News

Nov 27, 2023

It’s Not Your Imagination — Traffic Is Getting Worse in Cities

Traveling through almost any major American city got slower in 2022. New Yorkers still have it worst, though we all know only cab drivers noticed. Residents of the nation’s capital and Indianapolis,

Traveling through almost any major American city got slower in 2022.

New Yorkers still have it worst, though we all know only cab drivers noticed. Residents of the nation’s capital and Indianapolis, though, win the right to be most annoyed — their commutes increased by more time in 2022 than drivers in any other American city.

Related: Traffic Deaths Hit Two-Decade High

The data comes from navigation giant TomTom, which has a creative way of measuring traffic misery. TomTom tracks how long it takes the average driver to travel about six miles (10 kilometers) in every major city worldwide.

TomTom published its 2022 Traffic Index late last week, putting numbers to behind-the-wheel suffering in 389 cities worldwide. The numbers include 80 American cities.

Seven, incredibly, had faster commutes in 2022 than in 2021. Eleven saw no change. The rest of us, though, spent more time in traffic. In Washington, D.C., and Indianapolis, drivers spent an extra minute and a half every 6.2 miles.

The numbers may be unsurprising, as 2022 saw millions of office-job Americans return to the office after working from home through part of the COVID-19 pandemic. But the fact that the data doesn’t surprise you doesn’t mean it can’t crush you.

Globally, Londoners have it worst. The average driver took an incredible 36 minutes and 20 seconds to travel 6.2 miles last year. New York, America’s slowest city, was just the 19th-slowest worldwide. A driver could do it in the Big Apple in 24 minutes and 30 seconds.

Will relief ever come? It’s nowhere in sight. A recent survey from Kastle Systems, the company that secures more office buildings than any other in America, found that America’s offices are more than half-full for the first time since 2020. Return-to-office pressures in many cities will likely put more of us on the road in 2023.

Mercedes-Benz, however, recently received approval to sell the first driver assistance system that lets drivers take their hands off the wheel and their eyes off the road while the car does the driving on some highways. Unfortunately, it’s available only in Nevada and on a pair of very expensive cars. Las Vegas residents saw their commutes get longer by 10 seconds per every 6.2 miles in 2022.