Labor Day weekend is usually one of the busiest travel weekends of the year, but who can tell anymore? Our roads are so overcrowded that a hectic holiday weekend is indistinguishable from an average weekday.
Washington, D.C. is already the fourth most congested city in the U.S., behind only San Francisco, Chicago and Los Angeles. Commute times during peak traffic hours are 51 percent longer than during off-peak times, meaning a trip that is supposed to take you 30 minutes takes over 45.
And it’s going to get worse. By 2030 the D.C. region will add around 1.5 million people. And peak-hour travel will take 87 percent longer than during off-peak periods, according to a new study published by the Reason Foundation. So a trip that is supposed to take 30 minutes will soon last an epic 56 minutes. Even present-day Los Angeles isn’t that bad.
What to do? Most cities are betting that commuters, frustrated by slow traffic, will increasingly take transit, but the evidence they will choose to ditch their cars is slight at best. The shares of transit use and carpooling are declining, and work-at-home is leveling off. Road pricing can help spread traffic out and encourage efficient driving, but the mechanisms for implementing it are in their infancy. So while other services will be necessary, they will not reduce the need for additional roads and lanes.
How much capacity will be needed to deal with present and future congestion?
The Reason study finds the D.C. region could significantly reduce congestion by adding about 1,800 new lane-miles over 25 years, at an estimated cost of $16.2 billion. That’s a cost of $127 per resident each year. This includes the costs of elevated roads and tunnels, which would likely be necessary in D.C., as well as the effect of ’induced travel,’ which is the additional traffic generated by the newly added capacity.
The $16 billion investment would save 428 million hours of time each year that is lost sitting in traffic. It would also bring additional benefits like lower fuel use, reduced accident rates, greater freight reliability, an expanded labor pool for employers and new job choices for workers. And at a cost of just $1.52 per delay-hour saved, the new capacity would be a great bargain.
In its latest transportation plan the D.C. region wants to spend well over $16 billion. The region is set to pour about $93 billion over the next 25 years into transportation improvements, but after all of that spending, congestion will actually be worse, not better. Of that taxpayer money, $56 billion is slated for transit improvements and $37 billion for highway improvements. Much of the highway money will simply go to repair and maintain existing roads. D.C.’s current transportation plans should be revised to prioritize projects that will provide congestion relief. It is imperative that the region focus on congestion reduction, not just slowing the increase of traffic, at a cost that is both reasonable and effective.
The next decade will be a watershed for urban transportation. On one side will be those regions that stubbornly hope people will dump their cars and return to dense in-city living. Those areas will find themselves even more congested 25 years from now. And many businesses will flee to areas where they have the mobility to efficiently move goods.
A few regions will realize that gridlock is a significant economic threat and will take steps to deal with it. Atlanta recently revised its transportation planning process, moving away from a transit focus by setting a congestion reduction goal and selecting projects that move toward it. Texas has initiated a massive mobility initiative for its largest cities identifying actions needed, mostly new freeways, to reduce congestion significantly.
We need to reclaim the political will to address continuing traffic congestion issues as we have dealt with them for hundreds of years: by providing needed capacity. Regions that figure this out will move out ahead of the pack economically while others slowly strangle.
Which group will the Washington, D.C. region be in?
David T. Hartgen is professor of transportation studies at UNC Charlotte and a frequent visitor to the D.C. area. His new report, “Building Roads to Reduce Traffic Congestion in America’s Cities,” is available at www.reason.org.
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