What’s this? A list of America’s worst commutes where Houston wasn’t in the top 10?
We came close, though.
The 610 Loop was ranked no. 12 in The Daily Beast‘s list of what they call “Highways to Hell” in 75 of the country’s most gridlocked cities.
Here’s why:
Weekly hours of bottleneck congestion: 189
Worst bottleneck: Southbound, Farm-to-Market Rd 1093/Westheimer Rd/Exit 8
Length of worst bottleneck: .16 miles
Weekly hours of congestion on worst bottleneck: 34
Speed of worst bottleneck when congested: 21.9 mph
Next time you’re stuck on the West Loop at Westheimer, just be glad you’re not driving in one of the cities that fared much worse than Houston.
1) Hollywood Freeway, Los Angeles
2) Lunalilo Freeway (H-1), Honolulu
3) Capital Beltway, surrounds Washington DC
4) I-35, Austin
5) James Lick Freeway (US 101), San Francisco
6) Cross Bronx Expressway, New York City
7) I-5, Seattle
8) I-95, Bridgeport, CT
9) Kennedy Expressway, Chicago
10) Airport Expressway (State Road 112), Miami
11) Bayshore Freeway (US 101), San Jose
Here’s how The Daily Beast crunched the numbers:
It was a two-step process, done with data from traffic-tracking firm INRIX, which culls information nationwide from more than 1.5 million GPS units, mostly in freight trucks.Our first step was ranking the metropolitan areas with the worst rush-hour congestion. The order is based on the peak hour Travel Time Index (TTI) for the metropolitan area each highway is in. TTI is a measure of how much longer it takes to complete a road journey during peak congestion hours compared to free-flow hours. (Peak hours are defined as 6 a.m. to 10 a.m., and 3 p.m. to 7 p.m.) Speeds during non-peak hours are used by INRIX to establish this free-flow baseline.
After determining the 75 worst metro areas, we then found the worst highway in each, defined as the most hours of bottleneck congestion, as reported by INRIX. The rankings then provide a still deeper look–at the most congested bottleneck segment for the worst highway in each area.
Via: Chron.com
