T-SPLOST: Is traffic really a problem in Atlanta?
The problem the proposed transportation sales tax, or T-SPLOST, purports to solve would seem obvious. Here’s how the first advertisement by a group pushing the tax framed the issue:
“Metro Atlanta, we have a problem: one of the longest average commutes in America, over an hour a day. Five hours a week you don’t spend with your family; 260 hours a year.”
But what if the length of our commutes isn’t a problem we can solve? At least, that is, not by building new infrastructure to relieve congestion.
That’s the implication of new data from INRIX, a private company that tracks traffic information.
The latest INRIX Traffic Scorecard, updated this week with data through April, shows traffic congestion increases the average commute in metro Atlanta by only about 10 percent — less than six minutes a day.
Let me repeat that: Congestion adds less than six minutes to the average metro Atlanta commute. And to reduce — not eliminate — that six-minute problem, we are asked to tax ourselves an extra $7.2 billion in 10 years.
If you’ve driven a car around here, right about now you may be thinking these figures are baloney. So let me briefly explain where they come from.
INRIX, based in Washington state, tracks traffic data in America’s 100 largest urban areas, including metro Atlanta (it defines each region the same way the Census Bureau does). It does this by collecting information about drive times from 100 million truck drivers, taxis, airport shuttles, delivery vehicles and motorists who use its smartphone app in 30 countries. It then sells the relevant data to federal and state transportation agencies, including the Georgia DOT, said Jim Bak, co-author of the scorecard.
INRIX compares drive times when traffic flows freely to those at rush hour, then calculates the amount of “wasted hours” congestion adds to the average commute.
In Atlanta, based on the latest data, commuters would drive 241.9 hours each year — almost 56 minutes each workday — even if traffic always flowed freely. Congestion adds 25.4 hours a year, or almost six minutes a day.
What’s more, our “wasted hours” are decreasing even as employment begins to recover. Fuel prices, Bak said, are offsetting the return of commuters to the roads.
So, while the INRIX data show metro Atlantans have the sixth-longest average commute in America, we rank only 14th in “wasted hours.” The clear takeaway is that the chief reason our commutes are so long is that so many of us live so far from our workplaces.
Your mileage may vary, of course, depending on where you live. Certainly, in some parts of our region the average commute tends to be longer.
But another interesting INRIX finding is that, while metro Atlanta is 14th in overall congestion, our worst corridor ranks only 114th nationwide. Twenty-six other cities have a stretch of road more congested than Ga. 400 south between Old Milton Parkway and Holcomb Bridge Road.
This reinforces the idea our congestion is evenly applied to numerous roads. And that may explain why there’s so much disagreement about where T-SPLOST funds ought to be spent.
Now for some optimism: We may be able to improve conditions even without building new lanes — by relying on data from INRIX or its competitors, such as NAVTEQ and TomTom, to better manage traffic flows.
Bak gave an example from Washington: A curvy stretch of I-5 from the airport north to downtown Seattle. Washington’s DOT installed electronic signs on which they can adjust the speed limit according to real-time traffic information.
“It slows the cars that are coming into congested areas, which delays the gridlock, which allows traffic to flow better,” he told me by telephone. “People would be flying at 65 miles per hour, and all of a sudden they come across the curve” to find stopped traffic, often causing wrecks — and more delays. The variable speed limit signs have reduced accidents there by 30 percent, Bak said.
One mile of a highway lane can handle only so many cars an hour. Gridlock occurs, often for a disproportionate length of time, if that threshold is surpassed. Slowing oncoming traffic as roads become congested may prevent the worst traffic.
So, maybe the questions we ought to ask ourselves are not how much to spend, and where, but whether we can afford to subsidize people’s choices to live far from work — and, if so, whether there’s a cheaper and smarter way to do that.
– By Kyle Wingfield
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136 comments Add your comment
MU in GA
May 24th, 2012
11:11 am
Regardless of what anyone thinks about TSplost, I just find it totally inane to take information about our metro area and compare it to others and because our results are better than other areas, then we don’t have a problem. I don’t care about the traffic in Los Angeles, Denver, Seattle, Washington, New York or Boston and how we compare to them. My concern is the traffic congestion in Atlanta, how it affects me and my lack of options for getting to work. As one who commutes to Midtown from Gwinnett, I used to take the train because of the convenience but when service was cut from 8 trains per hour to 4 trains, it became inconvenient so I began driving on I85 to have GDOT create a cluster at GA 400 by reducing the number of lanes from 5 to 3. My commute time is affected by far more than 6 minutes, but in your defense you said individual situation could be different. But, your last paragraph is the one that I feel is where you are too short sided. It is not uncommon for someone to purchase a home close to their work only to have their workplace move, which is my case. So, I guess it’s my fault that my home of 12 years is so far from my work, which moved 4 years ago from a location close to my home to one that causes me to have a longer commute. As a result I should feel guilty for wanting transportation improvements? Gimme a break.
BW
May 24th, 2012
11:12 am
Kyle @ 10:39
Yes that is the big trade-off…quality of life. Most safe ITP neighborhoods WITH good school systems are out of the price range of many. But lets not pretend that people can afford East Cobb, Sandy Springs/Dunwoody, Alpharetta, Gwinnett near the Chattahoochee, or Johns Creek either. Most people live where they live to support their lifestyle…they want less of their income tied up in mortgage payments than say providing a good life for their family.
I agree with the T-SPLOST advocate that this is about multiple issues not just traffic. As a new resident I would have next to no incentive to settle a family south of I-20. The only exception are those working for or at the airport. And they are settling in Fayette and Henry. If the suburb growth had been managed properly (i.e. the developers were made to improve the local road infrastructure with each new subdivision) this congestion conversation would probably be limited to the intersections of major highways and state roads in the metro. I wonder how the perception of MARTA and downtown Atlanta would change with a highly visible police force. I still think that future growth lies in infill development and until we address the past planning mistakes it’s extremely difficult to focus on the future planning decisions. This T-SPLOST is attempting to do both and not very successfully. A clear majority agree something must be done but I fear we are being shortchanged a true comprehensive solution in an attempt to appease everyone.
Aquagirl
May 24th, 2012
11:13 am
Sorry Kyle, didn’t know you lived in Buckhead….not one of your stalkers lol.
I live ITP and it’s been months since there was a car theft or burglary in my neighborhood, maybe you should move out of slummy Buckhead.
zeke
May 24th, 2012
11:15 am
I do not remember their names, but, there have been several articles in the AJC and other papers over the last 10 years or so about experts who had previously been avid proponents of mass transit, rail hov lanes, realizing that they DO NOT WORK, ARE EXCESSIVELY EXPENSIVE AND DO NOT HELP CONGESTION AT ALL! NOW THEY ARE OPPOSED TO THESE AGENDA SOCIALIST PROJECTS! And what do we do? More hov lanes and in fact toll hov lanes! What a bunch of idiots in the DOT and state offices!!
iggy
May 24th, 2012
11:17 am
“Why do they schedule votes at absurd times? TO INFLUENCE THE OUTCOME!”
And thats exactly why I will participate. Normally I dont venture to the voting booth very often, but due to this “citizen manipulation” I plan to be there. They thinkin TSplost will fly under the radar and get a yes vote before the citizenry realizes what happened.
iggy
May 24th, 2012
11:19 am
Good Point. The HOV lanes were just a prelude to the imposed taxes of those “HOT” lanes.
Richard Saunders
May 24th, 2012
11:22 am
Another smoke and mirrors article. If WE don’t invest in ourselves, we’re going to be left behind. Washington is bankrupt and the current GDOT budget can’t maintain the system as it is. Look into the facts folks and the only answer is vote yes on July 31. The timing is critical too. If something is not done now, we’re toast. New highway projects take 7 years from concept to driving on them
Darwin
May 24th, 2012
11:23 am
It’s welfare to companies that will work on the additional roads. It will lead to an outer beltway where politicians will buy land and create interchanges to intice business.
Bryan -- MARTA supporter
May 24th, 2012
11:26 am
“INRIX compares drive times when traffic flows freely to those at rush hour, then calculates the amount of “wasted hours” congestion adds to the average commute”
My question is where does traffic flow freely during rush hour? Highways and streets are packed! But it kills me to see all the MARTA bashing. “MARTA doesn’t go where we need it!” Maybe that’s because the ‘burbs voted it down and didn’t want to pay. Maybe that’s because when MARTA wanted to expand in intown neighborhoods people fought tooth and nail to prevent it. Now we have the system we have and everyone is complaining.
“MARTA needs to pay for itself!” There are very few systems that pay for themselves and NONE are in the USA. If MARTA used fare distance fares it would probably be too expensive to be cost effective to use the system and a better option to just drive. I could even see a two zone system (ITP and OTP zoned fare) but nothing more than that. Probably still wouldn’t cover the total cost of operating the system. The Gold Dome, Repubs, and Tea Partiers do everything to prevent taxation and expansion of mass transit. Keep it up as the jobs leave, big companies choose our competitors over Atlanta, and traffic gets worse in town and coming from the burbs. It will be another 10-15 years before another proposal is put on the table like this. There is no plan B. The last time we worked as one region on transit and transportation was when creating MARTA and we see how well that went; 40 plus years later we have a limit system that can’t even control its own locally generated money, and a bunch of big mouths that complain how limited the system is.
ragnar danneskjold
May 24th, 2012
11:34 am
Good essay, but since it reinforces my innate opposition to T-SPLOST I really could not think otherwise. Think I would go differently on speed limits, would double all speed limits – congestion is nothing more than the Venturi effect.
Bryan -- MARTA supporter
May 24th, 2012
11:45 am
@ zeke May 24th, 2012 11:11 am
What a dumb uneducated comment. Every major city has transit. Here we go again with the “build more roads and it will fix everything” argument. It’s that what ATL has been doing for years and years and it hasn’t worked? You must have went to Bozo’s Clown College for Urban and Transit Planning because your idea to eliminate MARTA and that it does nothing is stupid!
AB
May 24th, 2012
11:54 am
It is so typical for a complainer like Iggy to say he doesn’t venture to the voting booth often. Keep that to yourself, it makes you sound even more rediculous.
iggy
May 24th, 2012
11:58 am
Your assumptions and spelling make you sound even more so. I would clarify my voting habits but then again, why bother.
Sherlock
May 24th, 2012
12:05 pm
It’s elementary, people should live close to where they work.
Kyle Wingfield
May 24th, 2012
12:09 pm
Bryan: The comparison is between 1) drive times when traffic flows freely and 2) drive times at rush hour.
Another Voice
May 24th, 2012
12:28 pm
I’m voting NO on T-Splost. It’s a huge “everything including kitchen sink” list of projects, not all of which are strategic. many were added just to broaden the appeal of the overall program. And some of these projects are NOT desirable, such as “improvements to Mt. Vernon Rd from 400 to Dunwoody Club”. Trust me, that’s just a code for widening a local road for more through-traffic. If people want a faster trip between Norcross and Sandy Springs, get on 285, which is built for higher speed traffic. Not a local road with bicyclists and pedestrians!
And as for the argument that the funds will be tracked and there will be a website to give accountablity – hello, why don’t we already have this with the state Dept. of Transportation? I’d be more inclined to believe that they could manage projects within budget if they gave that accountability and transparency NOW. On every dollar spent on building/repair/maintaining roads. Given their history of wacko-idea projects, such as the mis-guided toll lanes on 85North, the mismanagement,and cronyism, there’s no way I’ll give them even more money.
jewcowboy
May 24th, 2012
1:05 pm
Something seems off here:
“What’s more, our “wasted hours” are decreasing even as employment begins to recover.”
From USA Today
“Prices at the pump affected how long motorists sat in traffic. “Cities that consistently had gas prices equal to or lower than the national average, and that experienced modest job growth, were the cities that tended to have increases in congestion,” Bak says. Atlanta, which had a 2011 average gas price 20 cents less than the national average and a 1.2% growth in employment, saw the fourth-biggest jump in congestion.”
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-05-22/traffic-congestion-down/55120930/1
Which is it?
Kyle Wingfield
May 24th, 2012
1:15 pm
jewcowboy: I can’t explain the discrepancy; when Bak and I spoke, he likened Atlanta to Minneapolis, which USA Today cites as an example of a city where congestion has decreased. And if you look at the data, they indicate congestion has decreased here.
jewcowboy
May 24th, 2012
1:15 pm
“Did you bother to read the very next sentence in my column after the one you quoted?”
Do you mean this one? “Fuel prices, Bak said, are offsetting the return of commuters to the roads.”
jewcowboy
May 24th, 2012
1:21 pm
“I can’t explain the discrepancy; when Bak and I spoke, he likened Atlanta to Minneapolis, which USA Today cites as an example of a city where congestion has decreased.”
Maybe the USA Today statement is talking about 2011 congestion?
bu2
May 24th, 2012
1:53 pm
This article misses the point about Atlanta traffic, just as the TSPLOST list does. Traffic is bad all day long, not just at rush hour. And the TSPLOST really does nothing about that (doesn’t do much about rush hour either) as almost all of the $ in Fulton and Dekalb are transit. People aren’t going to start taking the train to the grocery or dry cleaner because there is a light rail line they can walk a mile to get to.
And these pro-transit people WANT more density without more roads as if 100% of those new residents are going to ride transit. Atlanta ITP can’t support what it has in population with its current road structure.
We have a city that is not dense at all compared to other large cities with a much weaker road network. The TSPLOST will do little positive to stop the flow of jobs to the suburbs and other cities which will make it even harder to deal with the rush hour peak with transit.
bu2
May 24th, 2012
1:54 pm
Even the local paper moved out of Fulton County and OTP.
Kyle Wingfield
May 24th, 2012
2:15 pm
jewcowboy: Sorry, I deleted that comment as soon as I realized I had misread yours. As for whether USA Today was looking at 2011: The article indicates that’s the case, but the data show congestion was lower in 2011 than in 2010. So I think there’s something else going on here.
jewcowboy
May 24th, 2012
2:16 pm
bu2,
“Atlanta ITP can’t support what it has in population with its current road structure.”
Actually, ITP can support its population just fine with it’s current road (and rail) structure. It just can’t handle all those OTP peeps who use the infrastructure and then flee back to the burbs without paying for it. For all I care OTP’ers can choke on their own exhaust fumes as they get fat and old while sitting in traffic.
bu2
May 24th, 2012
4:14 pm
<>
Edward-Which party has run the city of Atlanta since it was founded? Which party appoints the members of the MARTA board? I’ve never seen such a wealthy area plead for subsidies from the poor rural areas as backwards Atlanta. Atlanta is inefficient-you’re right about that- and everything about it was created by Democrats. For all the complaints about the state not funding MARTA, Texas hardly gives anything to the local transit agencies. And they’ve been doing far more.
Bryan -- MARTA supporter
May 24th, 2012
4:55 pm
Here’s another reason why ATL needs to support it’s own local projects.
http://www.metro-magazine.com/News/Story/2012/05/TriMet-gets-745-2M-for-light-rail.aspx
If we don’t support our own infrastructure why is anyone else? Portland is getting 745 million for a new light rail line (I personally prefer heavy rail). That’s because the other half was paid for by local funds and Tri Met (Portland’s transit system). Why can’t we support a one billion dollar line down I-20 or extending the Red line to Windward or a first phase line to Cumberland that will eventually connect to Kennesaw State Univ? The feds are giving up the money but only to those areas that have local support. This will mean more money for roads as well when we are coming up with alternatives. It’s a win win for transit advocators and people that want their roads!
Bryan -- MARTA supporter
May 24th, 2012
4:59 pm
@ bu2 May 24th, 2012 4:14 pm
Even if that is true about Texas I bet they have another thing in the big cities that MARTA and Atlanta’s metro area doesn’t. SUPPORT!! Their major metro areas support the METRO in Houston and DART in Dallas. In ATL the ‘burbs do stupid stuff like complain about MARTA and that they don’t need transit but start their own slow crappy bus systems that do the same thing that MARTA would have done. Bring people into the city but instead of a bunch of express buses it would have been rail with better local bus service within the county.
bu2
May 24th, 2012
6:05 pm
@Bryan
In Houston they have express buses to the suburbs which travel on HOV or HOT lanes and stop every couple of blocks downtown (and in the other 3 major business centers) instead of every half mile. They have perhaps the nation’s most extensive HOV/HOT lane system on 6 different freeways and the busses are full. Houston’s rail system (most of which is not yet operational) serves the major business centers and the inner city. Local bus service in the outlying suburbs hardly gets any riders as much as they have tried. Atlanta doesn’t connect two of the largest employment centers.
The idea that Atlanta keeps building roads and it fails is a falsehood. Atlanta just opened their 1st new freeway exit since 1994. Obviously with Atlanta’s growth the freeways are getting crowded. You could do a list of about half a page of the freeway expansions and new freeways/tollroads in Dallas, Houston or Charlotte. If you look at the Dallas NTTA site (North Texas Tollway) their project list drawves anything Atlanta is contemplating and that doesn’t even include any state projects. In the last 18 years even Austin, 1/3 Atlanta’s size, has opened 4 brand new toll roads and is working on 2 others. Atlanta has done nothing. Of course, they haven’t done much on transit either.
You talk about slow busses. Then how can you support light rail, which is basically real expensive, inflexible slow busses? The transit projects they have selected are too slow and require too many transfers. They should do it right or not do it.
Don
May 25th, 2012
6:39 am
Kyle- A lot of things are possible. A better project list is possible. The actual chance that it actually would occur us near zero. It’s pretty much this or nothing.
iggy
May 25th, 2012
7:25 am
Light rail is a loss leader.
Mavis Beacon Teaches Driver's Ed
May 25th, 2012
9:57 am
The reason traffic in Atlanta is so bad is because our metro area has a much higher concentration of the “urban” demographic who like to play with shiny smart phones while attempting to drive and subsequently cause exponentially more accidents, lane blockages, traffic backups and failures to signal than cities with a much sparser “urban” population.
Kasim Reed
May 25th, 2012
11:59 am
But I want a new choo-choo train for Christmas!!!
DagnyT
May 26th, 2012
12:08 am
“We were supposed to have flying cars by now.”
Maybe that explains why Cobb County wants to spend TSPLOST money on a new airport tower and runway lights. Are they that forward thinking? This is why I’m voting NO. I don’t know of a soul who commutes to their job by plane or George Jetson car. This is just an example of the waste and pork in the list.
Valdosta Tea Party » Valdosta Tea Party
May 26th, 2012
9:18 am
[...] Is traffic really a problem in Atlanta? Kyle Wingfield, AJC, 5-24-12 [...]
Commissioner Steve Brown
May 28th, 2012
4:55 pm
A special “thank you” to Kyle for taking the logical and rational approach to problems in the region. The TIA (TSPLOST) is rife with special interest projects which will do almost nothing for traffic congestion relief. It’s time to look at reasonable solutions to our problems.
Julia
May 29th, 2012
9:08 am
the people who make your coffee, bag your groceries, repair your shoes, mow your lawn, cut your hair, let them live under a bridge or over pass. so long as you do not have to spend a penny more in taxes. but it is their choice to take those jobs, if they can’t find something close to their work, heck, let them starve.
oh, you compassionate conservatives.