With vehicle travel continuing to grow at a rapid pace, traffic congestion is worsening across New Jersey. In 2001, according to NJDOT data, New Jersey residents spent more than 500 million hours annually stuck in traffic due to everyday congestion and incidents. That amounts to almost 60 hours per resident, or nearly 88 hours per driver.
| Daily Hours of Delay per Lane Mile | |
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Source: NJDOT. 2003 Congestion Management System (CMS), version 3.1. |
The Texas Transportation Institute's annual Urban Mobility Study is the best known source of congestion trends. However, that study tracks congestion data only for selected “urbanized areas,” as defined by the Federal Highway Administration, across the U.S. Only 2 New Jersey areas are included — New York-Newark and Philadelphia — however, these areas together cover almost the entire state.
According to the 2005 Urban Mobility Study, annual delay per person has grown considerably in both of New Jersey's urban areas. In the New York-Newark urbanized area, delay per person grew 15 percent, from 20 hours in 1997 to 23 in 2003. In the Philadelphia urbanized area, which includes sprawling areas of southern New Jersey, delay grew even faster, from 15 hours per person to 21 hours, an increase of 40 percent.
Average commute times have increased just over two percent from 2000 to 2004, growing from 28.7 minutes to 29.4 minutes, according to data from the Census American Community Survey. There is significant year-to-year variability however, making it difficult to discern a trend.