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The 10 worst US cities for traffic

Which city has the worst traffic in the country?  Los Angeles and Atlanta make a string case, but another major metro snags the title.

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Mike Segar/Reuters/File
Automobiles wait in a traffic jam on a New York City highway. Washington, D.C had the worst traffic in America in 2011, followed closely by Los Angeles and San Francisco.
  • By Kurt Ernst Guest blogger

The grass, it seems, is always greener on the other side of the highway median. Ask any U.S. driver about his commute, and you’ll likely get a lengthy tirade about the abysmal traffic conditions on his daily drive.
 Whether you live in Atlanta, Los Angeles, Spokane, New York or even Orlando, chances are that you dread the daily commute and believe that traffic is better anywhere else in the United States than in your city.
 Thanks to the most recent Annual Urban Mobility Report from the Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI), we now know who’s got bragging rights for the latest year studied, 2011.

 According to the TTI, traffic in Washington D.C. is the worst, with each commuter losing an average of 67 hours per year in traffic. Los Angeles and San Francisco are tied for second place, with each municipality taking 61 hours annually from its commuters.

 In fourth place is Newark, New Jersey, lumped into one miserable bundle with New York, New York. Drivers here can expect to waste 59 hours sucking down exhaust fumes each year, which is quite a bit worse than fifth-place Boston (with a mere 53 hours annually).

 To the surprise of no one living in Houston, the Texas city is next on the list, with 52 hours of wasted time yearly (which is also the national average for very large cities). Atlanta and Chicago tie for seventh place (with 51 hours each), while Philadelphia and Seattle split the final spot, taking only 48 hours from commuters annually.

 To put the worst U.S. cities in perspective, the average American commuter wastes 38 hours per year in traffic, and needs to allow a full hour for a trip that, under ideal circumstances, would take just 20 minutes. Is it any wonder the vast majority of us are sleep-deprived and stressed to the breaking point, or that fatal accidents are again on the rise?

 If there’s good news to be found in the latest survey, it’s this: traffic in 2012 still wasn’t as bad as traffic in the pre-recession days of 2007, but we suppose that’s because many Americans are still out of work. The relief on the roads is expected to be short-lived, however, as the TTI expects congestion to grow significantly in the coming years.                 

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