Minnesota Rated As Second-Worst for Urban Congestion

According to a study by the Reason Foundation, Minnesota is second only to California for urban congestion.


At first this seemed surprising. Minneapolis has bad traffic, but worse than Illinois (Chicago) and New York (New York)?! But it's a little deceiving because the rankings are at a state level. Illinois and New York both have several small to mid-size cities that "water down" the effect of Chicago and New York, respectively. Minnesota, on the other hand, has pretty much one urban area (the Twin Cities), and since it's congested the whole state ends up looking congested.

With yesterday being the anniversary of the 35W bridge collapse, it's interesting to note that:

Deficient bridges were thrust into the spotlight in 2007 because of the tragic Minneapolis bridge collapse. Minnesota actually ranks 5th best in the nation, with 13 percent of its bridges deficient. Of the nearly 600,000 highway bridges in the country, 24.1 percent were reported deficient and/or functionally obsolete in 2006, a minor improvement from 2005 when 25.5 were deemed deficient. At the current rate of repair it will take 62 years for today's deficient bridges to be brought up to date. [emphasis added]

Via Hit & Run.

Image from Flickr user amme@work available under a Creative Commons license.