TTI annual mobility report finds congestion worsening.

Despite efforts to control traffic congestion, U.S. cities are falling further behind with each passing year, according to 20-year trends recently announced by the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI). The 2004 Urban Mobility Report published by TTI shows traffic congestion across the Nation

"We can see pretty clearly what 20 years of almost continuous economic growth can do to us," says Tim Lomax, one of the study's authors. "If we're lucky enough to sustain this growth and the funding levels and options do not increase from current trends, we shouldn't be surprised if we see even more congestion."

The TTI study ranks congestion in urban areas according to several measurements, including annual delay per peak period (rush hour) traveler, which has grown from 16 hours to 46 hours since 1982; the annual financial cost of traffic congestion, which has ballooned from $14 billion to more than $63 billion since 1982 (as expressed in 2002 dollars); and fuel wasted by engines idling in traffic jams, totaling 21.2 billion liters (5.6 billion gallons).

This year's installment of the report increases the number of urban areas studied from 75 to 85 and includes all urban areas with a population exceeding 500,000. The report also measures the degree to which contributions from public transportation services and techniques for improving roadway operating efficiency have reduced congestion. Although the techniques discussed can be used both nationally and locally to help reverse the trend of worsening traffic problems, researchers say that the problem has grown too rapidly and is too complex to be addressed by a single solution. The report recommends that in addition to new road and public transportation projects, the United States needs to use its roadways more efficiently, improve demand management, and diversify its land use options.

"We're facing an increasingly urgent situation," Lomax says. "To make real progress, it's critical that we pursue all transportation solutions--short-range, small-scale projects and policies, midrange efficiency programs, and longer term, more significant projects and programs that require more planning and design time."

FHWA Administrator Mary E. Peters agrees. "Today's report validates what we've known all along," she says, "the solution to road congestion isn't just pouring new concrete and paving new roads."

Short-term solutions include using toll-based high-occupancy vehicle lanes to encourage carpooling, congestion-based toll charges to discourage highway use at the busiest times of day, and ramp-metering technologies that improve the flow of traffic onto and off of highways. Additional measures include improving the timing of traffic signals to match traffic patterns and avoid gridlock, and investing in new telephone and Internet-based information systems to help drivers avoid traffic and construction.

For more information, contact Tim Lomax at 979-845-9960, t-lomax@tamu.edu or David Schrank at 979-845-7323, d-schrank@tamu.edu. To view the report, visit http://mobility.tamu.edu/ums/report.

Texas Transportation Institute