Transportation

Traffic Congestion

Traffic Congestion

Traffic congestion is a headache for commuters and has a negative impact on the delivery of goods and services. The commute times in the Hampton Roads region are close to the national average, but congestion is most severe when traffic is forced into bottlenecks at bridges and tunnels.

Why is This Important?

A transportation infrastructure is valuable to an economy because it facilitates the mobility of people, goods and services; the easier that movement, the lower its total cost and the higher the benefits to both business and consumers. By impeding movement, traffic congestion results in increased costs, stress, pollution, and road and vehicle wear.

How is Hampton Roads Doing?

The national average commute time is 25 minutes. Locally, the U.S. Census measured the average commute time for 30 of Virginia's larger counties and cities; their commute times ranged from a low of 17 minutes in Lynchburg to a high of 40 minutes in Fauquier County in 2010. Cities in the Hampton Roads region had average commute times ranging from 21 to 29 minutes.

Average Commute Time to Work, By Area City (in Minutes)

	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010
Hampton	22	22.9	22.9	21.6	21.6
Virginia Beach	22.2	23	22.5	22.9	23.4
Newport News	22.3	21.1	21.5	20.7	21.1
Portsmouth	22.4	22.9	24.0	21.1	27.4
Norfolk	22.7	20.4	22.0	21.4	21.0
Chesapeake	23.7	23.6	24.3	23.6	24.8
Suffolk	28.6	26.9	26.8	27.5	28.7

Relative to peer Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs), the Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News, VA-NC MSA (Hampton Roads MSA) had the second lowest commuting time at 23.7 minutes. The Harrisonburg, VA MSA had the lowest commute times at 19.45 minutes.

Within Virginia, Hampton Roads has an average commute time on par with other MSAs in the state. Although its commute time is nearly 22 percent longer than the Harrisonburg MSA, it is substantially lower than the commute times of the Washington DC (34 minutes) and the Winchester (30 minutes) metro areas.

What Influences Traffic Congestion?

Road usage, as measured by vehicle miles traveled (VMT), has increased significantly over the past few decades as rising incomes have led to:

• increased car ownership
• increased desire for lower-density living arrangements
• new road capacity
• a long-term trend toward lower real costs of personal transportation

A combination of factors contributes to congestion, including:

• the capacity of the roadway
• demand times for using the roadway
• presence of tolls or other delays
• the condition of the road

In the last two decades, increases have occurred in the number of road miles that experience congestion, the frequency of serious congestion incidents, and the number of localities that experience chronic congestion, especially during prime commuting hours. In the Hampton Roads region, congestion is most severe where traffic is forced into bottlenecks at bridges and tunnels. In addition to increases in VMT and the commensurate increases in congestion, the cost of congestion has risen in terms of lost wages, productivity, and the increased cost of freight transport.

However, highway congestion is not just a problem of recurring "rush hour" delay in major cities. More than half of all congestion is non-recurring -- caused by crashes, disabled vehicles, adverse weather, work zones, special events and other temporary disruptions to the highway transportation system.