subject: Worst Us City Traffic Congestion [print this page] It's a little inconceivable to comprehend that there is national scorecard that's produced each year to demonstrate the 10 most congested cities and traffic hold-ups in the U.S. It's kind of become an annual contest, but one which cities do their best to keep out of rather than get their name listed in.
It all started in 2007 when INRIX produced the first National Traffic Scorecard Annual Report. The report looked at the top 100 areas of traffic congestion and since that time has become a trusted source for finding out exactly which places to try and avoid.
Regrettably, there appears to be no let up in traffic congestion. There have been slight improvements up to about 2010, but from then onwards there are certain places at certain times where it is guaranteed the complete area will be gridlocked. The 2010 INRIX National Traffic Scorecard indicates that in areas where there was bad congestion, it has simply got far worse; and there is no end in sight.
The report shows that there has been a month on month increase in general congestion and that on average a driver's journey time is now at least 10 per cent longer each way that it was 12 months ago. Maybe 10 percent does sound that much, but do a little math and it's worrying how much longer you spend in your car each week.
For example, 12 months ago it took one hour to drive to work and one hour to drive home. A year later it takes 10 per cent longer each way so that an extra 12 minutes a day. Multiply this by 5 and you are now spending one hour a week more in your car. It's probably best not to work out how many hours a month this is or even how many hours a year.
So looking at the metropolitan areas first, the top place for congestion in 2010 was Los Angeles which also held first place in 2009 and 2008. The Los Angeles area also appears five times in the 10 ten bottlenecks, which for those familiar with Los Angeles will know them to be the Riverside freeway (2nd place), San Diego freeway (3rd place), Santa Monica freeway (5th place), the Santa Ana freeway (7th place) and the San Bernadino freeway (1oth place).
In metropolitan area congestion second place was New York, the same as in 2009 and 2008. It also attained first place for traffic bottlenecks on the cross Bronx expressway / I 95. New York also managed to get sixth and eighth place for bottlenecks meaning that between Los Angeles and New York they held eight of the top ten bottleneck places. It is probably not something to be that proud of, but then again, something that is difficult to do anything about in the short term.
In third place was Chicago followed by Washington D.C., Dallas/Fort Worth, San Francisco, Houston, Boston and Philadelphia. Seattle came in tenth. The missing two places for the bottleneck awards go to Chicago in fourth place and Pittsburgh in ninth place
