The latest figures on Denver traffic should come as no surprise to anyone who has sat in gridlock on Colorado Boulevard or who fights through bumper-to-bumper rush hours on Interstate 25.
It’s bad.
Plus, according to the annual Urban Mobility Scorecard released last month by the Texas A&M Transportation Institute, traffic snarls are increasing even in Colorado’s smaller communities, from Longmont to Pueblo, Greeley to Grand Junction.
Overloaded highways, crashes and disabled vehicles, construction, mistimed traffic signals, slow-moving trucks and inattentive motorists all contribute to our misery over the miles.
Here’s the cost: The average commuter in Denver spends 49 hours stuck in traffic each year, wasting 24 gallons of fuel and taking $1,101 out of our pockets in terms of actual expenses and lost productivity. Motorists in Colorado Springs spend 35 hours delayed and waste $772.
All of those figures are up from last year and nearly triple the figures from 1982 (when the institute began tallying the costs of congestion), the result of population increases, development and sprawl, and a growing economy all unmatched by public investment in transportation improvements.
Financial concerns aside, traffic is one of the greatest contributors to stress among commuters, who spend an average of 25 minutes on the road both to and from work. Studies have shown commuting contributes to higher blood pressure and cholesterol, greater anxiety and risk of depression, and a general decline in happiness.
Being stuck in traffic is correlated with higher divorce rates and obesity, and we all know the helplessness and frustration of staring at a string of red lights between us and our destination, prompting some of us to exhibit irrational, dangerous and aggressive driving.
Not even those of us outside the urban areas are immune to the aggravations. Pick a region of the state, and you’ll find maddening — and often unnecessary — traffic delays: On Colorado 82 from Glenwood Springs to Aspen, the 65 mph speed limit is punctuated by out-of-sync stoplights only a half-mile apart. In Boulder (perhaps by design), it can be quicker to ride your bike on dedicated paths across town than to drive on major arterials Broadway or 28th Street. And don’t even get me started on I-70 coming out of the mountains on a Sunday afternoon.
(My “normal” 15-minute commute can take upwards of 23 minutes due to the frustrating consecutive red lights on Summit Boulevard in Frisco. And there’s a reason that people in Breckenridge rarely venture down to socialize with the rest of the community, just 9 miles away on Colorado 9.)
The Colorado Department of Transportation deserves credit for its non-stop — so to speak — efforts to improve traffic flow through frequent albeit unsuccessful attempts to fix the traffic lights, as well as highway expansions, additions of so-called Lexus lanes, and providing up-to-date traffic information on scoreboard-like signs, its website and, incongruously, a smart-phone app that also helpfully reminds drivers not to text and drive.
Gov. John Hickenlooper recently pledged $100 million in transportation funds to bolster the state’s network of bike paths, but that will go only so far to reduce traffic.
The single biggest way to reduce traffic — mass transit in the form of light rail and buses — has always proven popular. But those are expensive and need perpetual government subsidies, particularly in the sprawling West, where relatively long distances and low population density diminish the demand.
So until we’re all in driverless cars that will take away the human element — I’m talking to you, Mr. Wait Until the Last Moment to Merge, Forcing Everyone Else to Slam on the Brakes — we’re all stuck with a problem that’s only going to get worse.
Steve Lipsher (slipsher@ ) of Silverthorne writes a monthly column.
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