Should this even be news any more?
Traffic is bad. And it's really bad in San Francisco and Los Angeles.
As it does each year, the Texas Transportation Institute has released its annual congestion report.
The study ranked the Oakland-San Francisco area as the second most congested in the nation based on hours commuters were delayed in traffic -- 61 per year, matching the delay drivers in Los Angeles face each year.
That's three full days each year of your life smushed in your Prius trying to make the most of it listening to NPR.
What's the worst place to be behind the wheel? Apparently it's where the president's limosines drive each day. Washington, D.C. earned the dubious No. 1 distinction, where drivers clock an average of 67 hours of delay each year per driver. Newew York is third at 59.
Rankings of the nation’s most congested cities vary slightly from year to year, and many of the latest top 10 cities are repeat performers.
After the worst three offenders listed above, the remaining seven are: New York-Newark, Boston, Houston, Atlanta, Chicago, Philadelphia and Seattle.
San Jose falls just outside the Bay Area, according to the Texas researchers. The South Bay ranked 29th out of 80 of the nation's largest urban areas with 38 wasted hours of idling, honking and trying to not answer your freind's texts.
Not only is time wasted on the road, the study points out, but there are definite environmental impacts as well. The amount of carbon dioxide emitted is a big problem, and fuel wasted in congested traffic reached 2.9 billion gallons – enough to fill the New Orleans Superdome four times.
For the first time this year, the researchers calculated "urban mobility," giving driver's a measure of travel reliaiability on how much "exta time" it will take to get from place to place.
The annual TTI report studies congestion and offers solutions such as public transportation as alternatives to clogging up the roads.
