American Gridlock
Traffic is making millions sick and tired. The bad news? It's going to get worse unless things change in a real big way
Ugghhh! Not surprisingly, activists of all stripes are working to exploit the growing angst about traffic. Cultural conservatives worry that traffic is eroding family values. Liberals decry the environmental destruction and social inequities caused by sprawling, auto-dependent suburbs. A decade ago, there were just 10 groups with paid staffs around the country committed to transportation reform; today there are at least 200.
Everywhere, it seems, the impulse to build new roads is bumping up against a hardening sentiment against more asphalt. Last November, there were 553 state and local measures on ballots dealing with transportation and growth issues. According to the Brookings Institution, 85 percent of the initiatives calling for more mass transit and alternative types of transportation passed.
Few political issues touch more Americans' daily lives than traffic. On a typical day, the average married mother with school-age children spends 66 minutes driving--taking more than five trips and covering 29 miles. Single moms like Linda Turner, of Chicago's South Side, spend even longer behind the wheel. Each day, Linda rouses her three children at 5 a.m. so she can leave the house by 7. The ride to school is only 15 miles, but it takes 45 minutes to an hour. Then it's on to her job, where she arrives at 8:30--totally wrung out. The return trip, especially if there are after-school activities to plan around, is usually worse. One night, Turner says, "I was coming home from work and every expressway I tried was jammed. Finally I was so angry, I rolled up the windows of the car and just screamed. I just let out a big `uggghhh.' It didn't make me feel any better, and I was still sitting there."
According to the most recent federal data, the amount of time mothers spend behind the wheel increased by 11 percent just between 1990 and 1995, and there's every indication that the trend is continuing. Moms spend more time driving than they spend dressing, bathing, and feeding a child. Indicative of the growing concern about traffic among social conservatives, the Washington Family Council concludes in a report: "The long-term consequences of traffic reach far beyond simple economics; it seeps into the foundation of society--people and their families."
That seepage is easy to spot in Stockton, Calif., a bedroom community where many struggling young families have moved to escape the high costs of San Francisco and the Silicon Valley. There, clinical psychologist Timothy Miller counsels 12 to 15 married couples each week; about half struggle with commuter-related stress. "They come in having only a dim awareness that commuting is the problem," says Miller. "Instead, they say we're quarreling too much, and the affection's gone, and so is the sex."
Miller counsels such couples to seek local jobs--even if it means a lower standard of living. When that's not possible, Miller recommends creating more-rigid schedules. "If you're going to have to have this kind of life, you have to schedule the sex, you have to schedule the quality time with the kids, exercise, dates between Mom and Dad. It's going to be a difficult way of life, but just possibly sustainable. If you don't keep to the schedule, your family and your marriage just slip away."
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