Ways of Reducing Traffic Congestion In Northern Virginia
Traffic involves vehicles moving on a road or public highway. Virginia’s average commute time to work was 28 minutes in 2012, which was the sixth highest in that nation. Traffic has always been an issue; with an increase of population traffic has to be eliminated, by people using public transportation, elimination of toll lanes, creations of multiple divided high way lanes, and finally increased speed limit to help traffic flow. Washington D.C. in the nation suffers from the worst traffic congestion, whereby the drivers spend more than 3 days out of every 365 caught in traffic. According to Virginia Transportation Secretary Sean T. Connaughton (City, green, 2014, N.P.). “The reason we have more congestion is that the Washington region has a very strong economy. I go to other parts of the state and they say they have no transportation problems.” The average commuter is stuck 74 hours in traffic each year where gallons of fuel burn such as 37. At the pump the average cost per area driver and in lost wages comes to $1,495. Local drivers travel bumper to bumper more than twice the national average of 34 hours. The TTI report concludes that congestion cost Americans more than $100 billion in 2010, up from $24 billion in 1982 when calculated in 2011 dollars (City, green, 2014, N.P.). Engines idling in traffic burned $1.9 billion gallons of gasoline. The researchers projected that the number would increase to 2.5 billion gallons and delays would cost $133 billion by 2015.
There are efforts put forward or underway at the Intercounty Connector in Maryland to create some congestion relief, the Metro extension in Virginia and the Beltway h...
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...high-speed trains and public buses, charge for road use in a way that prices each driver’s contribution to congestion, and manage development patterns to reduce congestion growth. Virginia has traditionally relied on the first two methods for reducing congestion (Strickland, Jonathan, 2014, N.P.). To date, these efforts have not stopped congestion increment, although in these areas investments have slowed the increase and cost of congestion in the area of Northern Virginia. In accordance to the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI), in Washington, DC or Northern Virginia area the effect of public transportation improvements reduces the amount of delay by over 33.8 million hours. And the annual congestion savings from public transportation for the Virginia Beach and Richmond areas are $33.2 million and $16.5 million, respectively (Kim, Hyoungsoo et al., 2012, p.172).
Since the beginning of the United States the American people have been on the move. Public transportation has played a major role in the development of this nation and in bringing its citizens together. In the book “Divided Highways”, author Tom Lewis takes the reader on a journey of the building of the Interstates and the consequences(good and bad) that came from them. Lewis believes that the Interstates are a physical characteristic of America and that it shows “all our glory and our meanness; all our vision and our shortsightedness”(xiv).
The most noticeable inconvenience of driving in Miami is traffic congestion. In fact, because the highways are cluttered with a significant amount of vehicles carpooling is encouraged. For this purpose, high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes were formed. Each weekday, a simple twenty-minute drive turns into an eternal wait for forward progress. With each minute that goes by cars advance less than twenty feet. And while the traffic may open up in some areas, in its entirety I-95 remains congested during the morning and evening hours, as seen in the image where cars on the South Florida Highways line up bumper-to-bumper. The cause for such highway clutter varies, but it is interesting to note the difficulty in explaining highway driving conditions. It is uncertain as to whether the accidents cause traffic congestion or the traffic congestion causes accidents. Either way, the main roads and highways commuters take to work are crowded with drivers. Furthermore, I-95 passes through several commercial districts in the lower Miami area. Many large trucks and commercial vehicles, as well as passenger vehicles, drive to work at these commercial areas. The weekday traffic congestions on the Miami roadways are, in large part, a major inconvenience to commuters, all with intent to arrive early to work.
oil and gas are used up each year so that Americans can drive at high speeds across the
commuters waste 38 hours per year stuck in traffic. In Washington D.C. and Los Angeles, the situation is even more serious with drivers squandering 67 and 61 hours, respectively, staring at the license plate of the stationary vehicle in front of them” (Keeping, n.d.). Henceforth, it is my speculation that a negative response to the issue of car congestion will generate some serious consequences for the foreseeable future. It is my prediction that a refusal to resolve this dilemma, will spawn complete chaos and anarchy upon the globes highways and byways. Therefore, it is vital that some type of action is taken beforehand in order to alleviate this issue before it gets out of hand. By and large, this final phase of this paper drives this assignment to its conclusion. Ergo, the ensuing portion of this case assignment will elaborate on highlights of this
There is a serious problem with our nation's roads and highways. I find myself repeatedly avoiding trips to the city for this very reason, as I'm sure many others do as well. This nerve-wracking congestion is even beginning to find its way into the suburbs and surrounding areas of large cities. It is a serious problem that affects everyone who owns an automobile, as well as, businesses that are dependent on reliable and convenient transportation. To top it all off, this problem is getting worse every year. The population of this nation is growing, which translates to an increase in cars on the road. More people are moving to cities and the suburbs that surround them, creating gridlocks everywhere.
Pollution is a major problem for all of us. People need to recognize this situation so we can start making a difference to this problem. In order to start making a difference, the federal government should increase gasoline tax by one dollar a gallon. Fifty percent of this dollar will go towards public transportation, since passenger cars and trucks are a major contribution towards air pollution, according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, E.P.A (10/4, http://www.epa.gov/autoemissions/emsns.html). Due to the expected increase after this is put forth, the remaining fifty percent of the dollar will go towards safety on these transits. When public transportation increases, air pollution will decrease, which will lessen the harmful health risks towards the environment.
Since the dawn of mankind, humans have always held an instinctual desire to travel. There is a route to any destination, and in this day and age, these routes are much faster due to the implementation of interstate systems. These long, straight highway roads provide America’s citizens a place to drive their cars at higher speeds, thus allowing us to reach our destination much faster than taking standard roads. When Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, he set into motion one of the largest construction projects in U.S. history, and introduced an invention that would completely change America’s system of travel for decades to come.
Do you ever feel like you are waiting at a red light in your car for what seems like forever? Well, that’s because “ The average person throughout their lifetime spends five years waiting in lines and queues where roughly six months of that is waiting at traffic lights”(How). Cities and towns have faced a transportation problem and they are looking for ways to tackle the issue. Transportation is a big part of one’s everyday life, and it is impossible to avoid it. Transportation plays a crucial role in the way we travel to things like school and work. Humans need transportation to get from place A to place B. There are different kinds of transportation, but the most common one in modern society is automobiles. Although transportation of automobiles is a quick way of traveling at the moment. Automobiles bring issues like health problems, air pollution, and high expenses. This is because humans always manage to take the easy way out without looking at the long-term effects that come with automobiles.
A policy to expand mass transit, via MARTA bus and rail system, would increase the convenience of public transportation and effectively serve as an alternative option for driving. An expansion of toll and express lanes is a potential policy for Atlanta which utilizes a market based approach and generates income for the city. The gasoline tax policy is aimed at incentivizing metropolitan citizens to drive less due to an increased cost of gas, effectively
Public transportation is an essential part of a city. A good public transit can encourage a city’s economic activities and can provide its citizen a convenient life. Does our Phoenix public transit work well? Does it provide sufficient service to the citizen? From my experience, the answer is no. This November I tried to attend the popular State Fair in Phoenix. However, I found that there were not any buses or metros could take me to the fair directly. It means I need 2 hours or more spend on the public transits. As the sixth most populous city nationwide (“Phoenix Quick Fact” 1), compared with Los Angeles and other big cities in America, Phoenix’s public transportation is indeed subpar. Due to Los Angeles has 154 bus lines and 30 metros (“Schedule”), New York has 316 bus lines and 28 subways(“Maps & Timetables”), while Phoenix only has 98 bus lines, and the number of metro line is only one! (“Route Schedules & Maps”) The problem is
Anyone that has grown up in California knows traffic is terrible. Traffic is a huge problem in different parts of the world. It’s a serious problem in the state of California. According to Merriam Webster, the definition of traffic is “all of the vehicles driving along a certain road or in a certain area”. The definition of a traffic jam is “a situation in which a long line of vehicles on a road have stopped moving or are moving very slowly.” The increase of traffic causes more accidents. More than 1.2 million people die in traffic accidents every year. As many as 50 million people are injured or disabled by traffic-related accidents per year. In my report I will cover the problem with traffic and how people can do their part to solve or reduce traffic.
Furthermore, the high-speed rail network could mean twenty-nine million fewer car trips and 500,000 fewer plane flights annually, according to a 2006 study ...
Most people take the urban public transportation system for granted. It is used in every aspect of our daily lives: work, education, medical necessities, recreation, etc. It is also important for the transportation of goods and services, which aids the growth and maintenance of our economy. Urban public transportation is the critical component of our quality of life and economic stability. The MBTA, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, is Boston and Eastern Massachusetts’s major transportation service. The MBTA has played a central role in the development of Boston and surrounding cities and towns for more than a century; providing service from 175 cities and towns into Boston. On an average weekday over 1.2 million trips are made on the subway, buses, commuter lines and other services in the mass transit system. With an international airport, a ship port, the highways, and the rail lines to connect regional cities and towns to national and international destinations and markets, Boston’s urban public transportation system has made the region’s growing role in the global economy possible.
OTA stated that based on current trends in population and travel … the number of vehicle-miles traveled (VMT) nationwide is projected to increase by 2 to 3 percent per year from now through 2005, resulting in a cumulative increase of about 40 to 60 percent. Obviously, VMT growth could have a major impact on traffic flow in urban areas, as well as on air pollution (84).
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.