Philly roads are the 4th most congested in the nation — worse than Los Angeles

A typical Philadelphia driver spent 114 hours stuck in traffic in 2022, captive to the fourth-worst road congestion among urban centers in the United States, according to data from the transportation analytics firm INRIX.

By contrast, traffic in Los Angeles, with its notorious web of freeways and monster backups, moved more smoothly: Delays robbed L.A. drivers of 95 hours on average last year.

In a nutshell, growing congestion as measured in INRIX’s annual Global Traffic Scorecard tells the story of recovery from the COVID pandemic, said company analyst Bob Pishue, the author of the report.

“Some areas have seen a little bit more resurgence than others,” Pishue said. “Among major U.S. cities, the common theme was that the morning commute came back in 2022.”

During much of the pandemic, traffic steadily increased throughout the day, a change from the traditional pattern when it trailed off after a morning rush. Now the traditional morning peak, associated with commuting, is coming back along with the usual traffic spikes in the afternoon and evening, Pishue said.

One likely cause, he said, is an increase in hybrid work, as employers require people to spend at least some time back in the office with typical early-morning start times.

INRIX studied 295 urban areas across the nation. Traffic delays remained below pre-COVID levels in 179 areas and exceeded them in 116 others.

Even though time lost to bottlenecks rose 27% in Philadelphia and its most-traveled suburbs compared with 2021, the metro area still had 20% less traffic than it did in 2019, INRIX data show.

The results are based on millions of anonymized data points collected from smartphones, GPS systems in cars and trucks, and cities’ own reporting of crashes, incidents, and congestion. Over time, INRIX identified and mapped the most common trip corridors in each urban area, which corresponds roughly to the metropolitan statistical areas used by the Census. Tracking travel times on these corridors gives a clear picture of travel times and congestion, the company says.

INRIX analyzes transportation data for companies that want insight into traffic patterns as well as to a multitude of state and local governments and regional planning agencies.

Chicago was the most congested area in the United States with drivers losing an average of 155 hours last year to traffic delays. (The Windy City was second only to London in the world.) Boston (134 hours) and New York (117 hours) also saw big jumps in the volume of traffic delays.

Congestion cost the average driver in Philadelphia $1,295 in time lost last year, based on a U.S. Department of Transportation formula and specific data points on each city, INRIX said. Congestion cost the average American driver $869 in time lost during 2022.

What about that Los Angeles anomaly?

It’s not clear from the numbers why it was less congested than Philadelphia last year, but Pishue has a theory.

“What comes to my mind first thing is that L.A. has a lot more road capacity,” he said. It’s less dense and younger than the major Eastern cities. Though traffic has increased in Los Angeles, it may be that the city’s road network hasn’t reached the “tipping point” when the number of additional vehicles would turn a free-flowing freeway into a clogged mess, Pishue said.