Escaping Gridlock

"As cities sprawl farther into distant suburbs, an hour a day in the car has become the national norm...Despite the fact that the national interstate highway system is fully built, governments spend $200 million every day constructing, fixing, and improving roads in the United States. What do we get for our money? The National Transportation Board predicts that delays caused by congestion will increase by 5.6 billion hours in the period between 1995 and 2015, wasting an unnecessary 7.3 billion gallons of fuel. Seventy percent of all daily peak-hour travel on interstates now occurs under stop-and-go conditions, and a measurable "rush hour" will soon be a thing of the past. This article examines the highway lobbying groups, some of the early transportation legislation, the 1939 World Fair GM Futurama exhibit, the suburbanization of America, a discussion of transit, congestion pricing, and telecommuting as it pertains to congestion."