Traffic? It’s not that bad here

A new study confirms what Richmond motorists who have been to other cities already know: Traffic in Virginia's capital region isn't all that bad.

Yesterday's report by the Texas Transportation Institute said the average Richmond-area driver wastes about 20 hours per year stuck in traffic.

The study, published annually since 1982, shows the 20-hour figure applied to travelers in peak drive times in the Richmond area in 2007, the most recent year of the study. That represented the fourth consecutive year the figure stood at 20 hours.

Richmond's annual delay figure was as low as six hours in 1982, hit 10 in 1986 and peaked at 23 in 1996. After falling to 16 hours in 2000, it crept up to 20 in 2004 before leveling off at that number.

Those numbers pale in comparison with the Washington metro area's traffic, which ranked second only to Los Angeles in congestion, with the average driver wasting about 62 hours a year in 2007.

"Some of that is related to the good general economy in Washington, with the expansion of government and government services," said Tim Lomax, a research engineer for the institute and the study's co-author.

Washington-area drivers wasted three more hours in the car compared with the previous year, the study said.

Adding in the price of gasoline and lost productivity, sitting in traffic cost the Washington area almost $2.8 billion in 2007, Lomax's study concludes. Ninety million gallons of gas and 133 million hours were wasted.

In the Richmond area, sitting in traffic cost $202 million in 2007. There were 6.6 million gallons of gas and 10.2 million hours wasted.

Elsewhere nationally, Houston, Las Vegas, and Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham, N.C., had worse or equally bad traffic compared with the previous year, victims of a fast-growing population that outpaced roadway capacity.

The report urged state and federal governments to act now to develop highways or mass transit because these programs can take 10 to 15 years to complete. It said short-term fixes such as rapidly removing crashed vehicles and timing traffic signals also would help, while employers can offer flexible work hours and telecommuting to reduce travel during traditional rush hours.

The findings come as the Obama administration has signaled that it wants to keep transportation funding at current levels for 18 months rather than move forward on a proposed six-year, $500 billion bill that would increase highway aid 40 percent and double transit funding. There are questions about how to pay for that.

Robert E. Lang, co-director of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech, said the recession is altering how many people work, live and travel, but that won't be enough to hold back traffic congestion. With the U.S. growing by 3 million people each year, the nation's aging infrastructure won't be able to keep up without broad upgrades -- especially once the economy picks up again.

"It's the lull before the coming storm," he said.

Staff writer Joe Macenka and The Associated Press contributed to this report.