Traffic Jams are getting worse in USA

[cycloneye]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- If getting stuck in traffic makes you want to roll down your car window and scream, look no further than another of those studies to find the bad news: Gridlock is getting worse.

Congestion delayed travelers 79 million more hours and wasted 69 million more gallons of fuel in 2003 than in 2002, the Texas Transportation Institute's 2005 Urban Mobility Report found.

Overall in 2003, there were 3.7 billion hours of travel delay and 2.3 billion gallons of wasted fuel for a total cost of more than $63 billion.

"Urban areas are not adding enough capacity, improving operations or managing demand well enough to keep congestion from growing," the report concluded.


http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/05/09/traffi ... index.html

Here in San Juan,Puerto Rico we have massive Traffic Jams every morning and afternoon and those jams are extending for more hours during the day as PR has more than 2 Millon cars.

How are those Gridlocks in your area every day?

[sunny]

How are those Gridlocks in your area every day?

BAD.

[cycloneye]

I forgot to say that Puerto Rico gets over 150,000 new cars to the streets every year on average to add to the 2 millon already so if the island is 100x35 in diameter you can see how we are doing in terms of the traffic.

[Scorpion]

Getting bad here, but its mostly due to incompetent drivers.

[StormChasr]

Orlando Florida has some of the worst traffic in the country.

[vbhoutex]

Houston is the 6th worst in the country I believe. Sure seems a lot worse than that though. I can't imagine anythign worse than here.

[StormChasr]

I can't imagine anythign worse than here.

Atlanta??????

[Cookiely]

I wonder how much was spent on this "survey". I could have told them the answer for free.

[cycloneye]

I wonder how much was spent on this "survey". I could have told them the answer for free.

Bingo!! Waste of money here.

[HurricaneGirl]

I got stuck in one yesterday on the way home from work for an hour and 45 minutes. They had the expressway closed down because of some crazy lady had a gun and there was a standoff with the police. She shot her passenger in the head.

http://www.news4jax.com/news/4470077/detail.html

[Miss Mary]

I-75 runs right thru Cincinnati. So if you're traveling from say Michigan to Florida, you're going to have to drive thru here. That said, our stretch of I-75 was recently studied extensively. It was decided it needs to be widened to 6 lanes, each way, not 3 each way. But get this - many sections of this stretch are land locked. To obtain more land to create more lanes, imminent domain (sp?) would have to be used. It would take years to obtain property, clear homes and businesses, and create more lanes. Then you have others that say we need light rail, such as Chicago has in place. That would solve part of the problem - commute to work, via the train.

I don't recall what the answer was. I think they're still studying the problem.

Traffic thru this part of I-75 is terrible during rush hour. Summers, holidays, etc. Especially when you hit downtown Cincinnati and then enter Northern Kentucky.

I imagine AAA reroutes drivers around this whole mess and recommend our circle freeway - I-275.

I've lived here my whole life and I hate driving our part of I-75. It's always congested. Unless it's 2 in the morning. And then you have those that say be glad we don't live in LA or Chcago (that's a whole other topic, Chicago-traffic, yikes!!!).

Mary

[azskyman]

The newly opened stretches of the 101 and 202 freeways here in Phoenix are already clogged on many days during rush hour. Surface streets (those with stoplights) make more sense many times as a result.

I start my drive by listening to traffic on the radio...and make my decision accordingly on whether to stay on the freeway or take another route.

[azsnowman]

Believe it or not, WE, little ol' PINETOP is NOW suffering from traffic jams. I NEVER in my life, would have thought PINETOP of ALL places would suffer the ills BUT.......we now have over 14 traffic lights in town "woohoo!" (insert sarcasim) and it now takes sometimes sitting through 5-6 changes on ONE light to get through it and the summer residents have only JUST started coming up!

Dennis

[Pburgh]

I imagine Pittsburgh is right up there as far as traffic congestion. We have so many rivers, bridges, tunnels and mountains that our highway systems are really difficult to design and difficult to maintain. Add to that the city has no money!!!! Go figure, some of the highest taxes in the United States and we have no money.

[HurricaneGirl]

Miss Mary, I drove from Florida to Michigan a few years ago and remember getting stuck there in Cincinatti.

I also got stuck in Atlanta because some cows were running around the expressway. A cattle truck had overturned and the cows were running in between the cars and lanes. A couple ran right past my drivers side window and some policemen were trying to catch them.

When I got up to my brother's house, it was on CNN and I told him I was right in the middle of it.

[TexasStooge]

Actually, Dallas is 6th worst in the country.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Study: Dallas traffic sixth-worst in U.S.

By BERT LOZANO / WFAA ABC 8

DALLAS, Texas - Life in the fast lane keeps getting slower.

A new study by the Texas Transportation Institute at Texas A&M has found that traffic troubles are getting worse. The study said Americans spend 3.7 billion hours, and waste up to 2.3 billion gallons of gas, sitting in traffic each year.

Rush hour remains a dreaded part of the day for many.

"I travel on Central expressway, so, it's a big parking lot, you get used to it."

"I choose my driving time very wisely, so I don't get caught in traffic."

"I probably spend two hours a day just in traffic."

The study said Los Angeles is number one in the U.S. for traffic delays, followed by San Francisco, Washington, Atlanta and Houston. Dallas comes in at number six.

Dallas-Fort Worth drivers are stuck in traffic for nearly 152,000 hours - or 60 hours per driver, according to the study. That's 2.5 days per year each person is caught in gridlock.

Traffic jams waste a total of 83 million gallons of gas a year; that comes out to 33 gallons per driver - an average of two tanks of gas.

All that congestion comes at a cost. Each driver loses more than $1,000 sitting in traffic instead of working.

The Texas Department of Transportation argues the state does not collect enough tax revenue to keep up with the amount of drivers. Traffic engineers have turned to monitoring traffic on cameras, installing HOV lanes and even synchronitizing traffic signals to ease traffic, but say it's still not enough.

[pojo]

Chicago and Milwaukee, yes Milwaukee.

I94 takes you into downtown from the 'burbs. I43 takes you from the SW of MKE into downtown... Oh.... I must not forget.... the downtown interchange (Marquette Interchange) ... the towering blending of interstates... is under CONSTRUCTION. It will be in construction until 2008... if not longer.

the Fox Cities isn't bad.... thankfully, they widened the stretch of 41 from Neenah to north of Appleton... but the ONE exit to get into Menasha is tricky... you miss it you are screwed. "polish connection" Hwy 441 going into Menasha can be a bear... and further down 441 at Calumet St. is the other beast interchange.

[weatherlover427]

I live in Los Angeles, and NOTHING is worse than LA Traffic. You haven't seen anything, until you get here.

[vbhoutex]

I was wrong about Houston. We are fifth worst in the nation and two of our major freeways are under construction for at least 2 more years!!! I-10 and US 59 both are a mess!!(as if they haven't always been a mess! ). To top it off we have only 7 miles of rail for commuters and it is all in the center of the city not into the suburbs(thanks Tom Delay for keeping hundreds of millions of transpo dollars out of Houston! )Thankfully I do not have to use the freeways to get to work!!

[Skywatch_NC]

Triangle Rush-Hour Drivers Waste 27 Hours A Year In Traffic, Study Finds

POSTED: 12:35 pm EDT May 10, 2005
UPDATED: 12:40 pm EDT May 10, 2005

RALEIGH, N.C. -- The Triangle ranks near the middle in a national study of traffic problems, doing slightly worse in some areas since the last study.

The study by the Texas Transportation Institute looked at 85 metropolitan areas across the county and ranked them on various aspects of traffic. The Triangle ranked near the middle of the entire list -- at 43 for amount of delay for rush-hour travelers.

The ranking still means that a rush-hour traveler will waste about 27 hours a year in traffic.

The Triangle also ranked about average when compared with other medium-sized areas, said Tim Lomax, a research engineer with the institute.

"You're maybe a little more congested than your population size would indicate," Lomax said of the latest data, which is from 2003.

The Triangle ranks much better than Charlotte, which was second on the medium-sized cities. Charlotte rush-hour drivers waste 43 hours a year in traffic.

Elsewhere in the data for the Triangle, the study found that rush-hour drivers waste about 18 gallons of fuel per year while they are stuck in traffic.

Still, there is some good news: Even though the Triangle numbers have inched up from last year, the amount of wasted time in traffic is down from a peak in 2001 when the time wasted was 31 hours a year.

http://www.wral.com/news/4471754/detail.html

Copyright 2005 by WRAL.com.