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Reaction of American Road & Transportation Builders Association President Pete Ruane on the Texas Transportation Institute’s (TTI) Annual Traffic Congestion Report
Washington, D.C. [Sept. 18, 2007]—The real “Bad News”… “If you think the traffic congestion levels in the latest TTI report Here’s why:
Driving up business and consumer costs… “The old adage ‘time is money’ applies here. While not quantified by the TTI report, there is no question that traffic congestion increases labor and transportation costs for every American business… and that is driving up the cost of virtually every product and service we buy as consumers and making U.S. products less competitive in the global marketplace.” “Traffic gridlock is affecting American families and businesses in every corner of the nation—it’s not just a ‘big city’ problem anymore. You’re paying a price in terms of higher food and commodity costs whether you live in Los Angeles or Charleston, South Carolina.” Environment, U.S. energy independence and global competitiveness: the common thread… “Our elected officials are continually talking about doing something on environmental issues, reducing the nation’s dependence on foreign oil and keeping American companies and products competitive in the global marketplace…A good place to start would be investing in new transportation capacity to address growing traffic gridlock. Reduce gridlock and you reduce unnecessary greenhouse gas emissions, burn less motor fuel and reduce labor and transportation costs for American businesses.” A “Big Vision” Solution… “ARTBA has given the U.S. Department of Transportation and Congress a blueprint to restructure and refocus the federal highway and transit program to directly address traffic gridlock as a national problem. The centerpiece is a new ‘Critical Commerce Corridors’ initiative that would execute a strategic business plan to eliminate the nation’s worst traffic bottlenecks. The initiative would dedicate federal funds to add the new infrastructure capacity and communications technologies that are necessary to facilitate the safe and efficient movement of freight. A major goal would be to separate heavy truck traffic from cars.” Editors Note: The ARTBA Transportation Development Foundation is a co-sponsor of the TTI report.
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are grim… the real bad news is that unless we start seriously adding new capacity to our road and transit systems now, 25 years from now our children and grandchildren will look back at today’s level of traffic congestion as the ‘good old days.’ And they will be living in an America with a stagnant economy and declining quality of life.”