Greater Boston traffic congestion at tipping point
Photo | Courtesy of State House News Service
Boston named the worst congested city in the U.S.
You could argue that traffic is not just a top story of 2019, but a top story of this century.
The frustration this year hit a fever pitch when INRIX deemed Boston as the most congested city in the country and a year-long Baker administration study put facts and figures on a trend most drivers had already observed.
A few lowlights from the congestion report: roads within the Route 128 belt are deemed as being in "peak period" for traffic for 14 hours per weekday; the commute from Burlington to Cambridge's Kendall Square is so unpredictable that it could take 25 minutes or it could take 75 minutes; 48 percent of roadways inside 128 are congested by 7 a.m. for the morning commute and 62 percent are congested by 3 p.m. for the evening commute.
"People in Massachusetts don't need this study to confirm what they experience every day: congestion has gone from bad to worse, from occasional inconvenience and frustration to a constant and daily reality," Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack wrote in an introduction to the findings.
The report added some context to the endless Beacon Hill debate about how to address the state's transportation woes, particularly because it explicitly warned that the growing problem could be a drag on the economy and pose significant challenges for greenhouse gas reduction efforts.
The year ended with lots of ideas floating around about addressing the problem, but no real momentum behind any of them. House lawmakers are weighing new tax, toll, fee and revenue proposals to make the MBTA and to improve public transportation options. Gov. Baker, who opposes raising the gas tax or adjusting tolls to incentivize motorists to travel off peak, is studying the idea of new highway lanes where people could pay more to travel faster and new methods of encouraging drivers to travel together rather than alone.
How successful they are at finding consensus on effective responses could determine whether traffic remains a top story this time next year.
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