Austin Congestion

From: Austin Contrarian

July 9, 2009

The Texas Transportation Institute has issued its annual report on congestion in American cities. As usual, Austin doesn't do well, punching well above its class. Tthe average Austin traveler experienced an annual delay of 39 hours in 2007. That's up from 32 hours in 1997, although no worse than 2006.

Ryan Avent puts the Austin figures in perspective:

The average traveler in the New York metro area faces 44 hours wasted per year, for instance, while the average traveler in Los Angeles loses 70 hours per year to congestion, even though New York’s metropolitan population is much, much larger than LA’s. More interesting still, Austin and Raleigh aren’t that far behind New York with 39 and 34 hours wasted annually, despite the fact that both metro areas have less than two million people while greater New York is home to 20 million people.

TTI also calculates the percent of peak period travel that is congested. Austin again fares poorly -- its roads are congested for 70% of the peak travel period.

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