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In today’s idea-driveneconomy, the cost of time is what
really matters. With the constant pressure to innovate, it
makes little sense to waste countless collective hours
commuting. So, the most efficient and productive regions are
those in which people are thinking and working—not sitting
in traffic.
The auto-dependent transportation system has reached its
limit in most major cities and megaregions. Commuting by
car is among the least efficient of all our activities—not to
mention among the least enjoyable, according to detailed---------------------------------------第10行
research by the Nobel Prize-winning economist Daniel
Kahneman and his colleagues. Though one might think that
the economic crisis beginning in 2007 would have reduced
traffic (high unemployment means fewer workers traveling to
5 and from work), the opposite has been true. Average
commutes have lengthened, and congestion has gotten worse,
if anything. The average commute rose in 2008 to
25.5 minutes, "erasing years of decreases to stand at the level
of 2000, as people had to leave home earlier in the morning to
o pick up friends for their ride to work or to catch a bus or--------------------------------------第20行
subway train," according to the U.S. Census Bureau, which
collects the figures. And those are average figures. Commutes
are far longer in the big West Coast cities of Los Angeles and
San Francisco and the East Coast cities of New York,
Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. In many of
these cities, gridlock has become the norm, not just at rush
hour but all day, every day.
The cost are astounding. In LosAngeles, congestion eats
up more than 485 million working hours a year; that’s seventy
hours, or nearly two weeks, of full-time work per commuter.----------------------------------------第30行
In D.C., the time cost of congestion is sixty-two hours per
worker per year. In New York it's forty-four hours. Average it
out, and the time cost across Americas thirteen biggest city
regions is fifty-one hours per worker per year. Across the
35 country, commuting wastes 4.2 billion hours of work time
annually-nearly a full workweek for every commuter. The
overall cost to the U.S. economy is nearly $90 billion when lost
productivity and wasted fuel are taken into account. At the
Martin Prosperity Institute, we calculate that every minute
shaved off Americas commuting time is worth $19.5 billion in----------------------------------------第40行
value added to the economy. The numbers add up fast: five
minutes is worth $97.7 billion; ten minutes, $195 billion;
fifteen minutes, $292 billion.
It's ironic that so many peoplestill believe the main
45 remedy for traffic congestion is to build more roads and
highways, which of course only makes the problem worse.
New roads generate higher levels of "induced traffic," that is,
new roads just invite drivers to drive more and lure people
who take mass transit back to their cars. Eventually, we end up
so with more clogged roads rather than a long-term-----------------------------------------------------第50行
improvement in traffic flow.
The coming decades will likelysee more intense clustering
of jobs, innovation, and productivity in a smaller number of
bigger cities and city-regions. Some regions could end up
bloated beyond the capacity of their infrastructure, while
others struggle, their promise stymied by inadequate human
or other resources.
题目：
1) The passage moststrongly suggests that researchers at the Martin Prosperity Institute share which assumption?
A. Employees who workfrom home are more valuable to their employers than employees who commute
B. Employees whosecommutes are shortened will use the time saved to do additional productive work for their employers.
C. Employees canconduct business activities, such as composing memos or joining conference calls, while commuting.
D. Employees who havelonger commutes tend to make more money than employees who have shorter commutes.
2) As used in line52, "intense" most nearly means
A. emotional
B. concentrated.
C. brilliant
D. determined.
3) Which claim about traffic congestion is supported by the graph?
A. New York Citycommuters spend less time annually delayed by traffic congestion than the average for very large cities.
B. Los Angelescommuters are delayed more hours annually by traffic congestion than are commuters in Washington, D.C.
C. Commuters inWashington, D.C, face greater delays annually due to traffic congestion than do commuters in New York City.
D. Commuters in Detroit spend more time delayed annually by traffic congestion than do commuters in Houston, Atlanta, and Chicago.
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