To Drive, Perhaps To Sit In Traffic

I noticed yesterday at CNN.com that the DC area was, yet again, in the top 5 for the worst traffic in the country. I'm fairly certain that no one who lives here and drives in the mornings or afternoons would dispute this fact. And our public transportation often leaves much to be desired. However, from the CNN article, it appeared as if we were fourth of the five and the focus was, primarily, on how Atlanta had moved up in the list to 2nd place. All I really thought after reading the article was, "Poor Atlantans." Because DC's been in the top five for a number of years, and while it seems to get progressively worse each year, apparently we haven't been getting worse as fast as other places.

My brother-in-law remarked on the fact that he he heard we had moved into 2nd place. Confused, I offered that I had read fourth - recalling the quote from the CNN article: "The Los Angeles metro area had the worst congestion, delaying drivers an average of 72 hours a year. It was followed by Atlanta, Georgia; San Francisco, California; Washington; and Dallas, Texas." Our general concensus was, "Huh." But I was intrigued.

So a little digging at the Washington Post showed that, in fact, Atlanta, DC and San Francisco are all tied for second. The Post, as much as I dislike them, actually went ahead and shared the data from the study, rather than summarizing and restating it in a potentially confusing manner like CNN seemed to think was perfectly fine. All three of the 2nd place cities spend an average of 60 hours a year stuck in rush hour congestion. Note that that's not saying 60 hours commuting a year - it's looking at the extra time added on simply because it happens to be a weekday. (My guess is that if you can get from home to work in 20 minutes if you were able to drive the speed limit but that it takes you, normally, 55 minutes to get there, those extra 35 minutes are what they're adding up to reach the 60 hour average.)

It's interesting to note that the Post even goes on to mention that many people easily exceed the 60 hours. I'm guessing that you could extend that out from "many" to "most". If we use my guess at what they're doing to calculate these averages and look at my commute - I think I'm probably well over. My commute should take 20 minutes. I average 40 minutes in and 35 minutes home. So that's an extra 35 minutes each day - so 175 minutes each week (2.92 hours) with 50 weeks in a year (I'll go ahead and subtract my vacation time), netting 146 hours a year....They must be using a different formula/method to figure this. I don't know anyone who could get in anywhere near the 60 hour mark (let alone under it significantly enough for it to be the average) if we use my thought process. Anyone stumble across the actual methodology?

Either way, a much simpler way to report this would simply be to say, "Traffic around here is heinous...if you're thinking of moving here, don't." And seriously, if people actually want conditions to improve, my first suggestion is to stop building condos and other high-density housing that pack in the maximum number of people (and therefore cars) per square inch.