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Crashes, Not Congestion, Cost the Most
For decades, we've been regularly updated on the multibillion-dollar cost of road congestion. While traffic jams that waste time and fuel are no fun, as an economic drain they can't hold a candle to another chronic side-effect of car culture: vehicle crashes.
According to an American Automobile Association study, collisions cost Americans more than $300 billion a year, nearly three times the congestion toll as measured by the Texas Transportation Institute.
In addition to more than 30,000 annual traffic fatalities, the average financial cost per person of crashes in U.S. metropolitan areas is $1,522 a year, compared with $590 for congestion. In the broad Twin Cities metro that includes counties in western Wisconsin, AAA put the total cost of collisions in 2009 at $3.5 billion, or $1,070 for every man, woman and child. In that year, 176 people were killed on the roads in the region, and 19,374 were injured.
No one will argue that these aren't terrible penalties we pay for our mobility. But some are now suggesting that an all-out push to bust congestion everywhere would only multiply the loss of life and limb, with broad, negative economic consequences as well. Less congestion can promotes higher speeds and heightened safety risks. Besides, as former Milwaukee Mayor John Norquist noted on the Atlantic Cities blog, "Congestion, in the urban context, is often a symptom of success."
He compared the crawling congestion endemic to shopping meccas like New York's Fifth Avenue, Chicago's Michigan Avenue and Los Angeles' Rodeo Drive to the free-flowing traffic of hollowed-out, impoverished Detroit. And he cited a recent Florida Atlantic University report that each 10 percent increase in traffic delays is associated with a 7 percent increase in a region's economic output.
"Congestion is a bit like cholesterol — if you don't have any, you die," Norquist said. "And like cholesterol, there's a good kind and a bad kind. Congestion measurements should be divided between through traffric and traffic that includes local origins or destinations, the latter being the 'good kind.' Travelers who bring commerce to a city add more value than someone just driving through."
Many places, including more than a dozen Twin Cities suburbs, are actually narrowing streets to slow drivers down enough to notice the businesses, bicyclists and pedestrians along the way. A 2010 federal study found up to a 47 percent reduction in crashes thanks to similar "road diets" in Iowa. This benefits everyone involved, from drivers to foot-powered travelers to roadside retailers.
Posted in Transportation | Related Topics: Transportation Funding Road Safety Traffic Congestion