Study Ranks Cities With Worst Traffic
L.A., Detroit, Houston, Miami Rank High In Index
A new national ranking of cities with the worst traffic congestion puts Los Angeles, Detroit and Houston near the top of the list.
The study, released Monday, ranked Los Angeles No. 1 for worst congestion. Detroit was No. 3.
Other cities with high rankings included Houston, coming in at No. 8; Sacramento at 11, Denver, 12; Portland, 14; and Miami, 15.
The analysis showed that road building has done little to ease congestion, while transit service is significantly reducing the burden of congestion on many commuters.
The ranking, developed by the Surface Transportation Policy Project, shows how the average commuter is affected by both congestion levels and the availability of transit in the 68 U.S. cities ranked.
Called the Congestion Burden Index, the list measures measures the severity of traffic congestion and the degree to which commuters are exposed to it. So cities got bad marks if they had bad congestion -- and if their transportation systems failed to provide ways of avoiding congestion, such as light rail or other forms of mass transit.
One of the report's conclusions is that big metropolitan areas need to develop their public transit; they can't just pave their way out of congestion by building more roads and lanes.
The report singled out Detroit -- the nation's largest metropolitan area without any rapid transit service. More than 93 percent of Detroit commuters, or about 1.6 million people, drive daily, spending an average of 41 hours a year stuck in traffic because there is limited bus service and no train service, according to the Michigan Land Use Institute.
STPP analyzed data collected by the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) for its annual Urban Mobility Study and found that metro areas that added the most roads have had little success in easing congestion. But metro areas, such as New York City, with good transit service ranked significantly lower on the new Congestion Burden Index.
Los Angeles maintained its No. 1 ranking because its residents suffer from both major congestion and relatively few ways to avoid it. However, San Francisco, which ranked 29th, has the second-worst rush-hour congestion as measured by TTI, but also has almost 500,000 residents traveling to work by means other than driving.
While TTI gave Boston and Atlanta similar scores for rush-hour congestion, Atlantans suffer more due to congestion because a high share of them drive to work. As a result, Atlanta ranked sixth, while Boston, with a high percentage of commuters using transit service, ranked 47th.
Transporation agencies have responded to congestion by adding to the road system. However, STPP finds that the places adding roads most aggressively over the past 10 years have had no greater success in fighting congestion than those not adding roads.
"The misery inflicted by traffic congestion is not the same everywhere," STPP's executive director Roy Kienitz said. "The places where commuters suffer most are the ones with the fewest transporation choices."
One of the reasons that road-building shows disappointing results, according to the STPP analysis, is that adding road capacity doesn't just meet the current travel demand, it actually spurs additional driving.
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