New Study Reveals the Costs of Sitting in Traffic

Traffic is a necessary evil for many commuters, especially those who hit the roads during rush hour in bigger cities across the U.S. And while sitting in traffic may be frustrating and draining, it is also incredibly costly – particularly when aggregating the losses of all drivers over the course of a year.

That’s what researchers at the American Highway Users Alliance (AHUA) recently did, focusing on how traffic across the nation costs Americans in terms of time, fuel and lost productivity while also pinpointing some of worst traffic bottlenecks in the nation. And here’s what they found…

Findings

• The top 30 worst traffic jams in the U.S. result in drivers experiencing delays totaling at least 90 million hours each year. This translates into an entire year of work for about 45,500 people.
• In terms of lost productivity, these delays cost at least $2.4 billion each year.
• Four cities in the U.S. took up the top 10 spots for worst traffic jams in the nation, with these being Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, and Austin (Texas). Other cities to make the top 50 included (but were not exclusive to) San Francisco, Boston, Seattle, Oakland, Dallas, Miami, Houston, Philadelphia and Atlanta. Washington, D.C. was also featured in the ranking three times (for separate areas/traffic bottlenecks).
• If changes could be made to substantially reduce traffic in the top 30 traffic jams in the nation:
  • About 9,800 traffic accidents could be prevented each year.
  • About 740 million pounds of carbon monoxide emissions could be prevented from being released into the environment.
  • About 35 million gallons of fuel could be saved.

While there have been various proposals for how traffic through these bottlenecks could be mitigated, these researchers have strongly recommended developing roads and better infrastructures around the bottlenecks to ease traffic flow (rather than expanding mass transit systems).

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