Report: Traffic 22-25 Percent Worse in San Jose, San Francisco

If your commute seems longer and the road slower, fret not -- it's not in your mind. Traffic is getting worse.

Traffic in the Bay Area has become significantly slower over the past year, according to a new report.

Congestion in San Jose worsened by 25 percent from April 2012 to April of this year, and traffic congestion in San Francisco got 22 percent thicker over that same time span.

Commutes are a "slow, grinding torture," according to the San Jose Mercury News, which noted that the slowest stretch in the nine-county Bay Area is Highway 101 southbound between Fair Oaks Avenue and De La Cruz Boulevard. There, a rush hour drive over the 4.1-mile stretch takes 19 minutes -- "at an average speed of 13 mph," the newspaper reported.

The slowdown is a side effect of the economy's recovery, the newspaper reported. So that "sea of red brake lights that has almost... the entire Bay Area aglow" is a good thing, the newspaper reported.

Los Angeles still has the worst traffic congestion in America, but the Bay Area is making a case. San Francisco's traffic is the country's third-worst, while San Jose's roads jumped up to the United States's seventh-most clogged.