Philly-area traffic not so bad, study finds
By Paul Nussbaum
Inquirer Staff Writer
Drivers in the Philadelphia region lose almost a full workweek stuck in traffic each year, but they have it better than motorists in most large American urban areas.
An annual report on highway congestion by the Texas Traffic Institute showed that Philadelphia-area commuters sat for 39 hours in traffic jams in 2009, compared with an average of 50 hours in the nation's 15 largest metro areas.
Only commuters in San Diego, Phoenix, and Detroit spent less time stuck in traffic than Philadelphia-area drivers, according to the 2010 Urban Mobility Report.
The most congested areas were Chicago and Washington (70 hours lost per year), Los Angeles (63), Houston (58), and San Francisco (49), the study said.
"One of the very positive benefits of this region is we are not a Los Angeles and we are not an Atlanta," said Scott Brady, manager of the office of travel monitoring for the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission. "You are really not talking about serious congestion here, compared to some of those other areas."
Brady said local counts showed traffic volume had dropped in the Philadelphia region since 2007 because of the weak economy. An exception to that, he noted, was in the King of Prussia area where Route 422, the Schuylkill Expressway, and the Pennsylvania Turnpike converge.
If you think traffic jams are more prevalent than they used to be, you're right, according to the study.
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