Austin's Traffic Congestion Still third worst (Pflugerville, Post: how much, quality of life, living in)

[infoseeker2010]

Austin traffic congestion still nation's third worst, study says

anyone still saying austin traffic is not as bad as houston or dallas?

[AMJ27]

Something is weird about this article and I don't have time to poke around to figure it out this morning. Statesman is reporting Austin is no. 3 behind LA and Washington, but Chicago Tribune is reporting that Chicago is no. 2 for congestion.

Chicago area falls to No. 2 for worst traffic congestion in U.S., but is still No. 1 for costs to drivers - chicagotribune.com

I just happened to see the Chicago Tribune article right before I popped over here and saw this thread.

[hoffdano]

The interesting thing about the new article is that it points out that traffic congestion increases air pollution. So better roads causes cars to be on the road for shorter periods of time, burning less fuel.

[buffettjr]

Without empirical evidence I'm ready to step in and call BS on this.

According to the article, a trip in rush hour on I-35 takes 30% longer than a trip at midnight. What? I can go from downtown Austin to Pflugerville in 25 minutes at midnight without hassle. That same trip at rush hour would take somewhere over an hour and probably 1.5 hours. That's a 100% - 200% difference. According to the article, I should be able to go from downtown Austin to Pflugerville in 32 minutes during the worst of rush hour. I think this article was written by realtors! It takes 32 minutes just to go from 1st street to 38 1/2 street during the worst of rush hour.

[buffettjr]

Originally Posted by hoffdano

The interesting thing about the new article is that it points out that traffic congestion increases air pollution. So better roads causes cars to be on the road for shorter periods of time, burning less fuel.

I think we're making a jump in logic here that might not actually be true. The first part of the statement is certainly true, but the correlation to the second part isn't clear to me. We face what is - for practical purposes - unlimited demand for open roads, so more roads which are bigger should just increase capacity for the endless demand we have, which in turn causes more road miles to be driven, which increases pollution.

[achtungpv]

I was passed by a bicyclist this morning on Brodie right at Gatlin Gun. I was later passed by the same bicyclist on Mopac when he exited for 360. ha ha.

[Rubredvelvet]

I say that article is off, Chicago is definitely worse off. Instead of the two main toads we have well over 20 major roads with major traffic.

[austinnerd]

Originally Posted by Rubredvelvet

I say that article is off, Chicago is definitely worse off. Instead of the two main toads we have well over 20 major roads with major traffic.

You'd think in this day and age that an article about a study could provide a link to the study

Anyway, yes, my guess is that their study isn't measuring what we think it's measuring. So LA comes in at 1.38 (38% longer than non rush hour, which is a complete joke as most anyone who lives in LA can attest) while Austin comes in at 1.28, only a 10% difference. Let's delve a little deeper shall we. Let's say my commute would be 10 minutes with no traffic, 15 minutes with, for an "index" of 150. Let's say in city X, my normal commute is 1 hour but during rush hour it takes me 1.5 hours, well my index is still 150 even though I spend 30 extra minutes vs 5 extra minutes. So their methodology will skew towards favoring areas that by nature have longer commutes. Not to mention that since they're measuring both directions (we come in 8th if you only take into account a single direction) the study will also tend to favor areas that have fewer roads in a geographically smaller space since areas that have more roads in large areas have a higher probability of the opposing traffic being much lighter.

So I'm not saying that the study is bogus (though I'd claim the article is), it's just that it's measuring a particular phenomenon and it's important to try to understand exactly what it is that they're measuring. To me, from a quality of life standpoint, it would be far more interesting to simply measure commute times (i.e. it takes a person living in City A an average of 90 minutes a days to commute back and forth to work vs 50 min for a person living in City B). This isn't a measure of traffic, but it is a measure of how much of one's life is wasted commuting.

[someguyatx]

For some reason every city likes to think they have the worst traffic, strangest weather etc.. The reality is that traffic is really impossible to measure. I sincerely doubt Austin traffic is 3rd worst in nation but perhaps we have the 3rd worst traffic for metro areas of our population.

[sanmiguel]

Bad news is good news?

D.C. area is No. 1 nationwide in traffic congestion, study says - The Washington Post