Not news: Traffic in Dallas is more or less awful.
News: Dallas drivers didn't sit in it for quite as long last year.
That’s according to transportation data company INRIX, which analyzed traffic in 2017 in 1,360 cities across 38 countries. The results were published this week in its annual scorecard.
The local verdict: Dallas ranked as the 10th most congested city in the country and 22nd in the world. The upside? The amount of time people spent in traffic decreased slightly from the previous year.
Still, Dallas drivers spent an average of 54 hours (well over two days, people) sitting in a traffic jam in 2017. That’s compared to 59 hours in 2016. Not a drastic improvement, but we'll take it.
And while Dallasites stared at seemingly endless cars ahead of them, they were losing money — $1,674 per driver in direct and indirect costs for the year, INRIX says.
Analysts figured the economic impact by considering “both the direct costs (those borne by the driver directly through wasted time and fuel) and the indirect costs (those borne indirectly through the increased costs to businesses which are passed on to households through higher prices).”
The United States is the most congested developed country in the world, with drivers spending an average of 41 hours a year in traffic during peak hours — “the busiest part of the day when the most people are affected." Three U.S. cities ranked in the top five congested cities in the world: Los Angeles (No. 1), New York (tied with Moscow at No. 2) and San Francisco (No. 5).
Here are the 10 most traffic-afflicted cities in the country.
Houston falls right below Dallas at No. 11 and you’ll find Austin at No. 14. San Antonio's relatively more bearable at No. 42.
