Drivers wasted a lot of time and money being stuck in traffic last year. Here are the 30 worst cities for traffic.
Try not to think about where you need to be in five minutes, or the $4-a-gallon gas you’re wasting as you sit idle in a traffic jam. Do you even have enough gas? Can you even get off the freeway to get gas?
If you live in a city, chances are you’re familiar with these thoughts while helplessly stuck in traffic. Traffic congestion cost the U.S. more than $81 billion in 2022, according to the latest traffic report by Inrix, a U.S. company that analyzes transportation data.
The typical American driver lost 51 hours stuck in congestion, costing the average driver $869 in lost time, according to Inrix, and that doesn’t even include fuel costs.
The average American driver spent $134 more on gas in 2022 than in 2021. A Los Angeles commuter shelled out nearly $315 more in 2022 than in 2021, and the typical New York driver an additional $213 in 2022.
If that sounds like a lot of pain, imagine living and driving in London, which tops Inrix’s list of cities with the worst traffic in the world, for the second year in a row. The average London driver lost 156 hours due to congestion in 2022 and spent an extra $223 on fuel.
After some traffic relief during the covid pandemic, delays exceeded pre-covid levels in 39% of urban areas in the U.S., and 42% in Europe, the report says.
To compile their Global Traffic Scorecard, Inrix collects billions of anonymous data points daily from a variety of sources, including connected vehicles, mobile devices, navigation units, fleet vehicles, road and garage infrastructure, and publicly available information on incidents.
These are the cities that had the worst traffic in the world in 2022.
1. London
Hours lost per driver: 156Downtown speed: 10 mph
2. Chicago
Hours lost per driver: 155Downtown speed: 11 mph
3. Paris
Hours lost per driver: 138 Downtown speed: 11 mph
4. Boston
Hours lost per driver: 134Downtown speed: 11 mph
5. New York City
Hours lost per driver: 117Downtown speed: 11 mph
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6. Bogota, Colombia
Hours lost per driver: 122Downtown speed: 11 mph
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7. Toronto
Hours lost per driver: 118Downtown speed: 10 mph
8. Philadelphia
Hours lost per driver: 114Downtown speed: 11 mph
9. Miami
Hours lost per driver: 105Downtown speed: 15 mph
10. Palermo, Italy
Hours lost per driver: 121Downtown speed: 9 mph
11. Monterrey, Mexico
Hours lost per driver: 116 Downtown speed: 19 mph
12. Dublin
Hours lost per driver: 114 Downtown speed: 12 mph
13. Rome
Hours lost per driver: 107 Downtown speed: 13 mph
14. Los Angeles
Hours lost per driver: 95 Downtown speed: 19 mph
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15. San Francisco
Hours lost per driver: 97 Downtown speed: 12 mph
16. Istanbul
Hours lost per driver: 89 Downtown speed: 14 mph
17. Brussels, Belgium
Hours lost per driver: 98 Downtown speed: 10 mph
18. Medellin, Colombia
Hours lost per driver: 91 Downtown speed: 12 mph
19. Bucharest, Romania
Hours lost per driver: 91 Downtown speed: 15 mph
20. Washington D.C.
Hours lost per driver: 83 Downtown speed: 11 mph
21. Lyon, France
Hours lost per driver: 92 Downtown speed: 10 mph
22. Mexico City
Hours lost per driver: 74 Downtown speed: 12 mph
23. Budapest
Hours lost per driver: 86 Downtown speed: 16 mph
24. Cape Town, South Africa
Hours lost per driver: 80 Downtown speed: 12 mph
25. Bristol, England
Hours lost per driver: 91 Downtown speed: 14 mph
26. Athens
Hours lost per driver: 78Downtown speed: 14 mph
27. Houston, Texas
Hours lost per driver: 74Downtown speed: 16 mph
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28. Atlanta
Hours lost per driver: 74Downtown speed: 16 mph
29. Turin, Italy
Hours lost per driver: 86Downtown speed: 11 mph
30. Marseille
Hours lost per driver: 83Downtown speed: 11 mph
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