ALASKA: The Texas A&M Transportation Institute and data company Inrix (DCL) released a study of the economic impact of traffic congestion. The average delay per commuter in Augusta is 30 hours a year. The total for the metro area is a staggering 12.3 million hours of delay.The cost of this traffic congestion was $282 million in 2014, where the data comes from.
Texas A&M figured that value of delay as $17.67 per hour of personal travel, $94.04 per hour of truck time and state average fuel cost. Atlanta drivers lose 52 hours a year sitting in traffic.By the way, Atlanta is only the 12th worse in the country. Washington, D.C., is No. 1 82 hours a year per person sitting in traffic costing $1,800 per person.
If you really hate traffic, I recommend Tracy, Calif., which is near Oakland. They waste only an hour a year sitting their cars.The ultimate point to Texas A&M’s urban scorecard is that traffic has recovered from the recession and congestion will continue to get worse in the urban areas of the nation. The average for the country is 42 hours a year lost in traffic, which should get to 47 hours a year by 2020.
Congestion wastes a massive amount of time, fuel and money. Just in 2014, 6.9 billion hours was wasted. Authors point out that is more than the time it would take to drive to Pluto and back, if there were a road. Traffic last year also wasted 3.1 billion gallons of fuel.
