Even with a pandemic, traffic remained congested in many of the United States’ metropolitan areas.
Los Angeles and New York City were the two cities with the worst cases of snarled traffic during 2020, according to TomTom. The location technology specialist released its 2020 Traffic Index Report, which examines roads in 416 cities and 57 countries around the world.
TomTom noted that there was reduced traffic in 2020, but there were still days when vehicles were bumper to bumper on the highways.
Miami was third on the list of 80 cities, followed by San Francisco; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; San Jose, California; Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Florida; Seattle; Honolulu; and Riverside, California.
Traffic congestion was way down nationwide in 2020, but L.A. was still the worst: https://t.co/H18vOgDNjI pic.twitter.com/tOaizrY6O0
— Autoblog (@therealautoblog) January 13, 2021
Miami and Baton Rouge knocked San Jose and Seattle out of the top five, according to the Miami Herald.
TomTom assigns a congestion rate to every city based on its analysis of free-flow travel times of all vehicles on the entire road network. In 2020, Los Angeles had a 27% congestion level, which means that a 30-minute trip would take 27% more time than it would during uncongested traffic conditions.
Tampa, Florida, was at No. 12 nationwide, with Atlanta at No. 17. Chicago ranked 20th, Orlando, Florida, was No. 21, Boston was at No. 31, Pittsburgh was 36th, and Jacksonville, Florida, was at No. 40. Charlotte, North Carolina was 41st, Memphis, Tennessee was 54th, and Tulsa, Oklahoma, was at No. 57.
While the freeways of Los Angeles contributed to its congestion, the City of Angels is nowhere near the top of the world charts.
Moscow is No. 1 in the world with 54%, followed by Mumbai, India (53%), and Bogota, Colombia (53%), according to TomTom. Los Angeles is ranked No. 85 worldwide, with New York at No. 102.
Mexico City is the most congested city in North America and ranks 29th in the world. Vancouver, British Columbia, is second and 52nd worldwide. Los Angeles and New York are No. 3 and No. 4 on the continent, followed by Miami.
Cox Media Group
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