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23. Montreal, Canada
(Photo by George Rose/Getty Images)
23. Montreal, Canada
(Photo by George Rose/Getty Images)
Seattle’s traffic ranks in the top 25 worst in the world — but who should that surprise?
From the Interstate 5 corridor (is it ever NOT rush hour north of Seattle?) to the Mercer mess (rebuilt but still gridlocked all afternoon) to the Alaskan Way viaduct (also barely moving from about 3 p.m. on), Seattleites are all too familiar with the fact that traffic is anything but smooth flowing around the Emerald City.
But according to Kirkland-based INRIX’s 2016 Global Traffic Scorecard, traffic here is better than a lot of places.
While New York City has long been seen as the traffic jam hub of the US, a new city had emerged as the worst congested city on the face of the Earth for rush hour traffic: Los Angeles, California. Los Angelenos spend an average of 104 hours in congested traffic a week, according to Inrix, a transportation analytics firm. This number tops Moscow at 91, and in third place, New York City at 89 total congested traffic hours.
Seattle comes in 20th in the world, and 10th in the U.S. for peak hours spent in congestion. The average driver spent 55 hours in rush-hour congestion last year, according to the report.
Using new methodology to calculate both direct and indirect costs of congestion to drivers, INRIX found that congested traffic cost U.S. drivers nearly $300 billion last year, or about $1,400 per driver.
In Seattle, that cost was about $1,590 per driver, and ran to about $2 billion in total cost to the city’s population in time lost to sitting in traffic.
And while that all sounds pretty stunning, it’s really nothing compared to cites that top the list, like Moscow, Russia, where commuters spent 91 hours in rush-hour congestion last year. Or even Atlanta, Georgia, where drivers sat for 71 hours — that’s almost three full days — in traffic.
We gathered the top 25 most congested cities in the world straight from INRIX’s report in the slideshow above. Click through to see the average hours of congestion and the congestion rate (average percentage of drive time spent in congestion) for each of the cites.
And be grateful that, while traffic here is no walk in the park, it’s usually faster than walking.
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