Washington, D.C.: Nation's most congested city

The Texas A&M Transportation Institute;s 2012 Urban Mobility Report is out and the nation's capital is the most congested city.

By

Melissa Hincha-Ownby

Tue, Feb 05 2013 at 1:08 PM

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CO2, Emissions, Telecommuting

Photo: CountyLemonade/Flickr

Washington, D.C. residents that drive to work have a valid reason to complain about the commute; the District of Columbia was recently named the most congested city in the nation by the Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI). The Institute’s 2012 Urban Mobility Report examines congestion and traffic issues in 489 urban areas.

Top 10 most congested cities:

Washington, D.C.
Los Angeles, CA
San Francisco, CA
New York, NY
Boston, MA
Houston, TX
Atlanta, GA
Chicago, IL
Philadelphia, PA
Seattle, WA

Dealing with rush hour traffic is a frustrating, albeit necessary, waste of time; time that could be better spent working, spending time with family or running errands. The TTI 2012 Urban Mobility Report reveals that U.S. commuters wasted 5.5 billion hours of extra time due to traffic congestion in 2011. This is equal to the amount of time that businesses and individual taxpayers spend filing their taxes.

In addition to being a waste of time, congestion is also costly:

Commuters wasted 2.9 billion gallons of fuel due to congestion
$121 billion worth of congestion-related delay and fuel costs are realized annually
Per commuter average cost of $818 per year, up from $342 in 1982 (adjusted for inflation)

Traffic congestion also increases air pollution. In 2011, traffic congestion was responsible for an additional 56 billion pounds of carbon dioxide emissions, which is about 380 pounds of CO2 emissions per auto commuter. This figure is limited to the 489 urban areas used in the study and is only the congestion-related emissions, this does not include the tailpipe emissions from automotive use on non-congested roadways.

Public transportation can alleviate urban congestion and reduce excessive carbon dioxide emissions but it isn’t the only congestion relief approach recommended by the TTI. Other measures that municipalities should research include adding capacity in critical travel corridors, change usage patterns by encouraging flex hours or telecommuting opportunities and providing a variety of travel options to commuters.

Learn more about current traffic congestion concerns as well as historical trends by downloading the report: 2012 Urban Mobility Report (PDF).

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Comment: 1

Tarrant Feb 06 2013 at 11:01 AM

What are your experiences with traffic in the metro areas on this list? How is the traffic where you live? Living in Chicagoland I can vouch for the horrible traffic here. I grew up in the DC metro area and traffic was bad, but not horrible. But, I know it has gotten worse since I left home. One of my daughters now lives in Philadelphia and we visited her back in the fall. That traffic drove me batty. The roads just didn't work for the population at all. I've never found NYC traffic bad. And

.... More

despite the Atlanta reputation for snarled traffic, I really find it to be reasonable. (I have driven in and through Atlanta traffic a lot. More than a lot.) Honolulu was on this list last year and it definitely has a traffic problem and there seems to be reluctance to embrace trains and other forms of public transportation there. (Another daughter lives there)

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