Where the Congestion Grows Like Kudzu
- Posted by ryan on July 8th, 2009 filed in Cities
Real Time Economics helpfully reprints a chart from TTI’s urban mobility report which looks at hours wasted per traveler by metropolitan area. There’s a lot of interesting stuff in there. For a Washingtonian, the thing that’s likely to stick out is the fact that Washington is second in the country in hours wasted per traveler, and sustained the largest increase in wasted hours between 1982 and 2007.
One representation I’d love to see, should someone have the time to put a chart together, is hours wasted per traveler versus metropolitan population. The average traveler in the New York metro area faces 44 hours wasted per year, for instance, while the average traveler in Los Angeles loses 70 hours per year to congestion, even though New York’s metropolitan population is much, much larger than LA’s. More interesting still, Austin and Raleigh aren’t that far behind New York with 39 and 34 hours wasted annually, despite the fact that both metro areas have less than two million people while greater New York is home to some 20 million people. Chicago and Charlotte face roughly the same time loss to congestion, despite the fact that the former metro area is a good four times the size of the latter.
One wonders how smaller sprawling cities will be able to continue growing at anything like their current pace; their development patterns just don’t seem to scale. In Washington, continued sprawling growth has obviously led to a rapid increase in congestion, and a major increase in demand for housing near Metro. But most cities aren’t lucky enough to have a Metro that can facilitate rapid infill growth.
July 8th, 2009 at 9:51 pm
Raleigh is not going to keep growing like that much longer.
The attraction is of course cheap land. I have friends who not long ago bought houses out Capital (US1) past 540. They were selling McMansions for less than $100 per sq ft.
However, it is about 30mins from Capital into Research Triangle Park (Our Mega Office Park) with no traffic whatsoever. Its well over a hour each way in rush hour. Those McMansions past 540 are worth even less now as the demand for living way out seems to be subsiding and people experience the reality of that traffic.
On the bright side they are still, even in this economy, breaking ground on condos in downtown. I think we are on the verge of tipping towards urbanity.
July 8th, 2009 at 10:05 pm
Those numbers are interesting and cohere with my experience. Houston has a reputation for horrible traffic, but honestly it’s not as bad here as in any other comparably sized US city I’ve been to.
Austin, as you point out, is particularly awful, and I’m not sure why. It’s the capital, so surely they have the political connections to get the highway $$; NIMBYism?
July 9th, 2009 at 9:11 am
I think Karl is right for Raleigh, but lets recognize good timing and leadership. There is now federal money and local funding options for regional transit, and city leadership that recognizes that low density growth carries a significant long-term price tag..