Many of the worst traffic bottlenecks are found in Los Angeles, a new study found, however the absolute worst one is in Chicago.
The American Highway Users Alliance released a new, comprehensive report on the nation's worst traffic snarls this month, titled "Unclogging America’s Arteries 2015."
Of the top 50 traffic bottlenecks identified by the study, Los Angeles was home to more than 10. New York had the second most bottlenecks.
Researchers ranked the bottlenecks based on a number of factors, including speed data, time of day, and hours lost in delays. Somewhat surprisingly, Austin, Texas, had a bottleneck in the top 10.
According to the Los Angeles Times, "The 11 jams [in greater L.A.] represent about 44 million hours of lost time, or about half of the daily total delays on the list of the 30 worst bottlenecks, the study said. Southern California commuters lose nearly $1.17 billion in lost time on the routes."
Monali Shah, the director of intelligent transportation at Here Connected Driving, one of the companies that provided GPS speed data for the study, said that the list represents "corridors that are continually congested."
In the case of the worst bottleneck in the country — a 12-mile stretch on Chicago's Kennedy Expressway between the city and its northern suburbs — the losses are staggering.
The bottleneck cost drivers 16.9 million hours' worth of time over the course of the previous year. In terms of dollars, that's an estimated $418 million in losses.
The environmental cost of the bottleneck is also high, resulting in 6.3 million gallons of fuel wasted idling in traffic. If the bottleneck were to be fixed, that would reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 133 million pounds annually.
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