Where Are America’s Worst Traffic Hotspots?

You’re on the road a lot, helping your clients who, at the very least, want a commute they won’t hate. All natives of a city feel like they know the worst traffic to be caught in—and now a traffic analytics company has nailed down the proof.

Inrix, a research company focusing on transportation, ranked 100,000 traffic hotspots based on the cost of wasted time, lost fuel, and carbon emissions in the 25 most congested American cities.

The big winner for the worst traffic? Los Angeles, with 10,385 traffic hotspots. While that’s fewer than second-place New York, which has 13,608 hotspots, Inrix found Los Angeles’ traffic issues more severe than New York’s based on the ranking criteria. As a result, Inrix projects that the cost of Los Angeles’ congestion in 2026 will total $90.9 billion, while New York’s congestion in 2026 projects to $63.9 billion.

The top five cities were filled out with Washington, D.C.; Atlanta; and Dallas.

Los Angeles had five of the ten worst traffic hotspots in the country, with Washington having three and Chicago and San Diego having one each. But Washington owns the nation’s worst hotspot, I-95 south at Exit 133A for Fairfax County Parkway. Los Angeles captures the next three spots, with the fifth in Chicago on I-90 west from Exit 81A to Exit 56B.

Rank U.S. City No. of Hotspots 2026 Cost of Congestion
1 Los Angeles, CA 10,385 $90.9bn
2 New York, NY 13,608 $63.9bn
3 Washington D.C. 6,097 $29.2bn
4 Atlanta, GA 8,554 $28.9bn
5 Dallas, TX 6,720 $28.3bn
6 Chicago, IL 7,719 $28.2bn
7 San Francisco, CA 2,587 $26.9bn
8 Houston, TX 4,417 $23.8bn
9 Miami, FL 6,596 $19.1bn
10 Boston, MA 4,158 $18.9bn

See the full list of America’s worst traffic cities and each city’s worst routes.

Source: “INRIX Identifies the Worst Traffic Hotspots in the 25 Most Congested U.S. Cities,” Inrix.com (Sept. 27, 2017)

Back