Fear of longer commutes puts pressure on US cities to act

On the return trip, Los Angeles' infamously snarled traffic often stretches their afternoon commute to three hours.

Since Paul joined in 2001, he has spent roughly 1½ years aboard the vanpool and traveled far enough to complete a round trip to the moon.

Americans living in more sparsely populated areas are affected every time they head to cities for ball games, business, shopping or air travel.

In many fast-growing metro areas, transportation officials are trying to avoid becoming the next L.A., Houston or Atlanta — places struggling to undo previous decisions that led to mind-numbing, time-wasting, fuel-burning traffic jams.

Faced with traffic congestion so notorious that it has become a cultural touchstone in movies and comedy repertoires, L.A. has embarked on a transportation building binge funded largely by a sales tax voters passed in 2008.

In some ways, the building boom harkens back to the region's past.

[...] the rise of the automobile, the city offered an extensive network of streetcars.

In Washington's Maryland suburbs, officials have been pushing for a 16-mile light-rail line to connect more affordable neighborhoods with jobs in the growing downtowns of Bethesda and Silver Spring, as well as the University of Maryland's College Park campus.

Rail transit can be a release valve for highway congestion, he said, taking enough vehicles off the road to help traffic move more smoothly.

Micaela Magee, a 20-year-old North Carolina State University student majoring in design studies, fights traffic each morning as she drives from her home to a satellite parking lot, then switches to a bus to take her to campus.

[...] for most Americans, expanding transit systems is not a priority, even though more than 80 percent of the population lives in urban areas of 150,000 people or more, a share that is expected to keep growing as fewer people settle in rural areas.

Living in a more densely populated place doesn