U.S. drivers lost 42 hours—a full work week—to traffic in 2023: Congestion 'hinders economic growth,' expert says
U.S. drivers lost 42 hours—a full work week—to traffic in 2023: Congestion 'hinders economic growth,' expert says
According to the 2023 INRIX report, New Yorkers lost 101 hours in congestion.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/24007336
Love the framing, like there's more work to wring out of your wage slaves if you fix traffic congestion.
Won’t someone please think of the shareholders?!
Only way to effect change it seems.
Punish traffic is feature, keep these plebs beat down
42h per year is less than 1h per week. Even if they're working from home 3x per week this seems to be very conservative to 15 min each way. Where's the news here?
If it was 42h a month then it would start being concerning. 21 days, 1h each way - still good considering the suburbanization of many places.
However, if they are just mentioning time in a traffic jam, not time rolling, then it gets bad
They will just have to wait until teleporters are invented cause we can't have them working from home. Think of the commercial property owners!
This is kinda three different problems, or three effects from one problem:
- Being stuck in traffic has a negative impact on health, quality of life in general
- Being stuck in traffic has a monetary cost for deliveries and others who have travel as a significant part of their work, e.g. how easy it is for plumbers to get around to customers and warehouses and the like
- Being stuck in traffic can have terrible consequences for emergency services
The solutions, of course, are a mix of negative incentives to drive like congestion and parking pricing, and positive incentives to not drive, like investing in transit, cycling, mixed use and at least a certain level of urban density to be able to support transit, services and not have biking and walking be unfeasible or undesirable because of long distances.
If traffic didn’t hinder growth then growth would produce more traffic until it eventually hindered growth.
You can increase that growth capacity by investing in public transit and though.
Capitalists are missing out by being greedy selling cars when public transit would collectively benefit them. It’s a local optima.
hey don't infringe on the u.s freedom to enjoy a good old fashioned traffic jam
I was told bike lanes cause traffic. We need more car lanes. Just one more lane bro!
Oh man, those researchers sure will be upset when they find out how much time I 'waste' a week arriving to work early and then just languishing while waiting for work to start. It's around 250 hours a year. (and even better, I'm there an hour early specifically to avoid traffic)