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TRANSACTIONS NEWSLETTER ONLINE


October 2003

Facts & Figures
Bay Area Freeway Congestion Continues to Ease, but Hot Spots Persist

Bay Area freeways continued to flow more freely in 2002, as the sluggish Bay Area economy shed more jobs and fewer road warriors vied for roadway space during peak commute hours, a new report by MTC and Caltrans shows. The number of hours vehicles were delayed due to congestion dropped by 5 percent last year, after sliding 12 percent in 2001. Regionwide, vehicles spent 147,900 hours a day in congested conditions on Bay Area freeways in 2002, well below the 177,600 hours notched in 2000, at the high-water mark of the dot-com boom. But the relaxation in gridlock was not spread evenly: San Mateo County enjoyeda 29 percent falloff in congestion, while fast-growing Solano County saw a 54 percent jump in traffic delay.

The drop-off in congestion notwithstanding, commuters still have some harrowing choke points to navigate. While the morning approach to the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge along Interstate 80 in the East Bay retained its notorious ranking as the No. 1 hot spot for the third year in a row, and the morning slog south on Interstate 880 through southern Alameda County took the No. 2 position for the second year in a row, there have been some significant realignments further down the list of the region’s top 10 bottlenecks. Sliding down the list was the southbound morning commute along the Sunol Grade in the East Bay, thanks in part to a new auxiliary lane that opened in 2001 along this stretch of Interstate 680.
— Joe Curley

Excerpted from the 2003 State of the System Report. To order a copy, e-mail library@mtc.ca.gov or call 510.817.5836.

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