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Study: Columbus traffic congestion among nation’s 50 worst
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Columbus commuters staring at a sea of brake lights during rush hour can at least take comfort that their counterparts in 47 other cities are worse off when they drive in their communities, according to a new study.
Data from Kirkland, Wash.-based Inrix Inc. released Tuesday ranked metropolitan Columbus the 48th most congested city in the nation. Highway congestion in the city, surpassed by 33rd-ranked Cincinnati and 36th-ranked Cleveland, increased 2 percent since 2006, in line with the national average, the study concluded.
The cities that ranked highest in the Inrix study were the usual suspects – Los Angeles, New York and Chicago. Washington, D.C., and Dallas made up the top five.
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Columbus traffic congestion ranks 48th in US
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Data from Kirkland, Wash.-based Inrix Inc. released Tuesday ranked metropolitan Columbus the 48th most congested city in the nation. Highway congestion in the city, surpassed by 33rd-ranked Cincinnati and 36th-ranked Cleveland, increased 2 percent since 2006, in line with the national average, the study concluded.
The cities that ranked highest in the Inrix study were the usual suspects – Los Angeles, New York and Chicago. Washington, D.C., and Dallas made up the top five.
Read more.
I’d say considering the population of our metro area, we’re doing pretty damn well then.
Data from Kirkland, Wash.-based Inrix Inc. released Tuesday ranked metropolitan Columbus the 48th most congested city in the nation. Highway congestion in the city, surpassed by 33rd-ranked Cincinnati and 36th-ranked Cleveland, increased 2 percent since 2006, in line with the national average, the study concluded.
The cities that ranked highest in the Inrix study were the usual suspects – Los Angeles, New York and Chicago. Washington, D.C., and Dallas made up the top five.
Read more.
If Columbus is also the 15th largest city in the nation, doesn’t that kind of mean we’re not all that congested comparatively? 48th place doesn’t sound like anything to lament.
(I posted this earlier and it got eaten.)
Far be it from me to be pro-car, but this really puts Columbus in a good light.
Quickly scanning, there is no city I can see ranked 51-100 whose population is more than ours. There are several places I see whose population is less than ours and rank higher.
It would be interesting to norm these rankings by population, highway miles, # of cars aggregate, # of cars per capita, miles of public transit, etc.
A.
Yeah, I think the headline choice from Business First was a bad one.
The 15th largest city in the country has the 48th worst traffic?
Sounds like we’ve got it pretty good to me then.
The 15th largest city in the country has the 48th worst traffic?
Sounds like we’ve got it pretty good to me then.
Columbus is the 15th largest city, but its the 30-something largest metro area.
Which makes this news even better!!!
Oh, I assumed they were using city-population sizes for the study and not metro-population sizes, but after re-skimming I think you’re right in that they used metro sizes.
Either way, we’re still less congested considering our size. :D
I was going to say, considering our size, the fact that we almost escaped the top 50 should be something to celebrate. Or at least, it’s something to celebrate for those of us who actually think that efficiently-moving traffic is a social and economic positive. Some people here probably actually wish we were higher on that list, to discourage more people from driving. Likewise, one of the reasons we’re likely so low is because how many lane-miles of road per capita we’ve got in this region; I-270 along the northern arc is as wide as some major highways in the PA-NJ-NY corridor.
It would be interesting to norm these rankings by population, highway miles, # of cars aggregate, # of cars per capita, miles of public transit, etc.
A.
dollars spent on road improvements per capita…
I believe the headline was phrased in such a way because its the first time Columbus has cracked the top 50. I could be wrong though.
Atlanta is ranked below Dallas?
Hotlanta is a total zoo as is Houston, IMHO.
I suspect that the portions of I-270 like in SE/SW corridors that are under-utilized plays a role. Some areas like in Fla fell in this ranking because of population drop, not due to any better planning.
But I italicized something for another reason – there seems to be rampant confusion about efficiency:
Efficiency =/ speed. Technically, it is a measurement of the utilizable output of work for a given energy input. In a better sense to what we are talking about, it is the measurement of work (transporting goods and people which is a proxy for economic activity) in relation to money spent. I don’t dispute that utterly snarled traffic is bad in those terms, but what I think is an unproven assumption on your part is that a large number of rapidly moving cars is maximally efficient. The problem is that we are designing roads based on that premise without questioning it. As gas prices go up, as population expands beyond the carrying capacity of some highways and the cost of building/maintianing those same roads increases, that assumption will get us in a lot of trouble. That assumption leads to people not wanting light rail which, I strongly suspect, would have been the maximally efficient way of getting people from Dublin to Downtown. I also submit that your support of the streetcar is also premised on the same model I am using with economic activity being the measure, not speeding cars.
In another thread, there was talk about ‘complete streets’ as if it were all about motion. With the streetcar and with plans to convert streets like 3rd/4th to slower, multi-directional traffic, complete streets is about the idea that rapidly moving uni-directional cars are less economically productive than a system which looks at streets not just as conveyances beyond, but as part of a greater whole.
I think the lesser congestion rating is good as it means that agencies like MORPC have done a good job of projections and planning. I recognize that some outgrowth is going to happen and is a good thing, but there has to be a balance and a recognition that it is not a good thing when it comes at the expense of development within the traditional city core. Much of the highway planning was done in the murky past and now has come to fruition. Hopefully that is what we are seeing (not an artifact of other factors). But the real danger is relying on the same auto-based assumptions for the future.
A.
I agree that efficiency is not merely about speed, but travel time is a substantial part of it, because the measurement is a unit of output in terms of all costs spent–time and money (and possibly other inputs as well). The time component is travel time, in a nutshell. (This is different from speed, because if there’s not a good route to get where you want to go, you could make a trip at 50 MPH the whole way for 2 hours and end only 40 miles from where you began … that’s high speed, but low efficiency.) The money component is certainly relevant in my mind as well, though I don’t know if that factored into this study.
Well, I specifically said efficiently moving traffic, and I meant vehicular traffic, not rail transit (which was outside the scope of the study, at least in direct terms). That means that whatever the volume of cars on the road is, it gets to its destination having burned the minimum time, money, and energy possible. Taking cars off the road with light rail would not eliminate efficient vehicular traffic movement as a goal of good urban planning. You’d still want efficient movement of however many cars remained on the roads. Light rail would just add the goal of efficient rail transit to efficient car transit, with the same caveat about the difference between speed and travel times applying.
I rarely even see any congestion, albeit I am rarely on freeways or more than four miles away from downtown. I only experience event-based/irregular traffic like on footbal games or festivals.
With all the highways we have I’m not surprised. Of course, we would be even lower if at least half of all development had been mixed-use, ie less space used and modes other than cars would be more efficient for shorter trips, lowering the number of cars on the road. Unfortunately, the highways were originally supposed to be used for interstate travel and we adopted them for intracity travel (travel within the city). Highways are what replaced our streetcar system, not buses, as they too led development.
That is why we have so much sprawl and while traffic in general fares much better than other parts of the country try driving down Polaris, Broad, Sawmill, etc. during rush hour every day. Just because other cities are ridiculously worse off because of their massive sprawling doesn’t mean that traffic in Columbus is “good”, it still sucks due to sprawling areas and lack of a good bus system. Ironically, places that put car culture first are also the worst for cars because they always force all cars to go down a couple of major arterial roads with no side streets for alternatives, meaning high levels of traffic are guaranteed.
I’m not for cars to be forced to be stuck in traffic all day to discourage driving. In fact, slower speed limits in the city (remember that I always am talking about the urban core) mean more cars can fit on those roads because you don’t need as much space between you and the car in front of you.
Cities with roads that are friendlier for pedestrians and cyclists are much more bustling than Columbus. If you don’t like that then you don’t like cities and always have a plethora of soulless, sprawling suburbs to choose from. We don’t have many urban neighborhoods that are pedestrian/cyclist friendly overall. I just think urban places should be urban and slower streets are part and parcel of great urban spaces.
That is why we have so much sprawl and while traffic in general fares much better than other parts of the country try driving down Polaris, Broad, Sawmill, etc. during rush hour every day. Just because other cities are ridiculously worse off because of their massive sprawling doesn’t mean that traffic in Columbus is “good”, it still sucks due to sprawling areas and lack of a good bus system. Ironically, places that put car culture first are also the worst for cars because they always force all cars to go down a couple of major arterial roads with no side streets for alternatives, meaning high levels of traffic are guaranteed.
I’m not for cars to be forced to be stuck in traffic all day to discourage driving. In fact, slower speed limits in the city (remember that I always am talking about the urban core) mean more cars can fit on those roads because you don’t need as much space between you and the car in front of you.
Cities with roads that are friendlier for pedestrians and cyclists are much more bustling than Columbus. If you don’t like that then you don’t like cities and always have a plethora of soulless, sprawling suburbs to choose from. We don’t have many urban neighborhoods that are pedestrian/cyclist friendly overall. I just think urban places should be urban and slower streets are part and parcel of great urban spaces.
very well said. especially the part about a lack of pedestrian oriented neighborhoods…..
Far be it from me to be pro-car, but this really puts Columbus in a good light.
Quickly scanning, there is no city I can see ranked 51-100 whose population is more than ours. There are several places I see whose population is less than ours and rank higher.
It would be interesting to norm these rankings by population, highway miles, # of cars aggregate, # of cars per capita, miles of public transit, etc.
A.
TTI does a lot of that type of work in their annual Urban Mobility Study
http://mobility.tamu.edu/ums/
I pretty much agree with everything that’s been said: It seems like a pretty good ranking, though I’m not at all surprised. For starters, we don’t have many geologic obstacles to our traffic system. A couple of small rivers don’t really count when we bring in the idea that we can get N-S, E-W, and a complete outer-belt into the mix. It’s really like Kansas City, except the river and multiple-state issue is probably what gets them ranked higher.
Columbusite has some great points as well. I think a lot of people would like to see Columbus be more ‘urban’ but don’t really know what that means. Traffic-wise, it is going to mean slower access to downtown, seeing as the downtown would grow. It would mean that drivers would pay a premium for parking, which is happening anyway. It would mean more foot-traffic and other modes of transportation. I’m all for it.
I always laugh when people complain about the traffic here. Please, you can get almost anywhere around here in 20 minutes. Believe me-ask anyone in your office how long it takes to get from there to somewhere else. Invariably, the answer will be “about 20 minutes”. Great cociological experiment.
Obviously, the more built-up the suburbs are, the more congestion you’re ghoing to have. That’s why I would never live out East in Reynoldsburg/Pickerington/Pataskala. Whenever I have experienced congestion, it’s been out that way. Inside the outerbest, even during rush hour, is fine. (Except Morse road Eastbound in the late afternoon).
Obviously, the more built-up the suburbs are, the more congestion you’re ghoing to have. That’s why I would never live out East in Reynoldsburg/Pickerington/Pataskala. Whenever I have experienced congestion, it’s been out that way. Inside the outerbest, even during rush hour, is fine. (Except Morse road Eastbound in the late afternoon).
It used to be 15 minutes when I lived in Columbus. It was only 10 when I was young.
Hotlanta is a total zoo as is Houston, IMHO.
Dallas is awful and only getting worse. Both of my parents have hour+ commutes. I used to have a 90 minute commute and I lived AND worked in Dallas proper, figure that one out :)