The Denver metro area’s rush-hour traffic is a pain, but how much worse could it be?
Turns out, a lot worse — if you live in Boston, Chicago or Los Angeles. In fact, 18 U.S. cities ranked above Denver on an annual list of the 25 most congested cities in the country.
Still, Denver commuters’ aggravation is well-founded: The average driver traveling during peak commute times lost a cumulative 83 hours to congestion in 2018, according to the annual report from INRIX Research, which analyzes traffic data around the world. And that lost time increased by 3 percent over 2017.
Other measures provided by INRIX on Denver’s scorecard: The final mile of a commute into downtown during peak periods took five minutes, with traffic moving at 13 mph. And the lost time in traffic last year carried an estimated cost of $1,152 per driver.
Denver fell below the average time lost to congestion across the United States last year — estimated at 97 hours — thanks in part to larger cities with mind-boggling gridlock that pulled the average up.
The rankings took into account both traffic delays and a city’s population in the calculation of congestion impact.
The top five: Boston, where rush-hour commuters lost an estimated 164 hours in traffic last year, followed by Washington, D.C. (155 hours); Chicago (138 hours); New York (133 hours); and Los Angeles (128 hours).
Similar-sized metro areas that ranked higher: Sixth-place Seattle (138 hours), 15th-place Baltimore (94 hours), 16th-place Charlotte (95 hours) and 17th-place Tampa (87 hours).
