BIKE: TTI 2005 Urban Mobility Report

[Dennis Abbott]

I was thinking the same thing when I read that today.  To quickly
refute that, all one would need to do is point to 183 west of I35 and
an obvious mention of Ben White west of I35.  Maybe the reporter only
visited East Austin.  More than likely if you dug into this they are
limiting themselves to MoPac and I35 as the only freeway
infrastructure in Austin.  A quick glance at money spent on new
construction over the 80's and 90's should also produce a few spent
dollars.  I thought it was a complete mistatement on the part of the
reporter.  What probably adds to traffic more than anything are the
beyond numerous smaller collector roads going to greenfield
development out in the burbs that have been built over the last 20
years.  If these had not been built then nobody would have built a
house on them.  This guy quoted in the article has never heard of
Induced Traffic, or he has and is trying to circumvent the argument.

I forwarded this over to my new coworker who just finished his gut
wrenching decision to either buy a Ford Excursion or Chevy Avalanche
so that he could commute from San Antonio to Round Rock everyday.  He
choose the Avalanche, it was apparently a "sweet ride".   2 months
later and his gasoline costs are about to exceed his loan payments. 
*sweet*

Dennis Abbott

On 5/9/05, Patrick Goetz <pgoetz> wrote:
> Austin gets an explict mention in the news article in a quote given by
> one of the reports co-authors.  This brings up a rather important point
> which perhaps someone could provide clarification on.  The SOS Alliance
> frequently cites a statistic that Austin was #2 in road building per
> capita over the last 2 decades (i.e. not only is the mobility problem
> not due to inadequate road construction, but road building is not going
> to solve congestion problems).  I've looked for verification of this on
> the web, and have been unable to find any.  The quote below appears to
> directly contradict this assertion.  Note that I strongly agree with the
> SOSA that road building creates rather than solves congestion problems,
> but think it's important to make sure that you have your facts straight
> for purposes of credibility.
> 
>    ---- excerpted from the following ----
>    Take fast-growing Austin, Texas, for example. In 1982, the average
>    peak-hour traveler was delayed by 11 hours a year. That delay
> increased to
>    51 hours in 2003, the report said.
> 
>    "Austin didn't add transportation capacity in the '80s or '90s," Lomax
>    said. "The 'If you don't build it, they won't come' philosophy didn't
>    work."
> 
> ====================================
> 
>    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050509/ap_on_re_us/traffic_jams
> 
> Study Shows Traffic Keeps Getting Worse
> 
> By LESLIE MILLER, Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 2 minutes ago
> 
> WASHINGTON - If getting stuck in traffic makes you want to roll down your
> car window and scream, look no further than another of those studies to
> find the bad news: Gridlock is getting worse. Congestion delayed travelers
> 79 million more hours and wasted 69 million more gallons of fuel in 2003
> than in 2002, the Texas Transportation Institute's 2005 Urban Mobility
> Report found.
> 
> Overall in 2003, there were 3.7 billion hours of travel delay and 2.3
> billion gallons of wasted fuel for a total cost of more than $63 billion.
> 
> "Urban areas are not adding enough capacity, improving operations or
> managing demand well enough to keep congestion from growing," the report
> concluded.
> 
> Honolulu became the 51st city in which rush-hour traffic delayed the
> average motorist at least 20 hours a year. The Hawaiian capital joins such
> congested areas as Washington, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago \u2014 and
> Virginia Beach, Va., Omaha, Neb., and Colorado Springs, Colo.
> 
> The report was released Monday, the same day the Senate resumes debate on
> a bill that would spend $284 billion on highways over the next six years.
> 
> But that's not enough money to solve traffic problems, according to
> highway and transit advocates.
> 
> The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials
> estimated it would take as much as $400 billion in federal spending over
> the next six years to solve traffic problems, based on a 2002 study.
> 
> Roads aren't being built fast enough to carry all the people who now drive
> on them, according to the Transportation Development Foundation, a group
> that advocates transportation construction.
> 
> The number of vehicle miles traveled has increased 74 percent since 1982,
> but road lane mileage only increased 6 percent, the foundation said.
> 
> Tim Lomax, a co-author of the Urban Mobility Report, said the soft economy
> and slow job growth in 2003 meant that congestion got worse more slowly
> than it would have during better times.
> 
> "The upside of a slowdown in the economy is the congestion didn't get
> worse very quickly," Lomax said.
> 
> In seven of the 13 major cities, the annual delay per rush-hour traveler
> actually went down slightly: Dallas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami,
> New York, Houston and Philadelphia.
> 
> Lomax said that didn't mean congestion improved throughout each area. It
> probably just spread out to the suburbs.
> 
> "In most of those places, delay actually went up, it just didn't go up as
> fast as the number of people moving in went up," Lomax said.
> 
> Only job loss or major commitments to expand capacity will decrease
> congestion dramatically, he said.
> 
> Refusing to build more roads and transit systems won't discourage
> population growth, Lomax said.
> 
> Take fast-growing Austin, Texas, for example. In 1982, the average
> peak-hour traveler was delayed by 11 hours a year. That delay increased to
> 51 hours in 2003, the report said.
> 
> "Austin didn't add transportation capacity in the '80s or '90s," Lomax
> said. "The 'If you don't build it, they won't come' philosophy didn't
> work."
> 
> Congestion can also be reduced by managing traffic better. The report said
> such techniques as coordinating traffic signals, smoothing traffic flow on
> major roads and creating teams to respond quickly to accidents reduced
> delay by 336 million hours in 2003.
> 
> Robert Dunphy, senior resident fellow for transportation at the Urban Land
> Institute, said that half of all traffic delays are caused by car crashes.
> 
> "There are huge benefits to getting in there and clearing accidents
> quickly," Dunphy said.
> 
> Commuters also adapt, said Alan Pisarski, author of "Commuting in America"
> and a transportation consultant.
> 
> "People give up and go somewhere else," he said. "Or else they're leaving
> home at 6 a.m. or 9 a.m."
> 
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-- 
Dennis Abbott
3501 Shoreline Drive
Apartment 612
Austin, TX 78728