For immediate release May 14, 2007

Contact: Sue Stetler 313-961-4266

National Transportation Week is May 13-19;
Southeast Michigan's transportation system is big

Southeast Michigan is home to a large and complicated transportation system, which can be challenging to manage and maintain, according to SEMCOG, the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments. During National Transportation Week, May 13-19, 2007, SEMCOG puts that system into perspective — a system in which we invest more than half a billion dollars annually to maintain and improve.

How big is Southeast Michigan's transportation system? There are over 23,000 miles of road in the seven-county Southeast Michigan region. That's a lot of miles! In fact, you could drive from New York to Los Angeles eight times and still not have logged 23,000 miles. That is a lot of asphalt and concrete to maintain and manage. As residents, we all need roads to get to work, to run errands, to visit family and friends, and to have fun, the transportation system is equally important to business and the overall economy. Goods must be delivered to markets, parts to factories. If the road is in disrepair we may get to work late. If the road is in disrepair, a business depending on just-in-time delivery may suffer.

How many vehicles travel our roads? There are 3.4 million licensed drivers in Southeast Michigan who drive four million vehicles on the region's roads. That doesn't include an additional 200,000 passenger vehicles that travel through our region each day. These vehicles travel a lot of miles — 140 million of them every day. That's a big number to grasp. It is nearly 50 million miles to Mars, so we travel the equivalent of going to Mars three times every day! Then that daily number is multiplied for an entire year, the number is huge. Motorists traveled 48.8 billion miles in 2005. That's a lot of wear and tear on the roads.

What about congestion? At any given time, Southeast Michigan has about 1,000 miles of congested roads. This number is expected to grow to 1,500 by 2030. What does this mean for your commute? It means you're probably frustrated a lot. It currently takes us an average of 26 minutes to get to work each day, an increase of three minutes since 1990. Why? More of us are driving and making more trips. Further, our region continues to spread out. We've moved further away from our jobs — 31 percent of workers in Southeast Michigan commute to jobs that are outside the county in which they live. So, we all spend 30 minutes more each week in our cars; that adds up to 26 more hours every year. It's important to understand that we can't build our way out of congestion. Without any improvements, time wasted in traffic jams will only increase. It's not good for drivers or our economy.

Other important pieces of Southeast Michigan's transportation system:

• 3,551 bridges
• 915 miles of active rail lines
• 30 airports
• 6 marine ports
• 8 intermodal freight terminals
• 7 international border crossings
• 718 miles of nonmotorized pathways
• 15,000 miles of local roads available to pedestrians/motorists
• 100s of miles of sidewalks

This news release is the first in a five-part series to be released this week addressing the importance of our transportation system and the steps needed to overcome current and future challenges.

National Transportation Week (NTW), May 13-19, 2007, provides an opportunity for the transportation community to join together on a national level to demonstrate the importance of transportation to our economy and society as a whole. The Detroit Metro Convention and Visitors Bureau is proud to host NTW 2007 in Detroit. Established in 1962 by President Kennedy, NTW celebrates the historical significance of transportation in the United States and focuses on its future impact in our country. For more information, please visit www.ntweek.org.

SEMCOG is a regional planning partnership of governmental units serving the seven-county region of Southeast Michigan, striving to enhance the region's quality of life.

Local Governments Advancing Southeast Michigan

Read recent SEMCOG news releases

SEMCOG is a regional planning partnership of governmental units serving 4.9 million people in the seven-county region of Southeast Michigan striving to enhance the region's quality of life.

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