The study said truckers were hit hardest, accounting for about 17 percent of the congestion cost, much more than their 7 percent of traffic.
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Traffic congestion nationally has returned to pre-recession levels, now that the economy has regained almost all of the nine million jobs that were lost, the authors said.
Among large metropolitan areas, Washington, D.C., and its suburbs topped the list of the most congested cities, followed by Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, Calif., and the San Francisco metropolitan area.
The expansion is outpacing the nation’s capacity to construct the roads, bridges, trains and different infrastructure to deal with all these individuals on the transfer.
“If nothing is done to improve the transportation system, and everything stays the same, it’s clear that we can’t have goals of both high economic activity and low congestion”, he said.
081-c-18-(Joan Lowy (LOH’- ee), AP correspondent)-“to rush hours”-AP correspondent Joan Lowy reports several factors are leading to the increased traffic congestion on U.S. roads”.
The study was produced by a data technology company called INRIX, and Texas A&M Transportation Institute.
According to a news release, that averages out to 42 “extra” hours per rush-hour driver a year.
The report found on average, Atlanta drivers spend 52 hours every year stuck waiting in traffic.
The report drew its finding from data collected by Inrix on 1.3 million miles of urban streets and highways, in addition to Federal Highway Administration performance data. Pittsburgh ranked 51st of 101 urban areas in congestion.
“Our growing traffic problem is too massive for any one entity to handle”, said Tim Lomax, a report co-author and Regents fellow at the Texas A&M Transportation Institute on Tuesday. “Maybe that helps you to understand that transit is a better option, rather than have the vehicle shove you toward the Beltway on a big accident day”.
On average, U.S. commuters spent about 42 hours in traffic jams in 2014. “We did not reap the benefits of it and now we’re again within the soup once more”, he stated.
The total cost of congestion will jump from $160 billion to $192 billion.
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This may come as no surprise to anyone who has been stuck in traffic on Interstate 66, Interstate 95 or the Capital Beltway. The Department of Transportation said Americans drove more than 3 trillion miles in the last 12 months, surpassing the previous record set in 2007.
