Supply and demand impacts all of us on the highways, whether in the country and in the cities.  Fuel costs have tripled, but the gas tax at $1.10 per gallon has STAYED THE SAME since 1991.  Because of inflation we have less & less money available to pay for roads and bridges.  Funding for new roads has not kept pace with the population growth, so we have gridlocks & grows worse each year.  Commuter trains help a bit as does carpooling and telework.   It will take a combination of these + new construction to work out way out of this dilemna according to  Ginger Goodin,  senior research engineer at the Texas A&M Transportation Institute at College Station, TX.