Economy

Los Angeles Is Worst US City for Traffic

Douglas A. McIntyre

Published: March 15, 2016 7:12 am

Last Updated: January 13, 2020 11:57 am

Research firm INRIX has put out its 2015 Traffic Scorecard, which measures commute times for cities around the world, in particular in Europe and America. The worst city in the United States is Los Angeles, followed by a number of the other largest cities in the country.

INRIX claims that stronger economy and lower gas prices are among the contributors to more traffic on the roads around largest cities. It is an incident of how good news yields bad news. The 2015 Traffic Scorecard covers 100 cities across the world. Among those with the worst problems, several are in the United States:

At the global city level, London tops the list of gridlock-plagued cities, with 101 hours of delay, followed by Los Angeles (81 hours), Washington D.C. (75), San Francisco (75), Houston (74), New York (73), Stuttgart (73), Antwerp (71), Cologne (71) and Brussels (70). Drivers using the top 10 worst roads globally waste on average 110 hours a year, or more than 4.5 days, in gridlock. Of these, four are in Los Angeles, three in Moscow, followed by roads in London, Brussels and Munich.

The 10 U.S. cities with the worst commute times are:

1. Los Angeles, CA – 81 hours
2. Washington, DC – 75 hours
3. San Francisco, CA – 75 hours
4. Houston, TX – 74 hours
5. New York, NY – 73 hours
6. Seattle, WA – 66 hours
7. Boston, MA – 64 hours
8. Chicago, IL – 60 hours
9. Atlanta, GA – 59 hours
10. Honolulu, HI – 49 hours

Methodology: Findings in the INRIX 2015 Traffic Scorecard are drawn from traffic speed data collected by INRIX on more than 1.3 million miles of urban streets and highways in the United States, along with highway performance data from the Federal Highway Administration.