New data show relatively mild traffic Milwaukee congestion

[Updated] The authoritative, annual Texas A&M Transportation Institute study into traffic congestion costs and trends finds Milwaukee pretty far down the lists.

As guest blogger Steve Filmanowicz noted here eight years ago:

The Texas Transportation Institute just issued the latest update of that authoritative study, the 2007 Urban Mobility Report, and it indeed confirms that Milwaukee is already one of the nation's leading traffic success stories — even with its supposedly inadequate 1970s-era highway system. 

Even before spending a dime on the $6 billion enhancement/expansion plan...

Milwaukee's ranking in delay per traveler hovered around 40 for much of the 1980s, hit 39 in 1999 and has been heading down towards 59 since then. 

So wouldn't it be better to spend more money repairing the roads we have, and upgrading our disconnected and starved transit systems that mitigate congestion, than pretending we can build our way out of a comparatively mild problem with more than $6 billion in so-called freeway capacity in and out and near the city?

*  Milwaukee is 54th in travel time.

*  And 57th in commuter stress.

DC, LA and other big metropolitan areas, we are not, the study finds.