AAA Mid-Atlantic News Release

701 – 15^th Street, NW, Washington, DC  20005                Contacts:   Lon Anderson, 703/AAA-NEWS

www.aaamidatlantic.com                                                                                                cell: 703/980-8868

       Deborah DeYoung, 703/AAA-NEWS

cell: 202/253-2171

U.S. CENSUS BUREAU CONFIRMS:

WASHINGTON IS NOTORIOUS FOR GRIDLOCK

Actual times rival New Yorkers’ commutes,

outstrip those in LA, AAA Mid-Atlantic notes

WASHINGTON, DC (February 25, 2004) – The Washington region today received one more harsh reminder of the severity of its transportation gridlock: the U.S. Census Bureau announced that many Washington-area commuters spend almost as much time trekking to work as those in the New York region.

“This is especially bad news because many of the New York travel times reflect commutes by train, while the majority of Washingtonians commute by car,” said Lon Anderson, Director of Public and Government Relations at AAA Mid-Atlantic.  The local communities with the longest commutes are:

·        Prince William County, VA – 35.5 minutes

·        Prince George’s County, MD – 34.6 minutes

·        Montgomery County, MD – 30.9 minutes

Comparing region-wide averages, Washington has bumped Los Angeles – long the emblem of gridlocked traffic.  The Census Bureau’s ranking of large cities with 250,000 or more people, and their average commute time, is:

·        New York – 38.4 minutes

·        Philadelphia – 30.3 minutes

·        Riverside, CA – 29.8 minutes

·        Baltimore – 29.7 minutes

·        Washington, DC – 29.4 minutes

·        San Francisco – 29.2 minutes

·        Oakland, CA 29.1 minutes

·        Los Angeles – 28.5 minutes

·        Boston – 28.2 minutes

“Washington is becoming synonymous with terrible gridlock – and today it earned one more strong nomination to the transportation hall of shame,” Anderson said. “We pay lip service to solving our gridlock but sometime soon we are going to have start paying greenbacks – tens of billions of them – to address commuters’ crisis in a serious way.

“The problem is that investment in our transportation system hasn’t kept up with our growing economy.  Just last week, local leaders banded together to note that the area’s unfunded transportation needs for 2005-2010 alone total $13.2 billion,” he said.  “There is plenty of blame to go around, but what motorists and all commuters need desperately is to have their misery on area roads be taken seriously – and for practical remedies to gridlock to be given the highest priority.

“At the top of anyone’s list in Maryland is building the Inter-County Connector,” Anderson said.  “The Highway Users Federation ranked bottlenecks at two Maryland interchanges – at I-270 and I-495, and at I-95and I-495 – as among the nation’s worst – a situation the ICC certainly would improve.” Sixty percent of Maryland drivers polled recently by AAA Mid-Atlantic support the ICC’s construction; just 16 percent oppose it.  Other urgent needs are:

• A new Potomac River crossing north of the American Legion Bridge – which enjoys the support of 73 percent of Washington-area drivers, AAA Mid-Atlantic’s poll found;
• An eastern or western Beltway by-pass;
• Reconstructing and upgrading the Gainesville/Route 29 interchange to add HOV and general lanes;
• Additional lanes on I-66 inside the Capital Beltway;
• Adding a fourth lane on I-95 between Newington and the Occoquan River; and
• Mass transit for the Tysons Corner and Dulles corridors.

 “There are other ways for local leaders to improve the situation and protect our communities’ appeal to employers and skilled workers,” Anderson said. “Many are relatively simple fixes: timing traffic lights, assigning police to key intersections to prevent drivers from blocking the box, dispatching tow trucks to quickly clear the crashes that account for 40 percent of congestion, and promoting tele-work and ride-sharing.

“Others require more effort, but have proven successful elsewhere – such as using high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes and congestion pricing to thin traffic, deploying computer sensors and message boards to help steer motorists around problem areas, and investing in bus-rapid transit and other mass-transit solutions. The whole answer isn’t just road construction, although that is essential,” Anderson said.  “We need everything, from solutions that require real investment, to smaller projects that target problem stretches of road. 

“Today’s Census Bureau report adds significantly to the debate,” he added, “because it is unbiased and its finding – that commuters are spending an entire week’s worth of time every year just to get to work – is irrefutable.”

AAA Mid-Atlantic serves nearly 900,000 Washington-area residents and a total of 3.5 million members from Virginia to New Jersey.