Clearly, the best part of being a trucker is no doubt spending time in traffic. Nothing is more enjoyable than watching vehicles heading the other direction on the highway zooming by as you fight painstakingly for every inch!

The American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) decided to estimate the cost of traffic to the economy in 2021, so as to provide information that could convince lawmakers to provide more funding for infrastructure. The number that they found was nothing short of extraordinary.

$94.6 Billion

Almost $100 billion in lost economic opportunity happened as a result of traffic in 2021, according to research from ATRI. The number comes from a variety of costs adding up: driver wages, vehicular depreciation, fuel costs, etc..

There are a multitude of factors that led to the highest number for a year ever since they started keeping track in 2016. The three largest factors; an increase in fuel prices, more traffic due to commuters returning to the office, and increased demand due to large purchases being put off during the pandemic; all were a direct result of our good friend COVID-19.

ATRI estimates the total lost productivity of 1.27 billion hours to that of 460,000 full-time drivers, which is roughly a seventh of the number of total truckers in the nation.

ATRI also broke down the states with the most costly traffic congestion, and it appears to mirror a population density map, with states such as California, Texas, Florida, and New York at the top.

Conclusion

Even if the data the ATRI has compiled is wildly off and traffic only costs the economy $25 billion per year, that is still a large amount of economic activity being lost due to congestion. Hopefully members of Congress and the Department of Transportation are able to read the results of this study and have it motivate them to implement more roadways to vehicles, commercial and passenger alike, from traveling at a snail’s pace.

Recently, more federal spending for infrastructure has been on the docket, so hopefully once it becomes a reality drivers on the road will be able to breathe and travel with ease.

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