Easy to Get From Here to There in Capital Region
Published Apr 15, 2006
In some cities, hell hath no fury like a motorist scorned.
But you’re far less likely to find road rage in the driver-friendly metro triangle of Albany-Schenectady-Troy in New York.
A national survey by the Texas Transportation Institute – the 2005 Urban Mobility Report – finds Tech Valley’s Capital Region among the easiest mid-sized urban areas to navigate in the United States.
The combined traffic delay experienced by the metro’s 900,000 people stood at fewer than 4 million hours in 2003, the latest year measured. That’s less than half the national average of nearly 10 million hours for cities of 500,000 to 1 million people.
And the Albany area’s delay of 13 hours per traveler during rush hour – for an entire year – is about half the national norm for medium metro areas.
James Baldwin chuckles when asked about the Capital Region’s traffic problem, replying somewhat sheepishly that his daily commute amounts to all of 10 minutes – even less on good days.
He enters one exit of Interstate 90 and exits the next one on his way to work as the district superintendent of Questar III, a Board of Cooperative Education Services agency providing technical education and support for 23 New York school districts.
“We don’t have traffic jams here – we just don’t have traffic jams,” Baldwin says. “Commuting times are very short compared to other metro areas, and I think that makes for a very different quality of life for people.”
Story by Gary Perilloux
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