From among more than a thousand cities, Los Angeles City has emerged in a new report as the one with the worst traffic congestion in the world.
In a new report by transportation analytics company INRIX, the average driver in LA spent 13 percent of commute in bad traffic, forcing him or her to spend an added 104 hours sitting in gridlock inside cars every year. This translated to $2,408 in fuel and productivity costs.
Largest Traffic Congestion Study Revealed
The all-new INRIX Global Traffic Scorecard, which analyzed 1,064 cities across 38 countries, ranked the United States as the most congested developed nation worldwide, with its drivers spending 42 hours annually on average in peak-hour traffic. The direct and indirect costs of this congestion to U.S. drivers amounted to almost $300 billion in 2016.
And growth is largely to blame.
“A stable U.S. economy, continued urbanization of major cities, and factors such as employment growth and low gas prices have all contributed to increased traffic in 2016,” said INRIX senior economist and study author Bob Pishue in a statement.
Traffic is a double-edged sword, however, as it costs the United States hundreds of billions of dollars, threatens economic growth, and lowers quality of life, he warned.
The country dominated the top 10 of the study, with New York, San Francisco, Atlanta, and Miami trailing LA and Moscow in the ranking. In LA, for instance, there’s a $9.6-billion price tag for traffic congestion, which covers wasted fuel and time as well as freight and business fees from company vehicles that idled in traffic.
While demonstrating similar average congestion rate at 89 and 83 peak hours spent in traffic as Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco revealed strikingly varying traffic patterns. NYC had the top daytime congestion on arterials and city streets, while San Francisco ranked first during peak times.
Phoenix and Detroit were tied as the U.S. cities with the lowest congestion cost, standing at $1,062 per driver and the lowest in cost categories namely commuting, business, and leisure.
Economic Recovery, And Steps To Get Traffic Moving
A bustling economy, Pishue added, put plenty of strain on the roads mainly because of the movement of goods.
“So even if people reduced their driving a little bit, freight is still increasing,” he explained, in reference to the popularity of ride-sharing and ride-hailing services such as Uber.
The researchers used federal measurements for gauging the value of lost time and fuel, alongside the ecological effects of carbon emissions, in order to calculate the costs to drivers and municipalities from idle time in traffic.
In November, voters in LA approved Measure M, a $120-billion move to update transit infrastructure that ranges from bike lanes to highways. Back in December, Elon Musk even tweeted about building a tunnel to help reduce LA traffic.
New York City, too, is focusing on the expansion of the new 2nd Avenue subway line, anticipated to ferry more than 200,000 commuters every day.
The solution, Pishue proposed, lies not just in adding highway lanes or creating more parking spaces, but in harnessing “big data, technology, connectivity.”
In separate research from GPS manufacturer TomTom, Bangkok had the worst evening rush-hour traffic for the second consecutive year, followed by Mexico City in Mexico, Bucharest in Romania, Jakarta in Indonesia, Moscow in Russia, and Chongqing in China.
In the results compiled after the firm tracked a year’s worth of traffic in 390 cities, Los Angeles emerged as the only U.S. city in the top 15.
