Traffic choked chicago (homes, price, authority)

[tonythetuna]

Originally Posted by Southsider60463

Better?

Yes.

[doublenickels]

It's official. Chicago is number one...for traffic congestion. Link:

Chicago area screeches into No. 1 spot for road congestion - chicagotribune.com

[aragx6]

Key takeaway from the article to me is this:

The data collected from 439 urban areas showed that without mass transit, commuters would have spent an additional 785 million hours on the roads and burned 640 million more gallons of fuel.

So it's bad, but man, it could be a lot worse!

[nikitakolata]

Originally Posted by aragx6

Key takeaway from the article to me is this:



So it's bad, but man, it could be a lot worse!

Actually, what stuck out to me in the article is that we save 785 million hours and 640 million gallons of fuel due to mass transit yet we waste 4.8 billion hours and 3.9 billion gallons of fuel waiting in traffic... to me that says that mass transit in this country (and in Chicago in particular) has a LONG way to go.

[LakeShoreSoxGo]

There is no way Chicago is tied with Dc for the worst traffic. Or even worse than LA and SF. The study was done by a bunch of college kids from Texas AM. So it not exactly official.

[doublenickels]

Happens every time. People "attack the messenger, when they don't like the message".

[quote=LakeShoreSoxGo;17500501]There is no way Chicago is tied with ..........quote]

[NYrules]

Originally Posted by doublenickels

Happens every time. People "attack the messenger, when they don't like the message"...........quote]

COULD NOT AGREE MORE! Anyone that feels this city is a breeze to get around in, obviously is someone who drives about 10 miles a day, or drives places in "off" hours. There is no doubt there is room for improvement with our roads both in their design (widening, adding turning lanes, removing giant planters in the medians and creating longer turning lanes, etc) and more money needs to be allocated to keep modernizing traffic signals to keep interconnecting more of them so they "talk" to eachother. Chicago is up to some nearly 500 out of 3000 signals that are interconnected, so it's a start at least, but more needs to be done to get us off the bottom of the list here in this case.

[LakeShoreSoxGo]

I've never seen the city in Gridlock at 11pm on a Sunday night, when I see that, I will be convinced.

[Attrill]

Originally Posted by doublenickels

Happens every time. People "attack the messenger, when they don't like the message".

A lot of serious questions have been raised about the the methods used by TTI to determine the list. The main complaint is this:

Continues to rely on the Travel Time Index, which is built on the unrealistic baseline assumption that travel times should (and could) be no longer during peak periods as during non‐peak periods and obscures the effect of land use patterns in creating longer travel distances.

They do nothing to compensate for how far the average commuter has to drive to get to work. This means that they rank Nashville (where commuters spend an average of 268 hours per year commuting) as being better than Portland (where commuters spend an average of 193 hours per year commuting). The TTI report has NOTHING to do with how long it takes to get to work, it just has to do with how fast you drive getting there (even if it means driving for an hour on an open road vs. 15 minutes on a congested road).

Also, the study is of the Chicago area, not just the city. The vast majority of mileage they studied is in the suburbs, not in the city - i.e. it has nothing to do with driving on Western or Ashland, just the expressways and LSD.

[LakeShoreSoxGo]

^Hence why I said the study was garbage. Imagine how worse of this country would be if people just believed everything they hear from "studies". This was done by a bunch of college tools from Texas.