In Los Angeles, every day brings a new carmageddon. The portmanteau was originally coined to describe a weekend in July 2012, when a section of 405 Freeway was closed for massive widening project. The traffic apocalypse turned out not to be as bad as predicted, but the additional lanes of freeway did nothing to alleviate LA’s legendary traffic woes. In fact, one could argue they’ve only gotten worse. According to a study released today, the City of Angels held the dubious distinction of ranking No. 1 for traffic congestion in the entire world.
LA was the most gridlocked city in the world, with drivers spending 104 hours in congestion in 2016 during peak time periods, according to a massive review of global traffic data by analytics firm INRIX. That’s four whole days (plus eight hours) stuck in traffic. In that amount of time, you could watch Joel Schumacher’s 1993 Falling Down, in which an LA traffic jam spurs Michael Douglas into a spasm of rage-filled violence, over 50 times. Cool!
In LA, the car is king. Which is not to say that public transportation isn’t an option. Two new light-rail lines opened last year, and in November, voters approved a sales tax increase to nearly double the city’s rail network. But service is spotty, delays frequent, and ridership numbers for continue to drop, year over year. For many Los Angelinos, the Metro is not seen as a viable alternative, which explains why they chose to fritter their time away in traffic.
Not far behind LA was Moscow, where drivers spent an additional 91 hours in traffic, followed by New York City (89 hours), San Francisco (83 hours), and Bogota (80 hours). The US was the most congested developed country in the world, with 11 cities in the top 25 and drivers spending an average of 42 hours a year in traffic during peak hours. And congestion costs more than just your time — it also hits you right in the wallet too. The direct and indirect costs of gridlock in 2016 was $300 billion, an average of $1,400 per driver, INRIX estimates.