The Fundamental Law of Road Congestion: Evidence from US cities

Gilles Duranton () and Matthew Turner ()

Working Papers from University of Toronto, Department of Economics

Abstract: Abstract: We investigate the relationship between interstate highways and highway vehicle kilometers traveled (vkt) in us cities. We find that vkt increases proportionately to highways and identify three important sources for this extra vkt: an increase in driving by current residents; an increase in transportation intensive production activity; and an inflow of new residents. The provision of public transportation has no impact on vkt. We also estimate the aggregate city level demand for vkt and find it to be very elastic. We conclude that an increased provision of roads or public transit is unlikely to relieve congestion and that the current provision of roads exceeds the optimum given the absence of congestion pricing.

Keywords: highways; vehiclekilometers traveled; public transport; congestion. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L91 R41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-geo and nep-ure
Date: 2009-09-08
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http://repec.economics.utoronto.ca/files/tecipa-370.pdf Main Text (application/pdf)
http://repec.economics.utoronto.ca/files/tecipa-370-1.pdf Addendum (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: The Fundamental Law of Road Congestion: Evidence from US cities (2009)
Working Paper: The Fundamental Law of Road Congestion: Evidence from US cities (2009)
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