Traffic worse as growth stagnates

9/21/07
Despite what everyone can see on Interstate 95 every day, a recent study shows that traffic in southwestern Connecticut is actually better than the national average. Despite an increase in rush hour time, travelers in the Bridgeport-Stamford area only experienced 31 hours of delay a year, which is below the national average of 38 hours.
It’s striking that something considered one of the top local problems barely registers on a national scale. Considering Los Angeles workers lose the equivalent of almost two entire work weeks every year just sitting in traffic, maybe we don’t have it so bad around here.
But, of course, just because other places have it (even) worse doesn’t mean our issues don’t matter. Traffic congestion is clogging up our state’s economy, turning a 25-mile Stamford-to-Bridgeport jaunt into a sea of red brake lights at almost any hour of the day.
Connecticut’s problem is especially worrisome in one important regard: the increase in traffic comes despite nearly no growth in population. It means Connecticut is using more energy and creating more pollution to grow the economy using almost the same number of people. It’s an untenable situation that only forebodes more trouble in years to come.
With zero political support for massive new highway expenditures (and little reason to think such a solution would even work for more than a few months), experts are putting all their eggs in the land-use basket. By hoping and pleading that regional planners take advantage of transit-based opportunities, growing density around train stations and walkable downtowns, officials hope they can keep growing and somehow temper the highway crush.
Given people’s preferences for leafy suburbs, it’s a dicey proposition. But a few more years of worsening conditions and we may not have much choice in the matter.