Urban Development and Traffic Congestion

The objectives of this paper are to view contemporary traffic congestion as a phenomenon that has always existed within cities throughout history, and to recommend pragmatic modern day solutions to address/manage the congestion problem. This has been achieved by a review of the factors that create congestion, and of the roles that electric streetcars, rapid transit lines, suburban rail lines, and automobiles have played in the decongestion of cities. Examples of outcomes from past transportation improvements are illustrated to show that regional changes in transportation access create new development nodes of activities outside cities that reduce development pressures in the central city (hence reducing congestion growth there) and increase the attraction of peripheral areas to major land developments that lead to increased congestion in these areas. The paper proposes a mix of transportation and land development strategies to minimize the negative effects of urban traffic congestion in the future.