With the beginning of the school year, not only are pupils returning to schools, but traffic jams are also coming back to the streets of Slovak towns. In Bratislava, drivers spend on average 29 hours in heavy traffic per year. This stems from the study conducted by the transport and analytical company Inrix. The world's most traffic congested city is Los Angeles, where drivers spend up to 101 hours per year stuck in a traffic jam.
In the Central European region, Vienna is the busiest city traffic-wise with 40 hours. Drivers in Prague and Budapest spend on average 5 hours less time in traffic compared to Bratislava. The situation in the Slovak capital is being addressed by the construction of the city by-pass; however, the traffic analyst and politician Ondrej Matej believes that the by-pass will not reduce the jams.
"We have been saying for some time now that the construction of the by-pass will not help the people who commute daily to Bratislava. With the new infrastructure, the motivation to use cars will be even higher," says Matej.
According to the analyst, the critical situation in Bratislava has arisen with several construction projects taking place at the same time. Investors work on their projects individually, without any coordination. The transport ministry is still not aware of all the traffic constraints planned for the Slovak capital, as the building consortium is to present them sometime in September.
Psychologists agree that spending time in traffic jams also has negative effects on people's mental wellbeing. People feel anxiety and pressure from not being able to leave the closed space. Experts advise you to try to relax by listening to good music, audio books …and we add, Radio Slovakia International : )
