Observations about traffic congestion from Colorado
- March 22, 2024
- Posted by: Joe Milazzo II
- Category: Blog
RTA members and partners,
Michael Hogan, an economist in the Center for Applied Economics and Strategy at RTI International who also serves as RTA’s policy and research coordinator, shared a recent article about traffic on the I-70 Mountain Corridor in Colorado.
It is a very readable piece, and a helpful one, to better understand some of the questions about traffic congestion in growing areas and along highly-trafficked corridors.
It speaks to travel alternatives — buses, vans, rail — and the costs, time to implement, flexibility, and viability of each. It also notes the role of pricing.
It also highlights the routines that people and communities will use to relieve or get out of traffic congestion to improve access to resorts (e.g.) .
It also delves briefly into to the concept of induced demand (i.e., build more of the roadway capacity that people want and they will indeed use it, at least during rush hours).
The article also notes that one way to eliminate congestion is to have the population shrink — which is neither viable in the Triangle nor preferable.
I hope you found the article to useful to you. I found it to be a good read.
Joe
