Most readers are familiar, I'm sure, with Stephen Covey of the Seven Habits fame. One of his many pithy bits of wisdom is apt here, namely that you ought to make sure that in addition to climbing your ladder quickly you oughta make sure it's up against the right wall in the first place. TTI needs to re-think things methodologically.

The guy who figured this out is Joe Cortright of CEOs for Cities, and he laid out the case against this ranking three years ago. You can listen to him debating TTI co-author Tim Lomax here. Lomax seems impervious to the critique in his response, and in this year's ranking it seems that holds true.

There are some issues with focussing on road congestion as the transportation enemy #1, as this report tends to encourage due to the massive amount of media coverage it receives and due to the simple fact that we all hate road congestion. As James says in his response above, focussing on this leaves a lot of commuters out of the picture entirely. The latest Census shows how many of us ride bus or rail, walk, telecommute or bike to work, as Aaron Renn sums up nicely. In the D.C. region it's about 20 percent, for example.

Road congestion has also been correlated with economic growth, which should spur some doubt about targeting it for elimination. On the other hand, to be fair, as the economy recovers it looks like road traffic and congestion both may not be as well-linked as before.

All of this is to say that this may not be the right focus for a ranking of metros, or at least not the right sole focus. Time, it seems to me, is much more important. I don't envision myself on my deathbed saying "I wish I had driven faster" (unless I take up a NASCAR career somehow). But I think we all wish we had some time back.

Economists certainly value time. And this is where TTI gets strange. James contrasts their treatment of Chicago and Atlanta to make the point, and Cortright does the same with Charlotte and Chicago. Let me put a finer point on it with a simple made-up example. By TTI's lights, if the average commute consumed one free-flowing hour, that metro would rank higher than one where just 30 more-congested minutes were lost. That just doesn't make sense.

Now, I understand TTI's been doing this for more than two decades, and when you do rankings you feel methodologically bound to what you've always done. I've produced an annual ranking for six years now, and every year before we make any changes to our criteria we debate it very thoroughly. But this ranking gets too much attention for it to remain off-the-wall. It's warping the transportation debate by focussing so exclusively on road speeds in our metro areas as a measurement of performance. TTI needs to add a component that values commute time more accurately, or some other academic institution needs to step forward to produce a complementary assessment (perhaps funded by a DOT grant, hint, hint).

Having said all this about the diagnostic portion of the report, I am on the other hand gratified to see that it mentions a variety of remedies for the problem of road congestion (not just costly capacity expansion). Two are echoed by other experts here -- pricing and carpooling/vanpooling/shuttling. Too few commuters benefit from useful price signals and multiple-rider options like the service offered by vanpooling company vRide. Those are fiscally responsible, cost-effective ways of addressing road congestion. I applaud those who promote those solutions, and look forward to helping to mainstream them in the coming years.

The following is a guest comment by Mark Rose, gounder and CEO of Ridezu, a social mobile platform for carpooling.

The fundamental problem here is too many vehicles on a fixed capacity system. Also as the economy heats up the number of vehicles will increase continuing to stress the fixed capacity system. The possible solutions sets are finite:

1) Increase the capacity

2) Reduce the number of vehicles.

I am going to ignore increasing the capacity largely because it’s a tremendously expensive to do as a broad-based solution, although it can be incredibly effective in narrow stretches of high congestion – just make the straw wider at key choke points.

Instead I am going to focus on reducing the number of vehicles. We actually have a great freeway and road system broadly – we just don’t make efficient use of it. Fact: 100 million Americans drive to work everyday alone. More than that, it’s right in front of our eyes. When you’re driving to work - look our your window to your left and right - 90% of the time you’re going to see a single passenger car.

Of course the solution is increasing vehicle density via carpooling, van pooling and shuttles. But why don’t people do more of this?

Van pools and shuttles are actually good solutions, especially for large companies. In the Bay Area, companies, like Google, Facebook, Tesla, PayPal are leading the charge here in providing shuttle service for employees. It’s great and it’s gets to places the public transportation can’t. Unfortunately, when you start getting to smaller companies (less than 1,000 people), offering a vanpool or shuttle program can be quite expensive – and it’s not the top of the list. Even for the large companies, it’s still expensive.

Carpools are great, but you’ve got historic problems of synchronizing schedules, finding the right people, and some obvious awkward social interactions. This is why we’ve build Ridezu (http://www.ridezu.com), a social mobile platform for carpooling. Ridezu matches riders and drivers who are going from hub A (think Park and Ride lot) to bub B (think company), at flexible time points, using your your mobile phone and leveraging Facebook to break down social barriers. Ridezu is unique in that it charges riders at a rate which is 25% less than the price of gas, and transmits these funds to the drivers to cover their gas and maintenance costs. OK, gratuitous company plug over.

The real challenge is how do you incent consumers to change their behavior? I do believe it comes down to simple incentives: time and money.

Carpooling saves time (about 1 minute per mile). Also, for people who are driving, it’s great just to be able to check email or look out the window and de-stress a little. What’s interesting here is that people need social proof. Once people start carpooling they love it. Before they do they are worried if it will actually save them time and they are worried about the specifics of their daily life, like I couldn’t carpool because my kid has a doctor’s appointment next week at 3.

On the financial side, sharing in costs definitely helps. In fact the average carpooler can save about $800 per year. Strangely, most consumers don’t realize this. Moreover, I am not sure it’s enough. Employers can offer incentives and also the government should offer some tax breaks too. The employer incentive is getting more productivity and happiness from their employee base. From the public side, there is current tax break under IRS Code 132(f) for van pools, shuttles, public transportation and parking which amounts to $1,500 a year ($125/month), but it specifically excludes the benefit from carpools. Surprising, I know.

We see a trend toward more carpooling as a viable solution to the problem, and want to drive awareness and incentives, from both the public and private sector, to help this more of a reality.

It’s impossible to control all the factors that make commuting consistent from day to day. A well-maintained rail or bus rapid transit system is one way to control some of these factors. Congestion pricing is another. However, the planning time index released by the Texas Transportation Institute misses much of the complete commuting picture – as most of the performance measures provided in their Urban Mobility Report do. In the Washington, D.C. area, it would recommend that for a 30-minute trip we budget upwards of 3 hours. Who in their right mind would leave home at 4:30 rather than 7:30?

The Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) is right that unpredictability in commute times is the most frustrating aspect of the daily trip to work. That’s part of the reason why surveys find that those driving alone – particularly on congested freeways – have the most negative feelings about their commutes.

Freeway-based commute times are not only variable from day to day. They also change from year to year, most often for the worse. Trips by rail or bus rapid transit, on the other hand, typically hold constant over time. Consider three work trips within two of the regions ranked worst for congestion, Washington, D.C. and Chicago. (We calculated the distances and times using Google Maps and the TTI calculations for peak-hour delay.)

The first is a 16-mile jaunt from Fairfax in suburban Virginia to downtown, near the Farragut North Metro station. In 1982, that trip by car would have taken an average of 25.5 minutes at peak hour, according to the Travel Time Index. By 2010, the same trip took 30.4 minutes, an increase of nearly 20 percent. The same trip by Metro rail took roughly 27 minutes when the line opened and takes 27 minutes today.

A 7-mile, peak-hour trip to the same destination from Bethesda took an average of 23.3 minutes by car in 1982 but nearly 28 minutes in 2010. The rail trip, meanwhile, holds steady at 17 minutes. In Chicago, a similar 7-mile trip from the Wrigleyville/Lake View area to inside the downtown “loop” took 20.2 minutes by car 30 years ago, but takes closer to 23 minutes now. The transit trip has been 23 minutes right along.

Now, there are factors not included here, such as walking to and from the station for the transit trip, or parking and walking from the car for the auto trip. We also should note that the TTI has changed its data source and methods, so apples to apples comparisons are tricky. The overall point though does not change: Car commutes tend to get worse, while transit on dedicated right-of-way stays roughly the same. Delays happen from time to time, but by and large trip times are far more predictable – less subject to weather, crazy drivers, tractor-trailer mishaps, or the accretion of poorly planned development.

So what are we to conclude from the TTI data, which is focused primarily on the difference in speed between rush hour and “free-flowing” conditions at 3 a.m.? Well, one thing we know you can’t conclude is that one place is a better or worse place to be a commuter than the other, because it pretty much leaves out anyone who doesn’t drive at peak hour.

As an example, consider the findings for Chicago and Atlanta, two metros that ranked close together in the urban mobility report released last week, as they have in years in past. According to the 2012 Travel Time Index (pdf), they’re near the top with scores of 1.24 and 1.25 respectively, and tied for seventh in yearly delay per commuter. In 2009 Chicago was actually 23 percent worse than Atlanta, according to the TTI. That must mean the commute for most Chicagoans was worse than for most Atlantans, right? Well, actually … no.

In truth, Chicago commuters had an average travel time of almost twenty minutes less than their counterparts in Atlanta. In Chicago, the average peak period travel time is 35.6 minutes – 38 percent less than the 57.4 minutes in Atlanta. A major reason for the better highway performance in Chicago is that drivers do not have to travel as far as drivers in Atlanta – 13.5 miles compared with 21.6 miles.

Study that for a minute. Most Chicagoans live closer to work and spend less time getting there. Metro Atlanta residents spend much more time in the car. Yet the two are ranked similarly because the difference in traffic speed during peak hour versus off-peak (say, 3 a.m.) is similar in both places. Ultimately, the TTI doesn’t really care about overall quality of life – or commute – for the majority of residents. It’s all about how fast you can drive at peak hour.

The Washington, D.C. and Denver metro areas are two that have seen their congestion rankings remain stubbornly high. In truth, though, both places have seen pay-off from actions that are expanding the share of homes in walkable neighborhoods with access to good public transportation and other options. As a result, commute distances are dropping. More people are living closer to their jobs, and more are walking, biking or taking transit to work. They are avoiding peak-hour traffic altogether – or spending less time driving because jobs and shopping are closer together. That’s making life better for them – they report enjoying their commutes more than freeway travelers – and it’s taking the pressure off the overcrowded freeways.

We’re not big fans of congestion. We think a lot of it could be managed or avoided with better planning and smarter development. But doing more of the same is not going to solve the problem. That’s why it’s so critically important that the performance measures being adopted by states and the feds under the new MAP-21 look beyond the blinkered TTI and delay measures for indicators of transportation success. How far do most people have to travel for work? How long does it take them? What is most effective at reducing the amount of time it takes to get places? Those are the kinds of metrics we need to use in order to find real solutions to help people spend less time in or stay out of those rush-hour traffic jams.

Every year the Texas Transportation Institute does a wonderful job of identifying the state of congestion on the nation’s roads—essentially confirming for many of us what we already know to be true viscerally … congestion is frustrating and increasingly sucks away our precious time and money.

This year’s TTI rankings are notable for a compelling new variable – the “Planning Time Index” which is a unique measure of just how time must be built into a trip in order to actually get somewhere on time. The extreme variations in travel time heighten the pressure on commuters and add another level of frustration to daily routines.

While the costs associated with traffic congestion are significant and growing, the societal costs associated with traffic crashes also deserve a greater level of both understanding and concern. Two years ago AAA examined the same urbanized areas in the TTI study, and found the total cost of traffic crashes is nearly three times the cost of congestion – $299.5 billion for traffic crashes and $97.7 billion for congestion. The only “good” news that can be taken from this is in the form of speculation that as congestion increases, a point is reached where safety improves because people cannot drive fast enough to kill or injure themselves or others.

Not being able to accurately plan a simple daily trip is indeed a growing frustration. At the same time, the pain of injury from a crash, or worse, a fatality, is acutely devastating. It is said we are creatures of habit and our day-to-day aggravations are always top of mind. But let us keep both our travels and our safety in mind and take a holistic look at trying to solve what ails us. Both reports point to the need for solutions and should be a clarion call to Congress to make transportation a greater priority.

Here is a guest response from Matthew Click, Southeast division director for tolls, HNTB Corporation.

Today, states across the country face the daunting challenge of providing reliable transportation alternatives in their metropolitan areas. Urban congestion results in wasted fuel and time for people and puts American businesses at a disadvantage when compared to their global competitors.

While urban transit options help some people commute to work, and freight railroads keep goods moving, the vast majority of Americans drive their cars to work and the vast majority of goods are distributed by trucks. Moving into the future, transit and freight railroads will continue to play an important role, but the overwhelming majority of economic activity in urban areas will depend on roadways – a simple and undeniable statistical fact.

Fortunately, there is a solution to urban congestion. That solution is congestion pricing through delivery mechanisms such as priced managed lanes. Priced managed lanes work by tolling some lanes in an urban corridor. The toll rate varies to ensure a reliable travel speed is maintained and the lanes function without congestion. All trips on a roadway are not the same, therefore, all lanes on a roadway should not be the same. What was once an economic theory first offered in 1952 by Nobel Prize winner in economics, William Vickrey, has become a reality in nearly a dozen urban areas across the country. Miami; Atlanta; Washington, D.C.; Seattle; Dallas; Houston; San Diego; Minneapolis; Denver; Los Angeles; Orlando, Fla.; and Salt Lake City have, or soon will have, priced managed lanes operating in their urban areas. Once a simple concept, using pricing to control transportation demand has now successfully been piloted, tested and approved by the motoring public.

When capacity (i.e., new lanes) is added to a roadway it is immediately occupied by the existing latent demand in the rush hour(s). Or, the existing rush hour time period compresses and consumes the new roadway capacity. When new transit service is added in a corridor, roadway capacity that becomes available by that modal shift is again consumed by latent roadway demand. In other words, there is no capacity building strategy that can fully solve congestion, and even if there was, it is not affordable or sustainable. The only strategy that can solve for congestion is an operational strategy using the congestion pricing concept with deployment strategies like priced managed lanes. Not only do priced managed lanes provide a mobility option for automobile customers, they also provide a reliable transit corridor for buses at a much lower cost than traditional fixed-rail transit.

For more on this topic, visit the HNTB Newsroom.

All of us know that extra road-use charges are the only way to deal effectively with traffic congestion, and that the problem is how to introduce such charges.

One way to reduce Washington DC’s traffic congestion would be to get volunteers to pay extra for using congested roads at peak periods while, at the same time, rewarding those volunteers by enabling them to use DC roads more cheaply when they are uncongested. Modern electronics (e.g. GPS) enable such charges and rewards to be applied, without vehicles having to stop for toll payments, and without violating the privacy of road users. If voluntary systems succeed, they could be made compulsory and permanent.

By carefully choosing the financial charges and rewards, such a system could be made to cover its costs. But it probably would be better for it to produce surpluses for road improvement.

One way to kill such schemes would be for governments to take the surpluses. Governments wanting to get money from congested roads could do better by privatizing them, and then collecting rents from land used by road owners and taxes on their profits.