Reducing Traffic Congestion

1505 Words4 Pages

Contemporary Event: Traffic Economies thrive on the ability of mobility. Mobility allows people to go to work, attend school and travel far and wide by using some form of transportation. It allows people and ideas to mix more freely. Over time, mobility has taken many forms, from the backs of animals, to carriages and now the automobile. Since the invention of the automobile, we have been able to decrease transportation costs, travel vast distances and decrease travel times. We are able to facilitate relationships, foster trade between places and find better jobs. However, due to the inaccurate pricing of the roads, driving cars has turned from an innovation to pure frustration. The problem is traffic congestion; the increased usage of cars has created slower speeds and longer travel times due to greater demand for the road than the road has to offer. Roughly 3.4 million Americans endure extreme commutes, in which the trip to work and back eats up at least three hours of each day (Balaker, Staley 2006). Congestion slows life down by causing massive delays, eating away at valuable time and productivity. This has become a major issue because people are stuck in traffic when they do not need to be and conditions will only continue to get worse without government intervention. Many solutions have been offered and discussed but few have been implemented. This paper will serve to outline the economic theory behind traffic congestion, alternative policy options there are for dealing with traffic congestion and ultimately what the best strategy is to solve this problem. The solution I propose is to price the highways accurately to achieve the optimum number of vehicles on the road. Congestion is when the physical capacity of the roads... ... middle of paper ... ...er commutes. In analyzing all the traffic congestion policies, I believe this policy alternative will have the greatest impact in reducing traffic congestion. It properly prices the roads in which supply will equal the demand. In addition, it generates revenue for the local government which can mitigate the costs in maintaining the roads and infrastructure. References Arnott, Richard, Tilmann Rave and Ronnie Schob, Alleviating Urban Traffic Congestion, The MIT Press, 2005. O’Sullivan, Arthur, Urban Economics, McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2007. Staley, Sam and Ted Balaker, The Road More Traveled, Roman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2006. U.S. Department of Transportation. 2005. Traffic Congestion and Reliability: Trends and Advanced Strategies for Congestion Mitigation (2008, December 1).

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