T4America Blog

Breaking news: USDOT releases draft rule for measuring congestion

A new federal proposal governing how states and metro areas will be required to measure congestion was just released early today. Our brief analysis finds that though there’s potential for improvement with how the rule is worded, it would still push local communities to waste time and money attempting to build their way out of congestion by using a measure of traffic congestion that’s narrow, limited and woefully out of date.

As we alluded to last week, thanks to new requirements in the 2012 transportation law (MAP-21), USDOT was preparing to release the last batch of new performance measures to help ensure federal dollars are spent to make progress on important, measurable goals. Though these new directions on measuring congestion (along with other important measures) won’t be officially released and open for comment until this Friday, this document posted by FHWA today is likely to be the final proposal for new performance measures.

We’re reading through the full 425-page rule now, and will have much more here on the blog soon (and in your email inboxes), including a way for you to send official comments to USDOT urging them to do better.

Do you want to be notified with the latest news on this front? Sign up for email from T4America today. 

In the meantime, if you missed our post last week explaining why it’s important how we choose to measure congestion, catch up with that here.

Will pending federal transportation rule double down on outdated view of congestion?