[/caption]"Our estimates of the total public health costs of traffic congestion in the U.S. are likely conservative," Harvard University authors write. They point out their research considers "only the impacts in 83 urban areas and only the cost of related mortality and not the costs that could be associated with related morbidity, health care, insurance, accidents, and other factors." And there are still other costs that weigh heavily on many of us.
Those other factors include wasted time and frayed nerves, meaning lost productivity. How many people lose several hours daily in traffic that could better be spent in doing the work needed to keep companies and culture functioning well? Many of us, find we lose a bundle during the vehicle “creep” that continues to plague the nation’s highways.
Even flex time and the Internet have not solved the problems caused by traffic congestion.
Forbes reported in 2006, "The worst traffic in the U.S. is getting even worse. It pollutes as the vehicles idle. It wastes the time of trucks and passenger cars. The annual delay per driver is in excess of 47 hours per year. It creates delayed shipments. It wastes more than 2.3 billion gallons of fuel each year." Estimated cost for all that was estimated in 2003 to be more than $60 billion.
New research by the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis (HCRA) at the School of Public Health tells us the high cost of traffic congestion is a serious matter, in what constitutes the first major study on traffic’s impact on the economy, something many Americans personally experience.
Drive through or around the periphery of one of the nation’s major urban centers, and the traffic snarls are evidence of how people wait endless hours in traffic, wasted, non productive hours that are just a section of the numerous problems caused by the continuous growth in the use of the automobile in the United States. While the cost of gas may fray consumer nerves, the wait time in traffic adds to that. The Harvard Research Study concretized some of the costs , but the hidden costs weigh heavily on emotional burdens of work, family and personal concerns.
Traffic congestion in 2000 led to 4000 premature deaths at a public health cost of approximately $31 billion. Researchers estimate that if remedial methods are not taken by 2030, there will be 1,900 premature deaths and $17 billion in social costs annually. Last year traffic congestion caused 2,200 premature deaths in the U.S. The conservative estimate of related public health cost, according to researchers, was at least $18 billion.
The study, "The Public Health Costs of Traffic Congestion: A Health Risk Assessment," was published in the scientific journal "Environmental Health." It is the first to attempt to quantify the public health implications of growing traffic congestion in America.
The greatest problems and impact on public health are in urban areas. The Los Angeles/Long Beach/Santa Ana, California, area was first, with an estimated additional 426 premature deaths and $3.3 billion in public health costs. It was followed by: New York City/Newark, New Jersey (+337 premature deaths, +$2.6 billion in costs);Chicago/Northern Indiana (+251 premature deaths, $2 billion costs); and San Francisco/Oakland, California (+124 premature deaths, +$1 billion in costs).
In conducting the study, the Harvard researchers projected the estimated growth of traffic congestion—and resulting emissions—from the baseline year 2000 through 2030 if no additional transportation infrastructure capacity is provided in the 83 urban areas to accommodate projected population growth.
They forecast traffic congestion will rise more than 30 percent over the period 2000 to 2030 in 18 urban areas: Raleigh, North Carolina (54 percent); Oxnard, California (47 percent); Las Vegas, Nevada (46 percent); Salt Lake City, Utah (45 percent); Sarasota/Bradenton, Florida (45 percent); San Antonio, Texas (42 percent); Orlando, Florida (41 percent); Laredo, Texas (38 percent); Richmond, Virginia(36 percent); Phoenix/Mesa, Arizona (33 percent); Pensacola, Florida (31 percent); Riverside/San Bernardino, California (31 percent); San Diego, California (31 percent); and Spokane, Washington (30 percent).
To mitigate problems caused by traffic, researchers said solutions would require community individualization. In Austin community leaders have developed neighborhood plans and programs to relieve some of the traffic in what has been described as a collaborative effort the city leadership hopes will lift some of the burdens created by this Texas city's traffic. Some other tactics suggested by Harvard researchers include better traffic management through congestion pricing, traffic light synchronization and more efficient response to traffic incidents to adding new highway and public transit capacity. More refined models of traffic dynamics should be targeted to fit the needs of each urban area linked to the public health models developed in the study could be used to explore the impacts of proposed strategies.
