From the News and Observer reporting on a study by the Texas Transportation Institute:

“Rush-hour road congestion eats into six hours of the Triangle workday and costs the average commuter 26 hours of lost time…Rush-hour congestion in Charlotte lasted an average of 7.4 hours each day and delayed each commuter for 45 hours in 2002.”

For some perspective, assuming 49 work weeks per year, this is about 6 minutes out of one’s day in Raleigh and 11 minutes in Charlotte. The article goes on to quote Ed Johnson director of the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization– “Hopefully, we’ll learn from watching our big brother.” The article suggests that he is referring to HOV lanes and light rail already in use in Atlanta and on the way in Charlotte. Unfortunately most studies show that neither HOV lanes nor light rail have any significant effect on traffic congestion. Unfortunately Mr. Johnson did not mean that the Triangle will learn what not to do by watching the failures in these other cities. According to the same TTI study, all of the top 10 worst congested cities in the country have commuter rail systems.