"but there is one opportunity staring us all in the face that hardly any commuter seems to notice-public transit. If you're like most drivers, public transit is for other people. But here's the thing: investing in better buses and trains could make your commute faster and less stressful, without you ever setting foot on one. Maybe transit is for other people to ride, but it can help improve your car trips."
"A surprisingly small drop in cars on the road-just 5-10%-can dramatically ease congestion, and public transit is one of the most effective ways to get that drop. Congestion doesn't increase linearly as the number of vehicles goes up. Streets handle car traffic just fine, until you cross a certain capacity threshold when everything quickly collapses. A transportation planning model developed in the 1960s quantifies this phenomenon."
Traffic congestion in the U.S. causes Americans to lose an average of an entire work week to delays, raises commuter costs by 16% to $269 billion annually, and increases commute times 10% for commuters and 19% for trucks since 2019. Long traffic exposure raises stress by 80% and aggressiveness by 52% while producing back pain, leg pain, and headaches. Public transit can reduce vehicle volumes by 5–10%, which triggers nonlinear improvements because roads collapse past capacity thresholds. Transportation models show modest vehicle reductions yield disproportionate delay reductions, improving travel times for drivers and freight.
Read at Fast Company
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