Yippee!!! My commute made the list. Philadelphia finished 9th. I bet if we really work at it, we can break into the top 5. I’ve now been working in the City of Philadelphia for six years and I’ve spent 4 entire months of my pathetic life in my car commuting to and from work. You should be thankful. My commute is what fuels my rage and keeps this blog going.
Traffic jams do give me the opportunity for personal grooming.
I do fantasize about murdering douchebags on their phones.
It gives me plenty of ammunition for railing against government drones.
Maybe I should replace my Ron Paul magnet with this sign.
I guess I should be thankful I don’t live in Italy.
Commuters’ wasted time in traffic costs $121B
AUSTIN, Texas — The nation’s commuters are adapting to increasing traffic congestion by building delays into their schedules, but at a cost of $121 billion in wasted time and fuel, according to an annual study of national driving patterns released Tuesday.
The new report from the Texas A&M Transportation Institute found that Americans wasted an average of $818 each sitting in traffic in 2011. That also meant more carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere.
The worst commute in the country? Washington. Commuters in the nation’s capital needed almost three hours for a trip that should take 30 minutes without traffic, according to the report. That compares to the least congested city — Pensacola, Fla. — where commuters needed only nine extra minutes.
On average, Americans allowed for an hour of driving time for a trip that would take 20 minutes without traffic. The total nationwide added up to 5.5 billion additional hours that Americans spent in their cars during 2011.
The institute, part of Texas A&M University, uses 30 years of traffic data, and its annual reports are one of the key tools used by experts to solve traffic problems. Researchers study how commuters adapt their travel plans when they have urgent appointments in highly congested areas based on data gathered from state transportation agencies, private companies and academic entities that monitor traffic issues.
When all costs are totaled, the cost of traffic congestion to Americans was up $1 billion over 2010 for a total of $121 billion. For commercial truck drivers alone, wasted time and diesel fuel amounted to $27 billion.
The latest study also found that after Washington, the most congested cities in 2011 were Los Angeles, San Francisco-Oakland, New York-Newark, Boston, Houston, Atlanta, Chicago, Philadelphia and Seattle.
New to the report this year is the amount of additional carbon dioxide that gets released into the atmosphere because of clogged roads. In 2011, that total was 56 billion pounds of additional carbon dioxide, or the equivalent of 380 pounds per commuter.
The statistic “points to the importance of implementing transportation improvements to reduce congestion,” researcher and co-author David Schrank said.
The study also determined that Americans burned 2.9 billion gallons of gasoline while sitting in congestion, a slight improvement over the peak in 2005 when commuters wasted 3.2 billion gallons.
Researchers said 2005 remains the worst year recording for traffic congestion, but warn that recent improvement may be directly related to the recession. As the economy picks up again, the study’s authors warn, so might road congestion.
The institute notes that every community is unique and requires different, multi-faceted approaches to solving congestion.
Eddie says:
I still commute 28 miles each way. I have to leave by 6:30 and then I can still get to work in 30 minutes. At 7:30 the commute is maybe an hour. I try to leave work by 4 p.m. and that gives me a 45 minute ride home. At 5 pm it’s an hour.5:30, it turns into an hour and a half.
I’m grateful I have control over the hours I work.
It bothers me that I’ve spent all the time and money over the years commuting, and the waste involved…but basically it has been my choice, and I chose to live in a nicer community than the one I work in. I didn’t have to do that.
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7th February 2013 at 9:42 am
Chicago999444 says:
Easy solution to traffic congestion:
Move to a neighborhood near a commuter rail stop and take the train to work. I do- it cuts 20 minutes off my commute at least, saves me the minimum $400/month cost of car ownership (and that’s the LEAST owning a car costs), and means one less car on congested Chicago roads. I can also read, text, and sleep without endangering anyone else.
Oh, but wait, most Americans don’t live in places with reliable, or ANY, public transportation. Or they live in big city suburbs 40 miles out of downtown and their places of work are in other exurbs 80 miles from them and 10 miles from the nearest rail stop.
Well, then move close to where you work, even if it means you live in a smaller house.
Whatever you do, see if making other choices could save you misery and money.
Our traffic congestion is the end result of 60 years of horrible public policy enforced with hundreds of billions of tax dollars spent on evermore highways and to subsidize suburban sprawl development. It is also the result of hundreds of millions of bad personal choices. When you are parked in traffic on some interstate somewhere, ponder the choices you have made- is the cheap McMansion in the exurb 55 miles from where you work such a bargain if the savings are offset by the cost of gasoline and 3 hours out of your life everyday, nevermind the costs of buying cars for your teens so you don’t have to be available to chauffeur them to every single activity as well as to school?
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7th February 2013 at 9:52 am
Eddie says:
My drive is beautiful, though. I generally watch the sun come up over Lake Austin every morning. And I’m now carpooling with my wife and daughter. That makes me feel better about the gas I’m burning, but it hasn’t done much for my early morning peace and quiet.
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7th February 2013 at 9:58 am
Eddie says:
I own a house, bought and paid for, within a ten minute bike ride of my office. If it were only up to me, I might live there. But it isn’t. Life gets complicated when you have a big family.
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7th February 2013 at 10:02 am
Bostonbob says:
Admin,
My commute is 32 miles from the South Shore up to Burlington here in MA. Anyone who has commuted RT.128 knows this is the commute from hell. I left in a snow storm one late afternoon, six hours to get home. If the Patriots are playing on a Monday or Thursday night almont guaranteed two and one half hours. I have been doing this commute for over 20 years, with a brief break working on the Cape in Harwichport, 96 miles each way. I love driving in traffic. Whenever I go anywhere with my wife I let her drive. I have usually had enough by the weekend.
Thank you,
Bob.
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7th February 2013 at 10:17 am
sangell says:
DC traffic is fearsome. Delays can begin 50 miles from Washington at Fredericksburg on I-95. Arterial roads off the interstate are nightmares. Rush hour never really ends it just relaxes a bit from total gridlock during the morning to severe congestion during the day then builds back towards total gridlock by mid-afternoon.
Same thing with San Francisco, though off the freeways in the Bay Area, the side streets are not so congested because the hills and the SF Bay prevent them from leading anywhere but the local area so they do not become alternate routes that bypass the freeway. In the Bay Area you have no alternative through 30 blocks of squalor.
This is a real quality of life issue. I choose my retirement area based on traffic. I just am not going to spend hours in stop and go traffic. You can live in the most beautiful house in a lovely neighborhood but if you can’t get anywhere with a struggle and endless aggravation of what use is it?
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7th February 2013 at 10:36 am
AWD says:
If you lived in the 30 blocks of squalor, you’d be home now…
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7th February 2013 at 10:49 am
Wyoming Mike says:
My commute has tripled in just one year. Used to be 4 minutes, now that I have to take the kiddo all the way up to 14th street to drop her at school, it can be upwards of 10-12 minutes. If I miss the one traffic light, it can add up to an additional 20 seconds as well. Sucks!
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7th February 2013 at 11:11 am
Eddie says:
There’s a traffic light in Wyoming?
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7th February 2013 at 11:14 am
Chicago999444 says:
The 30 blocks of squalor were 30 blocks of nice, well-tended blue collar homes before our government in the 50s decided that every family should be given the “opportunity” to buy a house in a car-dependent bedroom suburb and made it possible via the government-chartered and guaranteed “private” GSEs, and the FHA and VA, which offered government-guaranteed low down payment (and in the case of VA, NO down payment) loans on cheapjack subdivision houses in new bedroom suburbs far from reliable transit.
This meant that in the 50s, a young couple like my parents, strapped for cash and just starting out, had a choice between a conventional 20% down mortgage in a nice city neighborhood with a lot of conveniences nearby but TERRIBLE parking, and a no-down loan on a new crackerbox with lots of gizmos and its own driveway, while the city was “redlined” for FHA loans even though it was still a much more desirable place to live at that time.
With such an incentive- they could buy with no money down on a VA loan in the burb vs not being written at all in the city, what real choice did they have?
Take away the government-backed incentives to buy in the suburbs, and the 30 blocks of squalor will quickly gentrify, especially now that public education is so crappy almost everywhere that you might as well find alternatives anyway.
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7th February 2013 at 11:16 am
Dorkus Maximus says:
In my midwestern city its 8 minutes each way, and not an inch of squalor.
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7th February 2013 at 11:33 am
fool on the hill says:
AWD,
2011 was a banner year for me SEVEN CUNTS flipped me the bird.
Two in 2012.
Maybe their clunkers shit the bed.
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7th February 2013 at 12:10 pm
sensetti says:
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7th February 2013 at 12:18 pm
Gayle says:
On my commute (to part time substitute teaching work) I recently was awarded a speeding ticket for going too fast in a school zone. My ticket only cost me $367.00! You used to be able to at least reduce tickets by attending “online traffic school” but they have done away with that now. Obviously, I am helping San Bernardino get out of bankruptcy.
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7th February 2013 at 12:42 pm
Administrator says:
Gayle
It’s for the children. Always remember that.
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7th February 2013 at 12:44 pm
Christopher Harrison says:
NYC road warrior here — at least for another 11 work days. For the past 2.5 years I’ve done a 135-mile round-trip commute that crosses 2 bridges each way and takes at least 3 hours r/t. Even with a cheap .mp3 player and lots of podcasts on permaculture, finance, resource depletion, etc. it’s become an exercise in soul-sucking misery. There have been numerous occasions where the trip home has taken me 2-1/2 to 3 hours due to weather, traffic, etc.
At least my light is at the end of the tunnel — I’ll soon be moving on to a project that is 45 minutes from home, without tolls or traffic. I told my wife it will be like getting 1-1/2 hours of my life back every day.
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7th February 2013 at 12:54 pm
Kill Bill says:
I live in a bed n breakfast type county adjacent to Dallas county.
Recently the city Im in decided to make some apartments section 8.
Now I go down this 6 lane road and see people walking around wiith beer cans in paper bags. Groups of gangbanger looking youth acting like fools.
Not surprisingly 7-11 just built a new store right across the street from the section 8 units.
I wonder if thats correlated. Im sure SNAP card sales will be good.
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7th February 2013 at 2:25 pm
KaD says:
My Mother lived in a rural area where the town had a fight with a developer, out of spite he put a Section 8 apartment up. No good comes out of those things, ever. Piss on gentrifying the ghetto. Those people are exactly where they belong-far away from people who want to work for a living.
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7th February 2013 at 2:52 pm
Gubmint cheese says:
I have DC area commuters around where I live in PEE AYYY. My neighbor dives into Goddard Space Center in Greenbelt. Two hour commute each way. He’s crazy.
When I had many BWI flights early morning mid week, I found the traffic on the interstate southbound is incredible at even 4:30am. Bumper to bumper even in good weather and no accidents, This mess starts north of the MD line.
I always found my rare trips on the surekill expressway into Philly kind of entertaining. Its amazing to see the different kinds of graffiti, unusual trash and car parts that are scattered along this highway.
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7th February 2013 at 4:07 pm
Administrator says:
Fun on the Schuylkill
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7th February 2013 at 4:29 pm
Administrator says:
Watch out for that treeeee
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7th February 2013 at 4:30 pm
Wyoming Mike says:
Eddie,
We have one traffic light. Next ones are…30 miles north, 60 miles south, 80 miles west, and you just can’t go east.
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7th February 2013 at 6:32 pm
nonner says:
living in the Antelope Valley, i could have chosen to drive south into LA along with thousands of other commuters. instead, i drive north with hundreds others who i hardly ever see. i could be on a backroad like the roads i knew well around the former Bergstrom AFB. I took a trip to San Antonio a few years ago and was shocked to find Austin traffic as horribly congested as Dallas. Fredericksberg saved me though, i had promised my wife we were going to the original garden of Eden. it has been years since i have driven to San Diego, i hate the traffic, i’d rather drive to Las Vegas anytime.
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7th February 2013 at 11:59 pm