I just read that the average American driver wastes nearly an entire work week each year sitting in traffic while commuting. Collectively, we sat in traffic jams for a total of 4.2 billion hours in 2005, up from 4 billion the year before according to Texas Traffic Institute's urban mobility report. That works out to an average of around 38 hours per driver.

TTI’s study (http://mobility.tamu.edu) estimated that we wasted 2.9 billion gallons of fuel while stuck in that traffic. Adding up the lost time, traffic delays cost the nation $78.2 billion, the study also estimated. I’m sure that doesn’t include the missed meetings, missed flights and missed business opportunities, nor the stress and road rage it caused.

High fuel costs seem to have cut non-essential driving, but not commuting. According to census data about three-quarters of all commuters drive alone. Los Angeles had the worst congestion, delaying drivers an average of 72 hours last year, followed by Atlanta, San Francisco, Washington D.C. and Dallas.
Atlanta, which has the second-worst traffic in the U.S., had some surprising improvement. In 2005, drivers there wasted an average of 60 hours in traffic, down from 70 hours a decade prior. However, the population is growing so fast that planners are having a tough time dealing with the increase in traffic. Atlanta gained 890,000 people from 2000 to 2006, more than any other area in the country.

The study, which summed it up as "Too many people, too many trips over too short of a time period on a system that is too small," offers ways to reduce traffic congestion, including more roads or lanes, better public transportation and flexible work schedules, telecommuting and carpools. It seems like the way things are going, there’s going to be coast-to-coast gridlock.

What do you think needs to happen, and how can it be reasonably achieved?