The impact of COVID-19 on road traffic has been profound and widespread and, given the shutdowns that have occurred, completely predictable.
Equally clear is the lesson we can learn from our experience, especially now that America’s infrastructure needs are back to the fore. This lesson reads: The easiest way to reduce traffic collapse is, and always has been, to reduce the need for limited road space.
When 14 million people were suddenly unemployed, they no longer took up street space to get to their jobs. And many of those who still had jobs weren’t out on the streets either, but were assigned to a home office program that left our transport network less crowded than in many decades.
As a result, traffic delay decreased by 60 to 70% almost overnight in March and April 2020. Traffic jams rebounded in the second half of the year, but most of the key stats – extra travel time, wasted fuel, and total costs – were half of their 2019 levels.
On the other hand, truck traffic hardly decreased over the course of the year, which can be attributed to the increased delivery of everyday items such as hamburgers, muesli and toilet paper.
The annual Urban Mobility Report published by Texas A&M University has long advocated a multi-strategy approach to address the country’s roadside infarction dilemma. This includes making the best possible use of the existing network by quickly eliminating accidents and timing traffic signals, expanding capacities for cars, trucks, buses, trains as well as cycle and pedestrian routes, and changing land development patterns.
But the way travelers use the transportation system by changing when, where and how they travel produces the fastest results – as long as broadband service and home employers support flexible working hours. It makes sense to take a bold step towards reducing traffic jams. This is especially true at a time when the pandemic-related easing of traffic is still fresh in our heads.
We’ve been tracking traffic jams at the Texas A&M Transportation Institute for nearly 40 years. During this time, we have never seen such a dramatic decrease in traffic delays and associated costs as we did in 2020. Even when the US lost 6 million jobs in the 2009 recession, America barely hit the pause button in traffic jams, which, along with a recovering labor market, quickly resumed its pattern of growth.
Traffic jams aren’t the only obstacle to travel efficiency, of course. Our biggest public health crisis in more than a century has already changed how and where we work, live and shop. Will companies be willing to commit to home office options or flexible working hours in the long term to reduce traffic congestion while improving the quality of life of their employees?
These changes also raise long-term issues of equity and environmental justice, transport finance and air quality, and other issues – none of which offer a single solution – just like road congestion. During the pandemic, people with low incomes, limited access to technology, fixed work hours and other transportation barriers faced numerous challenges, such as most of them were in high demand.
COVID-19 has given us a historic break in traffic, but also reinforced important and timeless lessons in mobility management during a crisis and beyond. It remains to be seen how well we can apply what we have learned to improve mobility and transport links for all communities.
Tim Lomax, David Cabinet and Bill Eisele are researchers at the Texas A&M Transportation Institute and co-authors of the Urban Mobility Report 2021. They wrote this column for the Dallas Morning News.
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