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Chicago-area traffic is among the worst in the nation,
a new study has found, costing motorists here more time and
money than in other areas of the country.
BY MIKE CETERA
Ever wonder how much time you waste sitting in traffic each year? The answer: About as much time as you spend working each week.
A new study explains in cold, hard numbers what anyone who commutes any distance to work already knows: It's taking longer and longer to get from here to there. Get the full report from the Texas Transportation Institute here.
Some telling numbers (data from 2005):
* Area drivers are stuck in traffic delays on average 46 hours over the course of a year.
* Drivers nationwide wasted 2.9 billion gallons of fuel while sitting in traffic. While that represents a tiny fraction of what Americans consume each year, the wasted fuel is enough to fill everybody's tank for about one week.
''Things are bad and they're getting worse,'' said Alan Pisarski, a transportation expert and the author of Commuting in America.''We've used up the capacity that had been bequeathed to us by a previous generation, and we haven't replaced it,'' Pisarski said.
Other discouraging numbers from the study:
* In Chicago, 41 percent of daily travel is considered congested; 82 percent of travel during peak periods is considered congested.
* Roadway growth demand is far outpacing construction.
* Between 1982 and 2005, the average time stuck in traffic per year more than tripled.
The numbers are depressing, but there are solutions available (if only politicians and the public would be strong advocates for a strong transportation system). There's a thorough and sensible call to action beginning on page 15 of the study.
I'll highlight just one area -- public transportation.
According to the study:
If public transportation service was discontinued and the riders traveled in private vehicles, the 437 urban areas would have suffered an additional 541 million hours of delay and consumed 340 million more gallons of fuel in 2005, one-third more than a decade ago
More:
Public transportation service provides many other benefits in the corridors and areas it serves. Access to jobs, shops, medical, school and other destinations for those who do not have private transportation may provide societal benefits .... Downtowns and other large employment centers in major urban regions would look much different without public transportation service.
Of course, nobody is talking about eliminating public transportation. But the mess in Springfield certainly isn't promoting a friendly environment. We shouldn't be talking about having to save existing public lines. We should be talking about what we can do to bring more public transportation to the region.
How can we ever expect a Metra line extension to Kendall County or the STAR line to come to fruition with what's going on now? On the other hand, with congestion only getting worse, how can we not make expanded public transportation a priority?
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