The magnitude of the Massachusetts congestion problem is crystal clear. But if traffic is bad anywhere, it's likely especially annoying in Boston.5 Investigates got an inside look at the city of Boston's Traffic Management Center, a powerful tool in the war on congestion, tucked away on the seventh floor of City Hall.That's where we found senior traffic engineer Keith Bynum monitoring roadways and intersections from a feed of more than 300 cameras around the city."When we see an unusual traffic condition, it allows us to go into the computer and make real-time adjustments to the signal," he said."It actually does make a difference. You can actually give one approach four or five seconds, and you wouldn't believe in 10 minutes how much a difference that can make," Bynum said. But the struggle to keep up with all the congestion is real."It's a huge focus for us to address congestion for a number of reasons," said Chris Osgood, who is the city's chief of the streets, transportation & sanitation.The data reveals why congestion is worse: Massachusetts added 350,000 people and 435,000 jobs since 2010, mostly in the Boston area."Our population is growing. Our overall number of jobs in the city of Boston is growing. And what we are seeing is some increased delay in how long it takes for someone to get to their final destination," Osgood said. Those issues were underscored in the Massachusetts Department of Transportation's Congestion in the Commonwealth report released in August. It pointed to a lack of reliability and called on everyone to work together to try and resolve the problem."A range of factors created today's growing congestion problem. Only an equally wide-range of actions by public and private players can fix it," state Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollock said during a press conference at the time.The city of Boston is already taking innovative steps to relieve congestion. It's added dedicated bus and bike lanes like this one and plans to add even more. The goal: making public transportation a better option."While tons of people are taking that service, more would take it if it were more reliable," Osgood said, referring to buses.And then there are the Ubers and Lyfts clogging city streets. About 42 million ride-share trips started in Boston last year, so the city is looking at ways to give people additional financial incentives for sharing those rides with others. It's also planning to create more dedicated pickup and drop-off zones for ride-share companies, which the city says have already resulted in less congestion."What we noticed is that actually did reduce the instances of double parking. It did reduce the instances of illegal parking in the area in general," Osgood said.The city is also concerned about the environmental impact of congestion."If we can address congestion, we're likely able to lower emissions. We're likely able to better connect people to jobs to schools, to cultural opportunities across the region," Osgood said.A worthy goal, but getting there may be as difficult as getting anywhere right now in and around Boston."Is congestion ever going to go away?" 5 Investigates' Mike Beaudet asked Osgood."I think there are certainly things we can do to make everybody's trip to and from their destination much more enjoyable, much more reliable and much more safe," he said.