A Primer on Traffic Congestion
Looking at the root causes and potential approaches we can take to solve one of the biggest problems with modern transportation
In the US alone, 17.4 billion hours are wasted sitting in traffic. During this time, over 3 billion additional gallons of fuel are emitted into the atmosphere (which is ~2% of the 134 billion gallons of gasoline consumed by Americans each year).
Furthermore, traffic congestion worsens as cities grow. Considering by 2050 13% of the worlds population is expected to shift from suburban/rural areas to urban cities, traffic congestion is expected to increase at astronomical rates.
Take Los Angeles for example, a metropolitan area of ~90,000km2 which has more roadway miles than all of Canada (~10M km2). Traffic in LA is known to be deadly, with drivers spending on average 119 hours per year sitting in traffic (which is almost double the 66 hours drivers experienced in 1987).
This trend is hardly unique to Los Angeles, with all major metropolitan regions in the US experiencing the same fate.
