More Public Transportation Needed
Houston Metro reported that public transportation cuts the time spent stuck in traffic by an estimated 21,607,000 hours per year in Houston. The news came in a new study released today by the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) showing traffic congestion in Houston ranks among the worst in the nation.
TTI’s Ubran Mobility Study, the longest running independent analysis of traffic in 85 U.S. metropolitan areas, has been conducted annually since 1982. This year’s study reports that without transit, local traffic delays would have increased by 17.5 percent, costing residents an additional $381 million in lost time and fuel.
“Public transportation is making an important contribution to solving Houston’s congestion problem,” said METRO President & CEO Frank J. Wilson. “Our system averages 324,211 boardings every weekday, but today’s news shows we will be called upon to do far more in the future,” he added. “That will require increased federal investiment. That’s why the federal surface transportation legislation before Congress needs to be enacted now.”
Among its conclusions about Houston’s congestion, the TTI study found that the average annual delay time per traveler climbed from 39 hours in 1982 to 58 hours in 2002 and the delay time per traveler increased by 49 percent. Congestion delays cost Houston residents $2,178,000,000 in 2002. That same year, the cost of congestion in 85 major U.S. urban areas totaled more than $63 billion.
“Houston’s so-called ‘rush hour’ is neither rushed nor 60 minutes long,” said Wilson.
“The Texas Transportation Institute study should be a wake-up call for all Houston commuters and resident,” he added. “If we fail to expand and modernize our transit system, Houston’s economy and quality of life will suffer.”
The study demonstrated that traffic in the 85 of America’s urban areas analyzed would have experienced an increase of 32 percent if the current public transit systems were not available. This added congestion would cost the residents in these urban areas 20 billion additional dollars in lost time and fuel.
According to studies by the American Public Transportation Association (APTA), the nation’s leading authority on transit issues, public transportation can not only reduce commute times, but also promotes cleaner air, local economic development, more livable communities, and greater access and freedom for people from every walk of life.
Investing in public transportation has been shown to produce a six-to-one economic return for communities. In Houston, transit has played an essential role in spurring at estimated $1 billion in development and redevelopment in Downtown and Midtown.
APTA, transit agencies and advocates are calling for immediate passage of a new Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA 21) that would fund transportation programs at no less than the $318 billion passed by the U.S. Senate earlier this year.