Alongside airport takeoffs and gallons of water at the aquarium, Atlanta is consistently ranking among the world’s leading cities when it comes to a more aggravating facet of city life.
For the second year running, Atlanta has landed at No. 4 in a ranking of the most congested U.S. cities by INRIX, a company that describes itself as “the world leader in transportation analytics and connected car services.”
In even more disconcerting news, per INRIX, the Big Peach has climbed/fallen a slot since 2016 to claim the eighth worst traffic on the planet.
For its 2017 Global Traffic Scorecard, the company studied the impact of traffic congestion in 1,360 cities across 38 countries. Analysts found that metro Atlantans spent an average of 70 hours in traffic jams during peak travel times. That cost each driver $2,212 and the city more than $7 billion.
That was good (or bad) for fourth in the U.S., behind LA, New York, and San Francisco.
So, not to sound rosy, but it could be worse. Much worse.
Los Angeles (another finalist in the Amazon HQ2 sweepstakes) topped the list of the world’s most gridlocked cities for the sixth straight year; New York City wasn’t far behind.
Globally speaking, here’s the not-so-hot Top 10, per INRIX’s findings:
Is there a bright side in the findings? Maybe.
Atlantans hoping that Amazon will pick our fair city for its second headquarters will note the U.S. top 10 for awful traffic is loaded with finalists on Jeff Bezos’s shortlist.
Source: Curbed Atlanta