Stuck in City Traffic: We’re Numbers 2, 4, 8, and 10
Over thirty years ago, economist Anthony Downs highlighted the problems of automobile congestion in cities and suburbs, with a book titled Stuck in Traffic. A second edition came out in 2004, appropriately titled, Still Stuck in Traffic. In this second edition, Downs noted that “traffic congestion has almost surpassed bad weather as a malady that is universally discussed but rarely improved through public policies,” and that “this constantly intensifying nature of congestion is extremely frustrating to the millions of citizens who daily endure it. They keep asking, ‘Why doesn’t somebody do something about this misery?’”
Building more roads is not the solution, but raising gasoline taxes, raising the prices on city parking lots, congestion price and toll schemes, increasing funding for public transportation are met with little enthusiasm.
In what cities do people spend most of their time stuck in traffic? In a 2022 study, INRIX Research determined that people would be trapped in traffic for 156 hours a year in London. Chicago was second worst (155 hours), then came Paris (138 hours). Boston was 4th (134 hours), New York City was 8th (117 hours), and Philadelphia was 10th (114 hours). Surely, Los Angeles couldn’t be too far behind these top ten.
Sources: Anthony Downs, Stuck in Traffic: Coping with Peak-Hour Traffic Congestion (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1992); Still Stuck in Traffic: Coping with Peak-Hour Traffic Congestion (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2004), vii. “2022 Global Traffic Scorecard,” INRIX Research, https://inrix.com/press-releases/2022-global-traffic-scorecard-uk/.
