Big Apple Among Top 5 Most Gridlocked Cities, Study Finds

Nationally, delays due to traffic congestion past year kept drivers and their passengers cooped up in cars for almost 7 billion extra hours and more than 3 billion gallons of fuel were wasted, according to the Texas A&M report, which was jointly produced with INRIX, a data technology company.

While Pittsburgh’s numbers were bad, they were better than the national averages of 42 hours and $960 wasted in traffic, according to the report, which was issued today.

New Yorkers are wasting time behind the wheel at a record rate – spending more than the equivalent of three days a year sitting in traffic, a new study has found.

Yearly delays per driver in Nashville were slightly higher than congestion delays in Charlotte, San Antonio and Indianapolis.

Washington, D.C. tops the list of gridlock-plagued cities, with 82 hours of delay per commuter, followed by Los Angeles (80 hours), San Francisco (78 hours), New York (74 hours), and San Jose (67 hours).

The New York-Newark, N.J.- Connecticut metropolitan area came in fourth.

Wichita drivers were delayed an average 35 total hours previous year during morning and afternoon rush hours.

“The problem is very large”, the report said.

Kevin Nursick, spokesman for the Connecticut Department of Transportation, said, “There is no sugarcoating that there is congestion”.

“There’s a lot worse than what we’re dealing with”, he said.

INRIX added that its data also indicates that traffic congestion isn’t just a big-city issue anymore.

In the long term, Lomax said better land use planning is needed.

“Overall, drivers may be unaware of the number of hours they spend stuck in traffic”, said Diane Brown, executive director of the Arizona Public Interest Research Group.

The Urban Mobility Scorecard said congestion decreased during the recession.

The report includes state-by-state and region-by-region data on congestion.

The Texas Transportation Institute report estimates U.S. highway congestion costs $160 billion a year, including from lost productivity, gas burned while idling in traffic and additional wear and tear on vehicles. “Increased congestion another reason lawmakers need to fix crumbling roads”, reads a paper that the California Alliance for Jobs, a highway construction pressure group, issued on Wednesday as the report was issued.

The study comes as Congress debates the highway funding bill, set to expire on October 29.