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American Morning

Rush Hour Only Getting Worse

Aired May 07, 2001 - 11:01   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Well, we're going to begin with our communal nightmare: rush-hour traffic. Can't even call it rush hour anymore. If only our paychecks grew as fast as rush hour has. A just-released study confirms something that many of us have already known: The traffic out there is getting worse.

Our environment correspondent Natalie Pawelski is here. She's got a look at where drivers suffer the most and the highways are stretched to the limits. What's the word?

NATALIE PAWELSKI, CNN ENVIRONMENT CORRESPONDENT: Well, you're right, Leon. It's not just your imagination. We have documented scientific proof rush hour is getting worse.

The average American spends about 36 hours a year stuck in traffic. That's up from about 11 hours a year in 1982. That's according to a new study, the Urban Mobility Report, from the Texas Transportation Institute at Texas A&M.

The annual report ranks 63 cities in a batch of traffic-jamming categories, and the worst in every one this year: Los Angeles. We've got some lives pictures to prove it to you.

Just to give you a quick idea, the average L.A. driver spends about 56 hours stuck in traffic each year. Now that's not travel time. That's extra time spent on the road just because of congestion.

Another category where L.A. is tops is called the travel time index. That measures how much longer a trip takes during rush-hour compared to non-rush-hour traffic. In Los Angeles, it takes the average driver about twice as long to make a trip in rush-hour conditions.

Now here's the rest of that unfortunate top 10 list. Seattle is second worst, followed by San Francisco. Washington and Boston in a tie. New York, Chicago, Portland, San Diego, and Atlanta.

By the way, the study is based on 1999 figures. Researchers say that's the most recent solid data available.

They tried to calculate what all these traffic jams are costing the country, and here's the numbers they came up with.

They figure traffic congestion costs $78 billion a year in lost productivity, from four-and-a-half-billion hours of time wasted sitting in traffic.

Also being wasted: 6.8-billion gallons of gas ever year. Considering how high gas prices are getting, Leon, that's a number that's going to keep climbing.

HARRIS: That's going to be ugly, and it's getting ugly, and I guess the folks out in L.A. can continue to say, "We're number one," in the worst way in some of these categories.

PAWELSKI: They certainly are.

HARRIS: But what about solutions? Did the study just -- just point the finger at what's going wrong or did they come up with any solutions to all these problems?

PAWELSKI: They did a little bit of both. They said the reason that we're in such a mess is that we're driving a lot more, and neither road construction nor the other alternatives, like mass transit, are keeping up.

Now the study suggests building more roads but says it's probably not possible to build ourselves out of this problem. So we should also look at making the roads we've got more efficient, relying more on car pools and public transportation, and finding ways to encourage people to travel during off-peak hours, although finding time when the roads are relatively clear is getting tougher, Leon. The study found that city rush-hour conditions now average from about six to seven hours a day.

HARRIS: Wow. See, when gas hits 10 bucks a gallon, that whole problem goes away.

PAWELSKI: Clear roads. Clear sailing the whole way.

HARRIS: We'll all stay home. You got it. All right. Natalie Pawelski, thanks much for cheering us all up this morning.

PAWELSKI: Any time.

HARRIS: All right. We'll see you later.

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