The Texas A&M Transportation Institute study had ranked the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim region as the area with the country’s worst traffic since 1982. But the institute’s 2021 Urban Mobility Report showed the New York-Newark region now has the worst traffic in the nation.
The rankings are based on the total amount of hours drivers were delayed. The New York-Newark region spent 494,268 hours stuck in traffic last year, while the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim had 365,543 hours of time in traffic.
New York-Newark also placed first for the average amount of hours a driver spent in traffic last year with 56 hours. The top five areas and hours were: New York-Newark, 56; Boston, 50; Houston, 49; Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, 46; San Francisco-Oakland, 46
Even though nationwide traffic dipped to some of the lowest levels in the past 30 years, it isn’t expected to remain like that. By September, traffic conditions were beginning to rise, and with California now fully re-opened, Los Angeles may be coming back for its title.
