A new study by the Texas Transportation Institute showed that traffic jams cost Americans 4.2 billion hours of lost time. (You could listen to the entire War and Peace audio book 160 times.) So why not just take the bus or train? In 2007, public transportation saved commuters 646 million hours in travel time and 398 millions gallons of gas. Joining The Takeaway to discuss Americans’ reluctance to get out of their cars is Tim Lomax, a research engineer with the Texas Transportation Institute.