I read this wonderfully sunny article on USNews.com about the state of our traffic hell. A couple facts struck me and I thought I would share them with you.
Fact 1, traffic jams suck your time away like a time travelling leech:
Americans spent 3.7 billion hours in traffic in 2003, the last year for which such figures are available-more than a fivefold increase from just 21 years earlier. The amount of free-flowing travel is less than half what it was in the ’80s, and the average commuter now loses 47 hours to congested traffic every year.
Fact 2, Big Macs and traffic jams have something in common:
Medical symptoms ranging from sleep deprivation to digestive problems are linked to long commutes, and a 2004 article in the New England Journal of Medicine found that being stuck in a traffic jam more than doubles one’s chance of experiencing a heart attack in the subsequent hour.
And in case you think you can escape the maddening grip of gridlock the articles ends with this doom laden paragraph.
How bad can traffic in American cities get? Los Angeles’s long-range transportation plan is a grim look at the future. By 2025, Los Angeles County is projected to have 3 million more people, which could prompt a 30 percent increase in car trips. At that rate, the report suggests, “congestion will last nearly all day long.” None of the city’s innovative solutions-from new subway lines to traffic management systems-are likely to change that. And at the rate traffic in other cities is snarling, they won’t be far behind.
When are those flying cars coming out?
May 16, 2007 at 1:19 pm
[...] on the side of the road. 16May07 I have mentioned my traffic woes on this blog multiple times. I often crawl along the highway at a snail’s pace with little to entertain [...]