phenomena to be feared but one to be welcomed, according to a recent Reason Foundation report by Steven Polzin. Demand for travel is always growing, and if new roads reduce the cost of travel, they will be used. Highway opponents say that’s why we shouldn’t build new roads, but Polzin points out there are many economic benefits from new road capacity and even from the demand “induced” by that new capacity.

Click image to download a 1.2-MB PDF of this 35-page report.

New road capacity, Polzin says, allows people who either weren’t traveling at all due to congestion or who were traveling at inconvenient times or routes to avoid congestion to travel at preferred times and routes. This makes it appear that new capacity has “induced” demand but all it has really done is released demand suppressed by congestion. To the extent that new capacity leads to new travel, says Polzin, that generates economic activity that is good for the region. Continue reading →

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) says there were 31,720 traffic fatalities during the first nine months of 2021, which was 12 percent more than in the same months in 2020 and 18 percent more than 2019. The biggest increases in fatalities were in Idaho (36%), Nevada (30%), Oregon (29%), and Minnesota (26%). Fatalities declined in Nebraska (-18%), Maine (-14%), Maryland (-13%), Rhode Island (-8%), Wyoming (-6%), and six other states.

Blame the increase in traffic fatalities on Generation Y and Zers who are more likely to engage in risky behavior. Photo by Frans Van Heerden.

NHTSA doesn’t speculate on why fatalities have increased by such a large amount. However, a report from the American Automobile Association provides one answer: people who are more likely to take the risk of traveling during a pandemic are also more likely to engage in risky behavior while driving. Continue reading →