# Worst traffic congestion **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [February 5, 2013, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-traffic-congestion/649421 "2013-02-05T21:18:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2013, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-traffic-congestion/649421/1 "2013-02-05T21:18:00Z")
Woo-hoo, [we’re number one](http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/washington-rated-the-worst-for-traffic-congestion--again/2013/02/04/125be724-6ee3-11e2-8b8d-e0b59a1b8e2a_story.html)! We’re number one! We’re number one! But seriously, interesting article and attached study. Apparently, if I were a daily driving commuter, I’d be wasting 67 hours a year sitting in traffic. Thank og for the Metro (and that I work somewhere with basically its own station). If you want to look at the data tables, they start on page 28 of [the paper](http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/documents/local/2012-urban-mobility-report/269/). ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2013, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-traffic-congestion/649421/2 "2013-02-05T21:51:45Z")
I heard this today on the radio and I thought: duh! But to be honest, if you are in the city it’s not bad at all, it’s when you are on the beltway or on the roads in the surrounding area that it is nightmarish. ---
**Author:** ![Rachellelogram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rachellelogram/32/8689_2.png) [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2013, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-traffic-congestion/649421/3 "2013-02-06T01:12:04Z")
Sorry if this is a hijack, but 67 hours a year? That isn’t much when you consider there are 8760 hours in a year (about 5840 of which you spend awake). Consider, if you will, how many hours the average car-less city dweller spends sitting on public transportation. Consider their need to ask their car-owning friends for a ride (or pay for help) when buying a new piece of furniture. Their need to plan and take smaller, more frequent grocery trips because they can’t transport a full load of groceries home on their own. The hassle of going for an unexpected, yet necessary trip out of town. The convenience of being able to drive when you want, where you want, while transporting things larger than you can carry far outweighs the negatives for me. And my current commute is over 200 hours a year, if my napkin math holds. ---
**Author:** ![Desert\_Nomad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desert_nomad/32/177_2.png) [@Desert\_Nomad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desert_Nomad)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2013, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-traffic-congestion/649421/4 "2013-02-06T01:51:33Z")
Go to Tehran and experience the traffic. You’ll think anywhere else is calm, light and quiet. ---
**Author:** ![Imasquare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Imasquare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Imasquare)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2013, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-traffic-congestion/649421/5 "2013-02-06T02:20:06Z")
> [@Rachellelogram](#): > > Sorry if this is a hijack, but 67 hours a year? That isn’t much when you consider there are 8760 hours in a year (about 5840 of which you spend awake). > > Consider, if you will, how many hours the average car-less city dweller spends sitting on public transportation. Consider their need to ask their car-owning friends for a ride (or pay for help) when buying a new piece of furniture. Their need to plan and take smaller, more frequent grocery trips because they can’t transport a full load of groceries home on their own. The hassle of going for an unexpected, yet necessary trip out of town. > > The convenience of being able to drive when you want, where you want, while transporting things larger than you can carry far outweighs the negatives for me. And my current commute is over 200 hours a year, if my napkin math holds. Many people who commute to work on public transport do also own a car. ---
**Author:** ![RedMud636](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c0e974/32.png) [@RedMud636](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedMud636)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2013, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-traffic-congestion/649421/6 "2013-02-06T02:53:37Z")
They replaced a standard 4 way intersection with left turn lanes on the “main"street” and controlled by lights with a small roundabout a few years back near where I lived at the time. It was on my work commute basically every day. I was curious to see how much better it would be so I started timing my waits at the lights. ( This project was well known in advance as its a small city and I think it was the first roundaboutNow they are putting them everwhere they . woohoo.) Turns out it saved me about 40 minutes / MONTH! Now they are putting them everywhere. Well not literally but buying land if needed from businesses or whatever and fixing up some “problem intersections” that are poorly designed for the amount of traffic we have now. I cant imagine dealing with the kind of traffic in Washington!! ---
**Author:** ![robardin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2013, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-traffic-congestion/649421/7 "2013-02-06T02:55:59Z")
> [@Rachellelogram](#): > > Sorry if this is a hijack, but 67 hours a year? That isn’t much when you consider there are 8760 hours in a year (about 5840 of which you spend awake). … > > The convenience of being able to drive when you want, where you want, while transporting things larger than you can carry far outweighs the negatives for me. And my current commute is over 200 hours a year, if my napkin math holds. Read the article again - it’s not that the average commute time is 67 hours per year (which would hardly qualify for “worst in the nation”, as that would be less than half an hour a day counting 48 “working weeks” a year), it’s 67 hours spent _sitting in traffic_ not going anywhere at all - stuck in gridlock, traffic jams or what have you. > [@](#): > > The city that so hungers to be No. 1 at something — usually on a gridiron or diamond-shaped field — has again risen to the top as the most congested metropolitan area in the United States, **a place where the average driver burns 67 hours and 32 gallons of gas each year sitting in traffic.** > > …the new index compares the time it would take to make a trip in light traffic with the time you need to allow if you want to be punctual for work (or anywhere else) 19 days out of 20. > > No place is worse than Washington, which rates 5.72 and is behind metro Los Angeles and New York. Baltimore ranks 15th among large cities with a 3.81, while Salt Lake City is at the bottom with a 2.02. > > What does that mean? > “If you had a 20-minute trip in light traffic, 20 times 5.7 is almost 2 hours that you ought to allow for a really important trip in the middle of rush hour,” Lomax said. “That’s the combined effect of weather and bad crashes and special events and construction, and in y’alls cases, presidential motorcades. It’s everything rolled together.” ---
**Author:** ![robardin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2013, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-traffic-congestion/649421/8 "2013-02-06T03:02:33Z")
To be fair to **Rachelellogram** , perhaps she did read that correctly and simply doesn’t feel 67 hours a year of idle time in traffic congestion is that big of a deal, even with a total commute time of about 200 hours a year (meaning that she’d be willing to spend ONE THIRD of her commute in gridlock or bumper-to-bumper traffic). That’s 33% of the total commute time… Wow, is all I can say, if that’s something you could shrug off. If it were a choice between a 45 minute commute by car with 1/3 of it (15 minutes) spent crawling along or stopped in traffic, versus a 45 minute commute by Metro + walking in DC, it wouldn’t be close. Plus it’d almost certainly be cheaper to take the train than to pay for parking.