All top ten major US metropolitan area’s saw singificant reductions in traffic congestion from 2007 to 2008. The reduction in cars on the road arises from two sources, higher fuel costs and more lost jobs. Seattle saw the greatest reduction of any of the ten areas; -28%. Dallas Fort Worth had the lowest reduction at -13%. Houston faired a little bit better than DFW at -16%.
There are probably a few explanations for DFW having the lowest reduction of all areas, but there is certainly one major realization, lack of public transit. Driving is built into our culture in Texas, not because we have any particular love for cars, but because almost nothing is within walking distance. The spread-out nature of cities, and a century of Oil familiarity have left Texans exceptionally vehicle dependent. The obvious issue here is that there is a serious lack of infrastructure of mass transit systems. People really couldn’t stop driving or commuting if they wanted to. Outside of Amtrak it is exceptionally hard to move about the state without driving, and most cities really offer nothing in the way of local transport.
Here’s the real problem. People don’t think about these issues until gasoline costs begin to rise.
And if you need an even larger problem to think about: While people are complaining about gasoline costs increasing 50%, they havn’t even noticed that wheat and eggs are up %95.
I know Kevin always talks about a trolley system on FortWorthology. It would be useful and more attractive than busses, but the painstaking-decades-long-debate over high speed regional rail needs to become a reality also.
