Jul 16

Written by: Greater Louisville Project
7/16/2009 7:34 PM

Does Louisville have a traffic problem?  According to recent data from the Texas Transportation Institute, it does.  In 2007, Louisville residents lost 38 hours a year in traffic.  While this is down from a peak delay of 44 hours in 2004, it is still far higher than our peer cities where residents lost an average of 29 hours.

Twenty-five years ago, Louisville’s annual delay was 18 hours.  That number increased at least an hour a year until 2004, and has fluctuated around 40 hours since then.  The Texas Transportation Institute found that traffic congestion declined nationwide when gas prices rose in the last half of 2007, a condition that may be prolonged by the current recession,  but expects congestion delays to rebound along with the economy.

Reaction to news about Louisville’s traffic delay numbers are varied.  Many residents see our traffic woes as a low priority, because they rarely encounter congestion while commuting or traveling during the course of a day.  But this data is inclusive of the entire metropolitan area, so it captures the delay experienced by commuters traveling into downtown Louisville from Bullitt County or Southern Indiana on a weekday morning, for example.  Therefore, residents who live close to where they work may experience very little delay.

The Greater Louisville Project has been gathering and reporting traffic delay data as a lagging indicator of Louisville’s growth patterns since 2005.  As population shifts from the central core to other counties in the region, as it has done each year since 2000, many must travel longer distances to work. 

The ability for residents to move freely and easily is also at the heart of Quality of Place and critical to growing a high-value, innovation economy.  Several improvements and enhancements to Louisville’s transportation infrastructure, from roads and bridges to bus service and light rail lines, are being explored.  Traffic congestion has many potential solutions, but none that are easy, cheap or that will solve the problem overnight.    

Do you think Louisville has a traffic problem?  Where does traffic delay rank among the factors you consider important for Louisville’s Quality of Place?   

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