Map Shows Cities With Most Expensive Traffic Jams (2024)

Drivers in the US are spending up to 26 per cent of their annual fuel bill on traffic jams, according to analysis that lays bare the financial toll of congested cities.

The latest available data shows that motorists continue to battle congestion despite hopes that remote working during the Covid pandemic heralded a new era of clutter-free city roads.

The issue is not just a matter of lost time, but also of increased expenses. As drivers sit idly in traffic jams with their engines running, the cost of congestion starts to put a strain on their already inflated fuel budgets.

According to analytics website tomtom's yearly Traffic Index, New Yorkers spent an average $436 on fuel while driving, and tomtom attributes just under a quarter of this ($107) to time wasted in traffic. The city topped the list of the most congested U.S. city centers overall, with an average travel time of 25 minutes per 6.2 miles (10 kilometers). This places it twentieth on tomtom's annual world rankings, which are led by London with a staggering time of 37 minutes.

Of the ten most congested cities in the U.S., tomtom's data shows all but one worsening from their 2022 levels.

Drivers in cities such as New York, Los Angeles and Chicago are spending up to half of their yearly driving hours stuck in traffic, leading to a sizeable slice of their annual fuel budgets going towards the cost of gallons of gas with little distance to show for it

This map shows how much of their annual fuel budget drivers in 2023 lost to traffic in America's most congested cities.

Bostonians were paying the largest chunk, at 26 percent, with $106 of their annual $410 fuel spend being burnt up during rush hour gridlock. Chicago and Honolulu also suffered in the pocket, as congestion costs accounted for 23 percent of their 2023 fuel budget.

Tomtom estimates that, of the 238 hours the average New Yorker spent driving in the city center during rush hour in 2023, 112 of these were due to congestion. This equates to over four days, and the figures are similarly woeful for America's other major municipalities.

Los Angeles residents lost 89 hours, more than half of their 163 hours of yearly travel time, while Chicagoans, for whom it took an average of 18 minutes to travel 6.2 miles, were waiting in traffic for 86 of their 180 hours of total driving.

Covid lockdowns, and the subsequent adoption of flexible or remote working arrangements across the U.S., arguably should have led to an unclogging of major cities' streets during traditional commuting hours. However, traffic woes in the U.S. appear to have increased from pre-pandemic levels.

According to tomtom, New York's congestion level – being the average vehicle time lost to traffic - rose to 43 percent in 2023 from 37 percent in 2019.

Los Angeles, another city famed for its gridlock, saw a double-digit increase to 53 percent from 42 percent over the same timespan.

David Schrank PhD, a lead research at the Texas A&M Transportation Institute's Mobility Division, told Newsweek that the new hybrid model of working had also thrown an additional spanner into the issue of congestion.

"Commuting is much more volatile on any given day... meaning you don't really know what you will face until you are on your way," Schrank said. "This is due to the fact that so many workers are working at least partially from their homes but on any given day the majority of them could be commuting in to offices. This unexpected surge can cause traffic to be much worse; similar to a really bad weather day or some other event."

Efforts have been put forward to address this, including the introduction of a congestion charge in New York City, which scheduled to go live on June 30 for drivers entering the Manhattan Central Business District.

This was put on ice last week, however, as New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced an "indefinite pause" to the program, citing the burden this could cause to lower income commuters.

On the possible solution of congestion charges, Schrank said to Newsweek: "Using our roads is one of the few things, we, as consumers, do not pay for as we use it (other than toll roads). So, from that perspective, congestion pricing makes sense."

However, he added: "It typically can be a bit problematic to create and administer a new system like you would have to do for congestion pricing after users have had the use of it for free for years and decades. That kind of change may take a lot of effort to make happen."

The Los Angeles Times has also reported that the city is considering a congestion charge in its higher-traffic zones.

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