The 'time is money' mantra is a terrible starting point for planning and designing infrastructure

"Traffic congestion is a pervasive issue, whether it's the destination (a downtown, a stadium, a new development) or the streets connecting to the destinations. In economic terms, congestion occurs when demand exceeds supply: not enough lanes for everyone trying to get somewhere at once. Your time is valuable and there are sometimes real consequences you experience when roads are clogged with cars. But it's a serious mistake to overplay the economic claims."

"Researchers tend to analyze traffic with the assumption that the "time is money" framework is completely valid. News outlets love it too because it produces reliable doom and gloom for clicks and views: Traffic congestion cost the US economy $74 billion in lost time last year. Drivers lost 102 hours stuck in traffic last year. The average American driver lost $771 in productivity sitting in traffic last year."

"Economists treat humans as if we're rational creatures who make decisions that can be predicted with basic math. An economist won't calculate time with family, the choice to spend an extra hour at trivia night, homemade bread, journali"

Traffic congestion is commonly analyzed through an economic lens where time equals money, producing alarming statistics about lost productivity and billions in economic costs. This framework drives transportation planning decisions and justifies infrastructure investments across the political spectrum, from road expansion to transit and bike lanes. However, this approach fundamentally misrepresents how humans actually value time and make decisions. Economists treat people as purely rational actors whose time can be quantified in monetary terms, ignoring the reality that individuals make choices based on complex personal values, relationships, and non-economic factors. The productivity-focused narrative oversimplifies congestion as merely a supply-and-demand problem requiring more infrastructure, when transportation planning should consider broader quality-of-life factors beyond economic productivity metrics.

Read at Fast Company