WASHINGTON, May 9, 2005
Gridlock Driving Up Wasted Time
Drivers Spent 3.7B Hours, 2.3B Gallons Gas In Traffic Delays In 2003
-
Play CBS Video Video America Jammed Americans spent 80 million more hours sitting bumper-to-bumper in 2003 than the previous year. Los Angeles tops the list of bad traffic, Jerry Bowen reports.
-
-
Traffic backs up on the downtown connector in Atlanta. (AP)
-
Morning traffic heads south toward the Tobin Bridge as commuters make their way into Boston. (AP)
-
-
Interactive Traffic Traps Cities where drivers spend the most time caught in traffic.
-
Interactive Gas Prices State-by-state averages, tips to improve mileage and a look at what fuels prices at the pump.
-
Interactive Motor Away Things to know before hitting the road.
Congestion delayed travelers 79 million more hours and wasted 69 million more gallons of fuel in 2003 than in 2002, the Texas Transportation Institute's 2005 Urban Mobility Report found.
Overall in 2003, there were 3.7 billion hours of travel delay and 2.3 billion gallons of wasted fuel for a total cost of more than $63 billion.
"Urban areas are not adding enough capacity, improving operations or managing demand well enough to keep congestion from growing," the report concluded.
Still, seven of 13 major cities saw their annual delays per rush-hour traveler actually go down slightly: Los Angeles, San Francisco, Dallas, Miami, New York, Houston and Philadelphia.
Los Angeles easily tops the chart, CBS News Correspondent Jerry Bowen reports.
Yearly rush-hour delays for each motorist declined from 98 hours in 2002 to 93 hours one year later, but were still longer than any other city in the country. San Francisco had the nation's second-longest delays, declining from 75 hours in 2002 to 72 hours in 2003.
Joy Stanton told Bowen while fueling up that her driving woes extend far beyond just sitting in traffic: "Traffic is a nightmare; gas is out of control and the violence is out of control, too."
Even driving in paradise is no picnic. Honolulu became the 51st city in which rush-hour traffic delayed the average motorist at least 20 hours a year. The Hawaiian capital joins such congested areas as Washington, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago — and Virginia Beach, Va., Omaha, Neb., and Colorado Springs, Colo.
The report was released Monday, the same day the Senate resumes debate on a bill that would spend $284 billion on highways over the next six years.
But that's not enough money to solve traffic problems, according to highway and transit advocates.
©MMV, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
More From U.S.
