Across the Nation

Court records show that about 340 claims, totaling $198 million, were made on the archdiocese by the April 29 deadline set by U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Elizabeth Perris.

The attorneys listed in the documents and the large sums sought suggest about 150 of those claims may be related to sex abuse. Because many of the claims are sealed and don't have a specific amount listed, church officials believe they could surpass $530 million.

The rest of the claims, however, have no clear ties to sex abuse allegations, with at least 37 churches and parochial schools among the claimants, seeking about $115,000.

The archdiocese is responsible for 124 Catholic parishes and more than 50 schools in western Oregon, the most populous part of the state. Investment funds and other money the archdiocese has held for them were frozen by the bankruptcy filing.

Study: Traffic jams just keep spreading

WASHINGTON - If getting stuck in traffic makes you want to roll down your car window and scream, the Texas Transportation Institute has bad news: Gridlock is getting worse.

Congestion delayed travelers 79 million more hours and wasted 69 million more gallons of fuel in 2003 than in 2002, the institute's 2005 Urban Mobility Report said.

Overall in 2003, there were 3.7 billion hours of travel delay and 2.3 billion gallons of wasted fuel for a total cost of more than $63 billion.

"Urban areas are not adding enough capacity, improving operations or managing demand well enough to keep congestion from growing," the report concluded.

Honolulu became the 51st city in which rush-hour traffic delayed the average motorist at least 20 hours a year. The Hawaiian capital joins such congested areas as Washington, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago - and Virginia Beach, Va., Omaha, Neb., and Colorado Springs, Colo.

The report was released Monday, the same day the Senate resumes debate on a bill that would spend $284 billion on highways over the next six years.

But that's not enough money to solve traffic problems, according to highway and transit advocates.

The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials estimated it would take as much as $400 billion in federal spending over the next six years to solve traffic problems, based on a 2002 study.

Roads aren't being built fast enough to carry all the people who now drive on them, according to the Transportation Development Foundation, a group that advocates transportation construction.

The number of vehicle miles traveled has increased 74 percent since 1982, but road lane mileage only increased 6 percent, the foundation said.

Tim Lomax, a co-author of the Urban Mobility Report, said the soft economy and slow job growth in 2003 meant that congestion got worse more slowly than it would have during better times.

"The upside of a slowdown in the economy is the congestion didn't get worse very quickly," Lomax said.

In seven of the 13 major cities, the annual delay per rush-hour traveler actually went down slightly: Dallas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami, New York, Houston and Philadelphia.

Lomax said that didn't mean congestion improved throughout each area. It probably just spread out to the suburbs.

"In most of those places, delay actually went up, it just didn't go up as fast as the number of people moving in went up," Lomax said.

Only job loss or major commitments to expand capacity will decrease congestion dramatically, he said.

Refusing to build more roads and transit systems won't discourage population growth, Lomax said.

Take fast-growing Austin, Texas, for example. In 1982, the average peak-hour traveler was delayed by 11 hours a year. That delay increased to 51 hours in 2003, the report said.

"Austin didn't add transportation capacity in the '80s or '90s," Lomax said. "The 'If you don't build it, they won't come' philosophy didn't work."

Congestion can also be reduced by managing traffic better. The report said such techniques as coordinating traffic signals, smoothing traffic flow on major roads and creating teams to respond quickly to accidents reduced delay by 336 million hours in 2003.

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On the Net:

Transportation Department: http://www.dot.gov

Texas Transportation Institute: http://mobility.tamu.edu