Traffic

I keep seeing articles about how Americans are driving fewer and fewer miles these days due to high gas costs. Take, for instance, this article [newsday.com]:

"U.S. fuel demand averaged about 18.6 million barrels a day during the past four weeks, the lowest since June 1999, according to a weekly supply report from the Energy Department, released Thursday [Oct. 16]."

Depending on which source you use, the decline in US driving is generally down a few percent from last year. For instance, take this article [tirereview.com]:

"June figures [from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration] showed a drop of 5% and July continued with decreases of 3.6% from the previous year."

Every time I see an article like this, I scoff, because I'm out on the roads every day, and I haven't felt a decrease in traffic. Then again, without actually measuring traffic objectively, it might be difficult to perceive a decrease of a few percent.


I'm starting to become a believer, though. There are a few key bottlenecks along my commute that have been noticeably better in the past few months. One is along I-90, traveling west from Cleveland -- as you approach the West 117th St exit during afternoon rush hour, there would almost always be a slowdown due to the heavy merge of on-ramp traffic. However, I haven't had to slow down there in a while.

Image of traffic from respres' Flickr photostream [flickr.com].