Traffic jam in LA (cc photo by the infamous gdub)
The Texas Transportation Institute’s latest data, which is from 2007, indicates that traffic congestion went down slightly mostly due to higher gas prices: “The differences are small, but they represent a rare break in near-constant growth in traffic over 25 years.” The thinking is that continued high prices and deteriorating economic conditions should keep congestion on the decline.
The moral of the story is that behavior really does respond to the situation. It’s possible, in other words, to make traffic congestion less bad. But this is just about the worst possible way to actually do it. If, instead, we directly charged people fees to enter congested areas at peak times, we would not only put a much bigger dent in the congestion problem but we’d do it in a way that raised substantial sums of money that could be used to fund improvements in transportation alternatives. That would give drivers uncrowded roads, give non-drivers better commutes, and give everyone a bigger set of options.
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