Illinoisans wasted nearly 203 million hours of additional time on the road, and 141 million gallons of additional gas as a result of traffic congestion in 2005. The additional wasted time and fuel cost the public an equivalent of $3.9 billion, according to the federally sponsored Urban Mobility Report released today by the Texas Transportation Institute. The findings underscore the need for additional transit in the region.
The report shows that traffic congestion would be significantly worse if not for public transportation within the metro area, which prevented $779 million in additional delays compared to what they would have been if existing transit hadn't taken large numbers of drivers off the region's roads.
"With the 3rd worst traffic in America, congestion in Chicago isn't going away on its own," said Brian Imus, Director of Illinois PIRG, a citizen advocacy organization. "State lawmakers need to focus policy on getting more cars off the road, particularly through enhanced rail and bus transportation."
The report comes as commuters face a growing transit funding shortfall that threatens to worsen traffic even further if state lawmakers fail to resolve the crisis.
"Clearly, public transit is too important to let deadlocked politics in Springfield harm commuters across northeastern Illinois," continued Imus. "Commuters across the region are tired of dealing with growing traffic congestion while lawmakers in Springfield stall on a solution to transit funding, a proven way to reduce congestion."
He added that, "each full bus can get fifty cars off the road. Drivers across Illinois should be calling for more and better public transportation, even if they'll never use it."
The report calculates mobility and traffic congestion on freeways and major streets in 85 cities and is the most authoritative source on the Chicagoland's traffic conditions.
Traffic congestion worsened steadily since the report first began tracking travel time in 1982. Travel times for commutes have increased in each year of the study. In addition to the growing average length of commuting trips, drivers must allocate additional time to avoid being late because traffic problems are increasingly unpredictable.
"For decades, we've tried to fight traffic congestion by building new roads," continued Imus. "This report is further evidence of the failure of that strategy. Instead we need to expand bus and rail systems to reduce the number of drivers on the road. Doing so will reduce our nation's dependence on dirty fossil fuels and address congestion problems before they cripple our metro areas."
