One (partial) solution to daytime congestion

Wendell Cox, the anti-public transportation advocate supported by the right, had a letter to the editor in the Post the other week, "Move From Roads to Railroads," which advocates expanding intermodal use of freight railroads--in other words, putting more truck trailers on railroad cars.

I am all for that, but I have another, cheaper and easier short-term solution, at least for cities, and for freeways: Do more traveling, time-shifting, at night. (I know that certain interstate freeways have high volumes of truck traffic all the time.) But even so most roads near and in the center cities are pretty empty after 8 p.m.

Presently, certain businesses in the city, such as the regional Yes Organic Grocery Store and the Au Bon Pain cafes, and some Starbucks, receive deliveries during the night. Many more businesses need to think about this.

Two areas where we need to require transportation demand management protocols for city businesses and institutions now:

1. Churches and nightime and Sunday parking and travel.
2. Businesses receiving deliveries over a certain overall volume.

This isn't much different than how the Neighborhood Services Coordinator in Ward One worked it out with a bunch of restaurants on a couple blocks of 18th Street NW in Adams-Morgan to get trash pick up service from the same one or two companies so that services could be coordinated and overall traffic in the alleys diminished.
_________
Note that for years the Port of Los Angeles and Long Beach has been one of the most congested ports in the U.S. Part of the problem, they had open hours from 8 am to 5 pm. Recently, to even out traffic and to reduce waits, they have extended hours, including on Saturday. This kind of time-shifting, or looking at issues in a substantive, analytical manner, can reduce congestion without the need to "build more roads." In this case, it was a matter of using facilities that otherwise just sat empty.