Editorial: Transit will be needed as traffic grows
Traffic congestion may not be too bad these days in Lee County, partly because the economy is so weak.
But congestion is coming back slowly, like the economy.
This county is going to start growing again, and it will be brutally expensive in dollars and disruption to try to build enough roads to keep up with increased traffic. It may be impossible.
In the longer run, we are going to need alternatives to the car - more bus service, maybe even light rail.
The future prospects for traffic here also make it imperative for planners to include bicycle and pedestrian use in road designs, and make it safe for those users to coexist with motor vehicles.
Public transit is heavily subsidized now, and probably always will be. But the trade-off in reduced congestion can be worth it.
A study released Thursday by the Texas Transportation Institute found that drivers here lost 7.5 million hours to traffic delays in 2009, up from 7.2 million the year before. With 5.9 million gallons in wasted fuel, the study put the cost of traffic delays in Lee County in 2009 at $183 million, ranking 69th of 439 areas studied.
"We're only seeing free flowing traffic today because of the downturn in the economy," Commissioner Ray Judah said. "That's going to build back up and necessitate more public transportation."
The Metropolitan Planning Organization, which develops regional transportation plans, last month wisely rejected flyovers along the busy Colonial Boulevard and Veterans Memorial Parkway corridor. They pushed instead for investment in public transportation.
A recent MPO study found that creating a system that would attract wide ridership would cost 2.5 times the current budget.
But roads are costly, too, especially when they are congested. We need to keep subsidizing and slowly expanding Lee Tran, and planning for a mixed transportation system.