Congestion
Basics
With Less Driving, Can We Tone Down the Hysteria About Congestion?
There’s so much to unpack in the landmark report released by U.S. PIRG and the Frontier Group earlier this week on transportation trends. Tuesday, we focused on the disparity between government transportation forecasts and recent realities. We also took a look at a few reasons to believe that the millennial generation – those aged 13 to 30 right now -- will continue to drive less than previous generations. One of those reasons is that technology has reduced our need to drive in many different ways.
May 17, 2013
Millennials Will Drive More As They Age, But Still Less Than Their Parents
At some point over the past few years, a lot of my friends started moving to Silver Spring and Takoma Park and Falls Church. These inner-ring, transit-connected suburbs of DC are still far less compact and walkable than the neighborhoods my friends moved from. So they bought cars.
May 14, 2013
A Better Way to Grade City Transportation Systems
How should we grade America's transportation systems?
April 15, 2013
Gary Toth: TTI Congestion Scores Prove Road Expansion Isn’t the Answer
In response to yesterday's story on the Texas Transportation Institute's congestion rankings, which take traffic delays out of context and risk being used to justify road expansions, former New Jersey DOT leader Gary Toth raised this question: What if, instead of getting frustrated with the report, we reframe its interpretation?
February 6, 2013
TTI Urban Mobility Report Bungles Congestion Analysis Yet Again
At the risk of repeating ourselves: The Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI) got it wrong again.
February 5, 2013
What Do Anti-Density NIMBYs and Road-Wideners Have in Common?
Matt Yglesias made an excellent point about NIMBYs over at Slate yesterday. Writing about opposition to multifamily residential construction in the tony neighborhood near Lake Calhoun in Minneapolis, Yglesias wondered how much value residents really place on keeping the area a "single-family residential community."
December 19, 2012
September Brings ‘Back to School’ Jump in Traffic Congestion
Why do traffic delays jump in September? Obviously, fewer people are on vacation. But it's not just commuters back to the grind getting to and from work. It's parents dropping their kids off at school, often with even less forgiving start times than an adult workday.
September 5, 2012
There’s a Lot Riding on U.S. DOT’s Definition of “Congestion”
Congress has done its job, such as it is, and passed a transportation bill. Now it's handed off the policymaking to U.S. DOT, which must issue a raft of rules, definitions, and guidance to accompany the new law, known as MAP-21.
August 15, 2012
International Funders Shift Investments Toward Sustainable Transportation
If you think the United States is doing a bad job shifting toward sustainable transportation, take a look at the developing world. The places with the most to lose from auto-oriented development are doubling down on it -- to the enormous detriment of their citizens, especially the poorest.
August 13, 2012