Traffic Congestion Could Cost $4.4 Trillion (Atlanta: 2014, neighborhoods, to live in)

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Blog Post | Traffic Congestion Could Cost $4.4 Trillion | Car Talk

Atlanta is the city they highlighted in the article:

Ever gotten stuck driving in Atlanta? ... How bad is Atlanta? With only the seventh-worst gridlock among our major metros, Atlanta’s jams cause commuters to waste an average of 51 hours in traffic each year, burning 23 extra gallons of gas. Their bottom line: $1,120 per commuter.

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It’s heartening to learn, here from The Transport Politic, of the many light rail systems (and extensions) that are going up all over the U.S. and Canada in 2014. Even Atlanta is getting some relief with its Streetcar project—but don’t expect too much, since it’s only 1.4 miles long (and will cost $92 million). The irony here is that, until it was finally dismantled in 1949, Atlanta had a huge streetcar network. Just look at this 1946 map:

In 1946, most Atlantans didn't have cars but they did have these go-everywhere trolley lines to serve their neighborhoods.


Now we have to claw back to where we were with transit, starting from half the rail lines we had in 1910. The good news is that cities are getting better at taking their commuters out of cars, and building in-town housing so they don’t need to live in the suburbs.

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