Our transportation system in the U.S. is built and maintained largely on basic principles that are now a century in the making. The first principle: cities and metropolitan areas will continue growing outward. Second, almost everybody will drive. And third, by adding road capacity, we can prevent the system from breaking down. As a result, commute times have risen by more than 20% over the last 50 years and only the pandemic has offered any relief from traffic congestion. A new study now offers a fresh perspective on the current state of practice and some critical challenges to moving toward accessibility as an industry.
commute time
Commuters won’t drive far to access park-and-ride
People using park-and-ride stations don’t seem to mind a longer overall commute, according to new research, as long as the station is close to home. In other words, it’s probably better to think of park-and-ride lots more like local feeders than as regional access points.
Short commutes and multimodal access motivate housing choices
In choosing where to live, people strive for a combination of short driving commutes and good transit access, according to a new study spanning three large regions: Atlanta, Seattle, and Detroit. Walkable neighborhoods are also a plus, depending on the region.
New mindset needed to address congestion, says MassDOT
A new report from the Massachusetts DOT dives into the state’s growing traffic congestion to understand the causes and potential solutions. It points to the rapid outward growth around Boston as one of the main causes, and suggests the current situation calls for bold new solutions aimed at connecting people and places while managing demand, rather than simply keeping roads moving.
Access to jobs by transit is on the rise
In most large metropolitan areas, the typical worker could reach more jobs by transit in 2016 than in 2015, according to the newest Access Across America report from the University of Minnesota’s Accessibility Observatory. Accessibility increased in 36 out of 49 regions. These annual reports let individual regions track changes in accessibility over time, scan for accessibility issues within the region, and compare their own performance to other regions.
Does urban sprawl inhibit upward mobility?
A recently published study lends more support to the idea that sprawl can be a deterrent to upward mobility, making it difficult for low-income residents to improve their economic circumstances. Compact metro areas showed better results than those that are more spread out. The authors also note that upward mobility tends to be higher in Europe than in the U.S., and they theorize that besides differing approaches to education and social programs, the compactness of European cities may contribute to better opportunities.
The commute trade-off: Impacts on productivity and health
Americans are making trade-offs between commuting time, housing costs, and health related activities. The trade-offs push individuals to make decisions negatively affecting personal health (physical and psychological), which in turn correlates with reduced productivity in the workplace. “People should recognize that long commutes may siphon away time that could otherwise be spent on healthy activities, potentially [leading to] adverse health impacts,” said the author of a study in the Journal of Urban Health.
Does the travel-time index really reflect performance?
Last week’s release of the Texas A&M Urban Mobility Report, with its charts and lists, prompted the usual flurry of media coverage. However, the travel-time index, a staple of the UMR, may not adequately reflect the performance of a transportation system. If the index becomes an official performance measure under MAP-21, optimizing system performance could become harder for DOTs.
Does the travel-time index really reflect performance?
Last week’s release of the Texas A&M Urban Mobility Report, with its charts and lists, prompted the usual flurry of media coverage. However, the travel-time index, a staple of the UMR, may not adequately reflect the performance of a transportation system. If the index becomes an official performance measure under MAP-21, optimizing system performance could become harder for DOTs.
Highway congestion highest on Friday afternoon
Car commuters in most large metro areas face the highest level of highway congestion on Friday afternoon, according to Inrix data provided to Governing magazine. However many metro areas have relatively minor changes in commuting times. And one quarter of commuters in metro areas with the highest Friday congestion times opt out of traffic by walking, biking, using transit, or working at home.