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: 156
- Downtown speed: 10 mph
2. Chicago
- Hours lost per driver: 155
- Downtown speed: 11 mph
3. Paris
- Hours lost per driver: 138
- Downtown speed: 11 mph
4. Boston
- Hours lost per driver: 134
- Downtown speed: 11 mph
5. New York City
- Hours lost per driver: 117
- Downtown speed: 11 mph
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6. Bogota, Colombia
- Hours lost per driver: 122
- Downtown speed: 11 mph
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7. Toronto
- Hours lost per driver: 118
- Downtown speed: 10 mph
8. Philadelphia
- Hours lost per driver: 114
- Downtown speed: 11 mph
9. Miami
- Hours lost per driver: 105
- Downtown speed: 15 mph
10. Palermo, Italy
- Hours lost per driver: 121
- Downtown 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: 78
- Downtown speed: 14 mph
27. Houston, Texas
- Hours lost per driver: 74
- Downtown speed: 16 mph
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28. Atlanta
- Hours lost per driver: 74
- Downtown speed: 16 mph
29. Turin, Italy
- Hours lost per driver: 86
- Downtown speed: 11 mph
30. Marseille
- Hours lost per driver: 83
- Downtown speed: 11 mph
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