Is Traffic Congestion Growing Three Times As Fast As Economy?

cartechboy writes "Math watch time: For many traffic analysts, INRIX is considered the gold-standard. This week the company says traffic congestion surged in 2013 and grew over three times as fast as the American economy. The bad news: If true, this reverses two consecutive years of traffic declines with a six percent increase in 2013. (GDP, by comparison, grew 1.9 percent last year.) The analysts then theorize links between economic growth and traffic congestion, which makes sense on the surface. (As the economy improves, more jobs are created, so more commuters on the roads) But INRIX's theory creates as many questions as it answers. For example, the U.S. GDP has been steadily growing since 2009. So why did congestion decline in 2011 and 2012?"

Re:Obama

[pepty]

Fair enough but you forgot to mention that one party has been strongly against spending money on public infrastructure and doubly so while Obama is in office. While building new roads and improving public transportation is only a delaying action for congestion it does at least delay it.

Re:Obama

[Rich0]

Education and research is productive busy work.

You would rather have some eureka moments such as penicillin coming out of useless studies such as an empirical study of why sandwiches grow mould, than a person without goals.

I agree, and so is stuff like maintaining basic infrastructure (doesn't take much skill to fill in potholes, and yet they're EVERYWHERE around where I live right now).

The problem with research is that many simply aren't cut out for it. Anybody can do one task on an assembly line (which is why the assembly line was invented). Most people just don't care enough about science to make real contributions in research/etc.