In 2019, the average American driver lost 99 hours to traffic, and that’s only the average.
If you live in a big city, your hours lost to congestion are probably far above that. Drivers in the Boston metro area lost almost 150 hours to congestion in 2019.
Traffic is also really dangerous. Every year, cars kill around as many people as guns do, and this danger extends to pedestrians as well. In 2022, pedestrian deaths due to car crashes have reached record levels during a nationwide surge in reckless driving.
So if everyone knows traffic is a problem and has been a problem forever, what is being done about it? What can be done about it?
Why not just build more roads?
Expanding highways has been a really popular solution to traffic in America. Between 1993 and 2017, over 30,000 miles of new freeway lanes have been added in the 100 largest urban areas in America.
That rate of freeway expansion [42%] significantly outstripped the 32 percent growth in population in those regions over the same time period.
Houston is a prime example of this thought process. After all, they always say everything is bigger in Texas.
In 2011, $2.8 billion was spent to widen Houston’s Katy Freeway to 23 lanes. Initially, it worked, but after a few years, congestion returned to previous levels. This is thanks to induced demand: put simply, the easier it is to do something, the more people will do it. When you make a road able to accommodate more cars, more cars will drive on it.
Wide highways are also very dangerous. In America, roads with three or more lanes make up more than 90% of the top pedestrian fatality hotspots.
But highways have continued to widen. More than ten years after the Katy expansion, Houston is set to invest another $9 billion to widen and realign the city’s highways again.
This isn’t only a Texas thing. The recent $1 trillion infrastructure bill gives states $273 billion for highways over five years. If that money is spent on more highway expansions, that could lead to a lot more emissions.
So what are some solutions that have worked?
Congestion pricing
In 2019, New York became the first state to approve legislation that would institute a drastic measure to reduce traffic: congestion pricing.
Congestion pricing has yet to take effect more than three years after it was approved and there has been plenty of complaining, but the idea is simple. Under the plan, drivers would be tolled when entering the busiest parts of Manhattan. The fees raised would then be used to improve the city’s public transportation.
The plan is the first of its kind in America, but it’s not unprecedented around the globe. London, Stockholm, and Singapore have all instituted similar measures and have been pretty successful in unclogging the streets.
London’s plan is the most similar to New York’s. London charges a flat rate of £15 per day to enter a designated congestion zone. New York would charge a flat rate as well, although the price is still being debated (a state task force proposed $11.52 per car with trucks paying more than double that while taxis pay $2 to $5 per ride).
In contrast, Singapore and Stockholm set varying fees. Singapore’s fees vary on the time of day and road, and they are adjusted in response to traffic conditions. Stockholm’s fees vary by the time of day and location.
Singapore’s results have been successful but somewhat murky. Overall traffic has continued to increase with the nation’s population growth, but the average speed on expressways during peak hours did increase slightly. Bus and train ridership also increased by 15%, while inner-city traffic decreased by 24%, and greenhouse gas emissions decreased as well.
Congestion pricing largely had the same effect in London and Stockholm with traffic lowering immediately following its implementation. Traffic delays in London were also reduced while air quality increased.
But congestion pricing doesn’t come without its drawbacks. People hate anything new, especially when it’s a new fee. Despite its effectiveness, congestion pricing may prove to be too politically costly for officials looking for ways to reduce traffic.
What about something even more drastic?
The most simple solution to traffic is to reduce the number of cars on the streets, but in America, that almost seems impossible.
In 2013, the number of Americans that commuted to work using a private vehicle was around 86%. That’s a lot of people that would have to switch from driving to taking public transportation, but a shift that large isn’t unprecedented.
A handful of countries, mostly in Europe, have pledged to ban the sale of fossil-fuel-based vehicles. Even California Gov. has joined in on the vague promise bandwagon. But many of these pledges are not binding and are targeted more toward curbing climate change than fixing traffic since the sale of electric cars will still be allowed.
However, not all of the pledges have been empty. In 2015 and 2016, Paris held car-free days where cars were banned from parts of the city for a day. Since 2017, the initiative has been expanded to the entire city for one day a year.
Paris’ mayor, Anne Hidalgo, a member of the Socialist Party, wants to make the ban permanent. By early 2024, Paris officials plan to ban private vehicles from the historic heart of the city. But, like congestion pricing, this pledge has not come without backlash.
Many other European cities have made plans to institute a similar ban on cars, and some have even followed through, but not all of the bans have gone over great. Madrid’s ban was struck down by Spain’s Supreme Court and Mexico City’s car bans have not been effective in reducing the city’s air pollution.
Other cities have also enacted similar strategies to curb car use and incentive other forms of transportation. Copenhagen is famous for its bicycle-centric infrastructure as is Amsterdam.
These cities, in addition to providing many alternatives to driving, also use a method known as traffic calming. This measure attempts to make people drive slower and be more aware of pedestrians.
Could these measures be implemented in America?
Many of the European cities which have explored car bans are extremely dense. Density makes it much easier for anyone to bike or walk places. American cities are famous for their urban sprawl and lack of public transportation which makes one wonder if these measures would translate well across the Atlantic.
As more suburbs are added to the outskirts of the city, a city’s urban sprawl gets bigger and bigger. As the sprawl grows, people need to travel farther to get to work. In 2019, the average one-way commute to work in America was almost half an hour.
Even when American cities have invested in their public transportation, it hasn’t always led to less driving. Portland has overhauled its light rail system and bike lanes, but people have continued to drive anyways. Maybe it will take a flat-out ban on cars for this to change.
There’s also always the environmental angle to consider. The transportation sector accounts for 27% of America’s greenhouse gas emissions. These emissions must go down to prevent the worst of climate change.
Building more roads won’t help traffic, but charging people to drive and banning cars from cities will. America needs to learn these lessons soon if we want a cleaner, less congested future.