Reducing highway congestion has no easy fix and requires a range of strategies, including reducing travel demand through improved land use planning, and creating walkable and bikeable communities; supporting and encouraging telecommuting and the use of flexible work hours; and investing in transit and other alternative ways to get around.
When a roadway investment is necessary, the region calls for implementing traffic management technologies; identifying lower-cost, high-benefit spot mobility improvements; implementing E-ZPass lanes that benefit transit and carpools; and as a final solution strategically increasing capacity. Targeted investments to improve travel times on the region’s highway system also helps limit the negative impacts of congestion on people’s daily lives and on the economy.
Costs of congestion
Congestion costs the Twin Cities over $2.6 billion each year. Many of those costs can be quantified in lost time and wasted fuel, but there are also costs to the environment, to public health and to the economic competitiveness of the region.