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CNN Sunday Morning

Is There a Cure for Traffic Congestion?

Aired May 13, 2001 - 08:15   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.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: You might have noticed traffic these days seems to be a lot worse. Well, you're right. A study released this week by the Texas Transportation Institute buttresses your anecdotal angst with some distressing numbers. If you live in Los Angeles, Atlanta or Seattle, the terrible traffic trio, you are losing more than 50 hours of your life a year to the road. No wonder many of us are in a rage.

Joining us is Kelly Simmons, transportation writer for the "Atlanta Journal Constitution," who has motored on up the road to Richmond to be with family on this Mother's Day.

Thanks for being with us, Kelly.

KELLY SIMMONS, "ATLANTA JOURNAL CONSTITUTION": You're welcome. Good morning.

O'BRIEN: All right. The thing that stuck out in this study to me is that New York City, largest city in the country, has -- the average commuter there wastes only 34 hours of their life on the road, and they're 23rd on the list.

SIMMONS: Right.

O'BRIEN: And the simple answer to that is public transportation. Why is it these other cities aren't getting that?

SIMMONS: Well, I think it takes some time. And I know in Atlanta, we didn't plan very well in the past, and it's hard to compensate now that the population has grown so much. Cities that plan well and have long-established transportation systems have a good network and people have an opportunity to get out of their cars. We don't have that in Atlanta yet, and a lot of the major cities don't have that yet.

O'BRIEN: And of course -- and I guess part of the problem is, in a place like Atlanta, Los Angeles, where things have grown post- automobile, they have grown in a very dispersed fashion...

SIMMONS: Right.

O'BRIEN: ... There isn't a city center. If you were to try to come up with a mass transit system for a place like that, you'd be hard pressed, wouldn't you? SIMMONS: It is very difficult, particularly when you have these sprawling areas. And I think L.A. has tried to address that, and is seeing the difficulties in doing it. In Atlanta, we have multiple economic centers now. Everyone's not just going downtown to work. If they were, that would be fairly easy, but you have people going in all directions, suburb to suburb and out to some of our outlying areas to jobs. And so it's not as easy a solution now.

O'BRIEN: All right, now, also in Atlanta and in Georgia, the gas tax is virtually non-existent...

SIMMONS: Right.

O'BRIEN: ... one of the lowest in the nation. I don't even know if there is a state gas tax -- you could probably check me on that -- but it's very low gas prices here.

Let me ask you this, politically, is it just a complete non- starter to begin a debate at this juncture on taxing gasoline a little bit more to fund mass transportation projects here and elsewhere?

SIMMONS: Well, I think people are starting to talk about that. And as you know, in Georgia, that's been a sticky subject. We do have the lowest gas taxes in the nation, and people have gotten very comfortable with that. And particularly now, with gas prices increasing like they are I'm not sure there are a lot of politicians that are going to be willing to step forward and propose that we increase the tax.

But I think, and you know one of the things that we've seen in Atlanta in particular is, we have to pay for this transportation system. And right now there's no dedicated funding source. You know, there are a lot of plans in the works in Atlanta, in particular, to address mass transit, but unless you have a funding source to pay for that, you're not going to be able to do it.

So I think it's an issue that's going to have to be addressed in the coming years. And who's willing to stick their neck out and do that remains to be seen.

O'BRIEN: All right, so what you're asking for are courageous politicians?

SIMMONS: Exactly.

O'BRIEN: I guess that's something we probably are going to be waiting a long time for.

Now, in the meantime, what's going to happen in a place like Atlanta is eventually the goose that laid the golden egg will be killed by all this sprawl, all this pollution and all this time spent on the road. When do you see that happening and what, if anything? Are there any simple answers that could sort of put us on a different road, if you will?

SIMMONS: You know, I don't know when that's going to happen. And I asked that question of the researchers at the Texas Transportation Institute. And they say that we'll hit a wall at some point and people will get fed up and companies will leave and we'll start to feel the economic downturn of having, you know, a very strong economy in the 1990s that cause things to grow so fast.

But they couldn't say, either when, you know, we'll hit that wall. They say it'll happen; I mean, there will be a point where people are just so fed up with traffic and the delays are so strong. What I think we're seeing, though, in Atlanta and other areas, are people are starting to become aware of it. Companies are starting to do things like offer telecommuting, extended workdays and shorter workweeks and give people some flexibility.

Of course, the upshot of that in Atlanta is we're seeing a much more extended rush hour. A lot of that is just more traffic, but a lot of it is people coming in at flexible work times.

O'BRIEN: You know, I get the sense, Kelly, that people, as fed up as they might be about traffic -- they complain about it, certainly, and they spend a lot of time -- it has gotten worse in such an incremental fashion, that it's -- they're used to it, put it that way. And so I wonder where that wall might be. I mean, will we just keep -- is it to the point where we can't even get to the office at all?

SIMMONS: You know, I don't know. I think if we had more options you might see people getting fed up with it. But right now, you know, someone who works in Atlanta, someone who lives out in the suburbs and has to drive into town to work, that person doesn't really have any option other than getting in his car and driving in.

And you know, I guess you're willing to put up with a lot when you don't have any choices. If there was a train, perhaps, that could carry that person in or if we had the option to work at home he might take that. But we don't have that right now.

O'BRIEN: All right, Kelly Simmons is the transportation correspondent for the "Atlanta Journal Constitution," up in Richmond this morning. Thanks for being with us on CNN SUNDAY MORNING.

SIMMONS: Thank you. Happy Mother's Day.

O'BRIEN: All right, same to you.

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