Traffic congestion going to get a lot worse. Surprised?
If you've ever spent any time trying to drive in any big city, you know the meaning of frustration. As I write this I'm sitting in the back seat of a New York city cab trying to get back to La Guardia airport. According to Google Maps the distance from the airport to the Manhattan hotel where I attended a meeting today is 6.8 miles. This morning that distance took just about an hour to cover. This trip looks like it's going to take longer. Traffic is a problem that's bad, and getting worse, whether you live in the city or commute on freeways or through other towns. There's a column over on TheAutoChannel.com that paints a very scary picture about congestion. By 2013 areas with populations over 3 million people will see minimum delays of 38 hours per traveler per year. I suspect that is a very conservative estimate, unless the numbers are based on all travelers in including passengers in cars. In 2003 wasted time and fuel due to congestion cost the US population over $63 billion dollars, over $800 per traveler and 2.3 billion gallons of fuel. Since increasing capacity on urban roads isn't really a viable option, we need to look elsewhere. We need a lot more mass transit. If I had the option of taking a bus or train to the office every day, I would definitely use it. I could get a lot of work done on a train with my laptop and hopefully a WiFi connection. Click on Read to see the full article.
[Source: TheAutoChannel]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
George Krpan 10:05PM (12/13/2006)
Good, it will hasten the demise of the present living/working arrangements.
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CM 4:20AM (12/14/2006)
While some want civilization to collapse and the survivors to be dragged back to some preindustrial mideval utopia, most rational people are not going to go along with such madness. There is a better way.
The standard proposals for public transit - trains, busses, light rail - just don't work very well for relieving traffic congestion, as they are far too inconvenient and time consuming.
What is needed is a transit system that has no waiting, no transfers, goes nonstop from start to destination, is easy to use, affordable, and runs 24/7. Something like:
http://www.unimodal.com/
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