Road rave: Region has less traffic

It isn’t easy to find the good side of a tale as woeful as the economic crisis, but you might be looking at one the next time you’re sitting in traffic, because these days there’s less traffic to sit in.

The Nashua region, like the country as a whole, is seeing fewer cars on the road – in some places, a lot fewer.

When this started happening last summer, it was attributed to the high price of gasoline. But now, with regular gas below $2 a gallon, many suspect it’s because of the recession.

“Whether or not job loss has influenced that pattern is uncertain,” Tim Roache said. “Anecdotally, it appears that it has, but it’s hard to say.”

As principal transportation planner for the Nashua Regional Planning Commission, Roache crunches vehicle numbers all day, but as a professional statistics guy, he’s also cautious about assigning cause-and-effect.

The traffic slowdown isn’t just in Nashua, of course. The federal highway administration estimates that in New Hampshire in January, the total number of miles driven on all roads was 4.6 percent lower than in January 2008. So-called traffic miles fell in virtually every other state, and declined nationally by 3 percent, one of the first times that had ever happened.

Aside from easing congestion, this has produced a good side effect: The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimated that 37,313 people were killed in motor vehicle traffic crashes in the country last year, the lowest number of deaths on U.S. roads since 1961.

Whether this is because of the recession may be unclear, but Roache is certain of one thing: The traffic slowdown has gone on long enough that his profession is taking notice.

“Eventually, we’ll have to make a decision whether this is a momentary drop based on current economic conditions – and when everything works out, we’ll be right back where we were – or whether this is a long-term change in habits,” he said.

There’s certainly a short-term change at New Hampshire tollbooths, which is where the most up-to-date numbers can be found.

During the first week of March, for example, the traffic going through the booth on the F.E. Everett Turnpike’s Exit 11 ramp in Merrimack was down 9.3 percent from the year before; traffic on the Exit 10 ramp was down a whopping 23 percent.

At the Bedford tolls on the turnpike, traffic was down 7.8 percent.

This isn’t good for the state Highway Department, which depends on toll revenue, but it’s great if you have to commute through them.

Such up-to-date numbers aren’t available off the turnpike, but the regional planning commission has traffic data from last year for many intersections that were measured in 2005.

Not all show a drop in traffic. For example, much of Route 3A, the major north-south route on the east side of the Merrimack River, saw an increase, particularly near the Sagamore Bridge in southern Hudson.

But there were some drops from 2005-2008, including:

On Route 101 in Amherst, north of the village, traffic slipped almost 25 percent, from 21,000 to 17,000 vehicles a day.

Nashua’s Manchester Street, north of Ferry Road, saw traffic fall by nearly one-quarter, from about 9,000 vehicles to about 7,000.

Route 101A at the Milford-Amherst town line had a fall of almost 5 percent, to 30,900 vehicles.

Of course, a decline in traffic is relative. Tell people on Manchester Street that traffic has declined greatly in the last four years and you’ll get disbelief.

“You don’t want to ask me about traffic,” said Carol Newell, the manager of Jeannotte’s Market on the corner of Manchester and Courtland streets. “It’s worse.”

More than the volume of traffic, Newell said the most serious problems were drivers speeding and ignoring stop signs.

Bob Pelletier, who lives up the street from Jeannotte’s, hadn’t noticed a change, either.

“It doesn’t seem it,” he said. “It’s a busy road.”

TRAFFIC FLUCTUATIONS

The New Hampshire Department of Transportation measures traffic at some intersections in some years. Here are comparisons of average daily traffic at some local intersections from 2005, when many intersections were measured, through 2008, the most recent year for which data are available:

TOLL ROAD

The number of people who paid tolls at Everett Turnpike booths during the first week of March: