The Texas Transportation Institute released its annual mobility report detailing just how much time people spend on the road during commute times.
San Antonio ranks at number 30 with about 38 additional hours spent in extra travel time per year. Considering that San Antonio is the seventh largest city in the United States, that's not too bad.
"So you’re spending about a week’s worth of vacation traveling in San Antonio traffic," said Tim Lomax, one of the researchers for the report.
The time spent in traffic hasn’t increased much nationally, but Texas has seen additional time on the road.
"The economic recession and slow growth in employment has nationally caused congestion to be about the same of what it was last year," he said. "In Texas, with our generally good economy, congestion is actually up in some of the big cities."
In the past 20 years San Antonio has gone from only 10 hours spend in traffic to its current time of 38. Lomax attributes that to an additional 300,000 people in population and job growth without enough adequate expansion in the city’s roadway system.
The report estimates that the extended travel time costs San Antonio auto commuters 16 gallons per year.
Drivers in both Houston and Dallas see about 50 hours of extra commute time annually.
Additional Resources:
- Click here to see the full report
- The Texas A&M Transportation Institute is online at: tti.tamu.edu
