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Missouri Congestion
Meeting Missouri's
Future Mobility Needs | Highways
and Roads | Bridges | Travel | Congestion | Safety | Economic
Impact | Vehicle Operating Costs | Funding
and Taxes
Increasing highway travel and population growth, combined
with an inadequate amount of new road capacity, is generating
high levels of urban traffic congestion in Missouri and costing
Missouri drivers millions of dollars in delays and wasted
fuel.
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- 35 percent of Missouri’s major
urban roads carry a high volume of traffic and are
considered congested because they are often carrying
more traffic than they were designed to handle.
- Missouri’s vehicle miles of travel
increased by a rate 30 times that of lane miles during
the 1990s. Total lane miles in the state increased
one percent from 1990 to 2000, from 247,798 miles to
251,209 miles.
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- Missouri experienced 10 percent increase in population
between 1990 and 2001 from 5.1 million to 5.6 million residents.
- Missouri’s population is projected
to increase another 13 percent by 2055, reaching 6.3
million.
- Annual
delay per rush hour driver increased by 127 percent in
the St. Louis urban area in the 1990s, from 19 to 43
hours.
- Annual delay per rush hour driver
increased by 171 percent in the Kansas City urban area
in the 1990s, from 7 to 19
hours.
- Annual cost due to traffic congestion in St. Louis in
2000 was $805 million.
- Annual cost due to traffic congestion in Kansas City
in 2000 was $245 million.
- In Missouri, 603 out of 1,743 miles,
of the state’s
major roads carry a high volume of traffic.
- The average commute in Missouri in 2000 was 23.8 minutes,
up 10 percent from 21.6 minutes in 1990, according to
the U.S. Census Bureau.
- Improving traffic congestion not only improves the environment,
it improves fuel economy. In fact, the single best future
solution to air quality and fuel economy will be through
improving traffic flow on roads.
Congestion has worsened because road
capacity hasn’t
kept pace with road use. Since 1970:
- The U.S. population has increased by 38 percent
- The number of licensed drivers has increased by 71
- Registered vehicles have increased by 99 percent
- The number of miles Americans drive every year has increased
by 148 percent
- New road miles have grown by a scant 6 percent
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