Here Are The 10 Most Congested Cities In America

If you drive to work every day, there’s a very good chance you spend a lot of your time crawling along in traffic. With the world’s population booming and our road networks barely evolving to keep up, it’s no surprise to learn that we’re spending more and more time sat in traffic. That’s the finding of the latest Urban Mobility Scorecard, created by the Texas A&M Transportation Institute, which analyses the trips we take by car to track how our driving behaviours are changing.

Scanning through the report makes for depressing reading. Between 2013 and 2014, 95 of the 100 largest urban areas in America saw increased traffic congestion, with Americans travelling an extra 6.9 billion hours because of heavy traffic. When compared to taking their commutes in light traffic, congestion meant they also wasted an average of 19 extra gallons of fuel each and, in the largest cities, spent an average of 63 extra hours behind the wheel each year.

The evening rush hour around 6pm is typically more congested than the morning rush hour, with 1am to 6am being the best time to travel. Traffic was unsurprisingly much lighter at weekends, with Friday being the most congested day to travel.

So which American cities are guilty of subjecting their inhabitants to the most severe congestion? Here are the worst culprits:

1. Washington DC - 82 extra hours in traffic in 2014
2. Los Angeles - 80 extra hours
3. San Francisco - 78 extra hours
4. New York City - 74 extra hours
5. San Jose - 67 hours
6. Boston - 64 extra hours
7. Seattle - 63 extra hours
8. Chicago - 61 extra hours
9. Houston - 61 extra hours
10. Riverside-San Bernadino - 59 extra hours