Atlanta ranks second in unhealthy commutes
Forbes report weighed air pollution, travel time and fatal wrecks
By
ARIEL HART
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 07/24/07
Only one big metro area in the Unites States has a less healthy commute than metro Atlanta, according to a report by Forbes.com this week.
The report gives equal weight to air pollution, length of peak-hour travel times and crash fatalities. Atlanta doesn't get top — or, should we say, bottom — marks on those individually, but put them all together and the area is the second worst in the country, according to Forbes' analysis. The Riverside, Calif., area tops the list.
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Riverside has the highest rate of crash deaths, according to the report. Rush hour drivers in the Los Angeles area had the longest delay from congestion, according to the Texas Transportation Institute, with Atlanta coming in fourth, at 67 annual hours of delay.
The Atlanta metro area ranks 13th in the nation for particle pollution, according to Atlanta's Clean Air Campaign. It is improving in recent years, partly because of cooler, rainier weather.
"This is clearly another list we don't want to be on as a region," said Kevin Green, executive director of the Clean Air Campaign, which tries to persuade businesses and their employees to adopt cleaner commuting strategies like teleworking. The group says it's drawing converts by leaps and bounds, with 4,280 teleworkers in its program now, up from 3,000 last October.
The state Department of Transportation values teleworking, van pooling and transit, but big road projects like the ones it's planning for metro interstates matter too, a spokesman said.
"All those things are important; they're critical," DOT spokesman David Spear said. "But we also have to recognize that, however successful we are going to be at getting people out of their solo cars, there's going to be a significant component of people who choose to drive or are passing through, and we have to provide them mobility too."
Bob Dallas, head of the Governor's Office of Highway Safety, said individual drivers can do two things immediately to reduce congestion, air pollution and crash deaths all at once. Wearing seat belts and driving the speed limit, he said, will reduce the number and severity of crashes. That means fewer deaths and less congestion as drivers wait for police to clear crashes off the roads.
"Approximately half our congestion is due to incidents," Dallas said. "My advice to the public is clear: Wear your safety belt and drive close to that speed limit."
One commuter made a bigger change to his drive to work.
Evan Langman, a 53-year-old Suwanee electrical engineer, signed up for the Clean Air Campaign's small incentive payments to drop his Ford pickup truck in favor of a bicycle. He says he used to fill his tank once a week and, now, it's once a month. He says his blood pressure and his pulse rate have dropped. He doesn't need coffee anymore. He can't figure out why, but after all that exercise, when he gets to work in the morning he's got more energy, not less.
"I feel entirely different," he said.
