Seattle Makes Top Ten Most Congested Cities

Seattle continues to be ranked the ninth most congested city in the United States. The ranking is according to a study released Tuesday morning by Inrix, a Kirkland-based company that provides traffic and navigation services for the nation.

The KIRO 7 traffic team looked through all of the data and found the study showed that annually, drivers in the greater Seattle metro area who normally commute 30 minutes have wasted 46 hours last year stuck in traffic. The worst stretch of freeway is SR-520 westbound at Bellevue Way/Lake Washington Blvd on Thursdays from 6 to 7 p.m. At this time, traffic crawls at only 5 mph.

Nationwide, the report found that traffic congestion hit bottom in March last year after 18 months of steady declines and is back on the rise as the economy shows signs of recovery. According to the report, how quickly traffic congestion returns to pre-recession levels will be dependent on jobs and fuel prices.

Los Angeles, New York and Chicago rounded out the top three most congested cities. The worst bottleneck in the nation is westbound on the Cross Bronx Expressway (I-95) in New York City. This section of freeway wastes 94 hours of peoples’ time per week, the study calculated.

Here is the complete list of the top 10 most congested cities:

1. Los Angeles, Calif.

2. New York, N.Y.

3. Chicago, Ill.

4. Washington, D.C.

5. Dallas, Texas

6. Houston, Texas

7. San Francisco, Calif.

8. Boston, Mass.

9. Seattle, Wash.

10. Philadelphia, Pa.