Still stuck in traffic : coping with peak-hour traffic congestion / Anthony Downs.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Downs, Anthony.

Contributor:

Downs, Anthony.

Series:

James A. Johnson metro series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Traffic congestion--United States.

Traffic congestion.

United States.

Traffic flow--United States.

Traffic flow.

Land use, Urban--United States.

Land use, Urban.

Physical Description:

xi, 455 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm.

Edition:

Revised and expanded edition.

Place of Publication:

Washington, D.C. : Brookings Institution Press, [2004]

Summary:

Congested roads waste commuters' time, cost them money, and degrade the environment. Most Americans agree that traffic congestion is the major problem in their communities -- and it only seems to be getting worse. In this revised and expanded edition of his landmark work Stuck in Traffic, Anthony Downs examines the benefits and costs of various anticongestion strategies. Drawing on a significant body of research by transportation experts and land-use planners, he counters environmentalists and road lobbyists alike by explaining why seemingly simple solutions, such as expanding public transit or expanding roads, have unintended consequences that cancel out their apparent advantages. He argues that while there might be some measurable gains from increasing housing densities, most other land-use strategies have little effect. Indeed, the most powerful solutions, including higher gasoline taxes, increased public funding for transit, and highway tolls, are also the least palatable politically. Still Stuck in Traffic contains new material on the causes of congestion, its dynamics, and its relative incidence in various parts of the country. In clear and realistic terms, Downs seeks to explore why traffic congestion has become part of modern American life and how it can be kept under control.

Contents:

2 The Benefits of Peak-Hour Traffic Congestion 5

3 How Bad Is Traffic Congestion? 14

4 Causes of Recent Increases in Peak-Hour Traffic Congestion 37

5 Incidents and Accidents as Causes of Congestion 61

6 Strategies for Reducing Congestion and Four Basic Principles of Traffic 76

7 Reducing Incident-Caused Congestion 91

8 Increasing Road-Carrying Capacity 101

9 Creating More Public Transit Capacity 117

10 Peak-Hour and Other Road Pricing 152

11 Demand-Side Behavioral Tactics 180

12 Remedies That Increase Densities 200

13 Changing the Jobs-Housing Balance 228

14 Concentrating Jobs in Large Clusters 245

15 Local Growth Management Policies 258

16 Traffic Congestion around the World 272

17 Regional Anticongestion Policies 298

A The Dynamics of Traffic Congestion 355

B Graphic Analysis of Peak-Hour Road Pricing 368

C Translating Gross Residential Densities into Net Residential Densities 371

D A Spatial Model for Simulating Changes 375

E Clustering High-Density Housing Near Transit Stops 390.

Notes:

Rev. ed. of: Stuck in traffic. 1992.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 403-442) and index.

Related Work:

Downs, Anthony. Stuck in traffic.

ISBN:

0815719299

OCLC:

187762410