One upside to economic downturns is that traffic congestion falls off: With less economic activity, people do less driving to work, to the store, and to everywhere else. The flip-side is that when economies recover — as America is doing now, however modestly — traffic makes a comeback. And in this case, to multi-decade highs, according to a new study by Texas A&M University and the data analysis firm Inrix:
[The study] found traffic congestion was worse in 2014 than in any year since at least 1982. American commuters spent 42 hours each on average in traffic last year and wasted a total of 3.1 billion gallons of fuel, costing the economy $160 billion. [The Wall Street Journal]
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