Local News

Surprise! Boston traffic is still awful, says new report

Last year, drivers in the region lost 88 hours in traffic.

Traffic at a near standstill on Route 128 South. Suzanne Kreiter/Globe staff

June 25, 2024

Boston has the fourth-worst traffic in the nation and eighth-worst in the world, according to a new report by INRIX, a global transportation data and analytics company.

New York City topped the 2023 Global Traffic Scoreboard, followed by Mexico City and London. Boston is only behind New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles in the U.S.

“Pre-pandemic Boston already had the distinction in similar surveys of being the worst traffic city in the entire country — and so maybe I can’t celebrate that we’re only No. 4 on the list now,” Mayor Michelle Wu said on Monday when asked about the pending report by the Boston Herald. “It’s been a known problem for some time.”

Wu told the Herald that traffic woes in cities like Boston are one of the top reasons urban downtowns aren’t recovering as strongly from the pandemic.

“In Boston, where we’re a very suburban commuter-heavy downtown, we rely a lot on people taking the commuter rail in to come to work,” Wu told the Herald. “When the T isn’t what people want it to be, that just exacerbates the challenge. Making transportation, traffic, and public transit as smooth as possible is one of the biggest factors to making downtown as active and revitalized as possible.”

The typical Boston driver lost 88 hours (or 3.6 days) to traffic last year, according to the report, up 14% from 2022. This shows a higher increase in year-over-year congestion delay than the seven cities it ranked behind.

The report says time spent in traffic cost the average Boston driver $1,543 in 2023 and the city about $2.9 billion. Drivers also routinely travel at 10 mph in downtown Boston.

Massachusetts was also recently ranked as the 45th worst state to drive in, making it the worst in New England.

However, the city is doing better than in 2022, in which Boston was ranked the fourth worst city in the world for congestion. The average driver lost 134 hours, or more than five days, to traffic.

“Traffic congestion is both a bane and a barometer of economic health; it symbolizes bustling activity yet simultaneously hampers it,” said Bob Pishue, transportation analyst at INRIX, in a statement. “Reflecting on 2023 and early 2024, the surge in traffic congestion in urban areas indicated a revival of economic hubbub post-COVID, but it also led to billions of dollars in lost time for drivers.”

The report said Boston hosts the seventh-worst corridor in the U.S.: I-93 southbound through downtown to Pilgrim Highway Interchange, which results in 20 minutes lost on average per day at the area’s peak traffic time of 3 p.m.

The mid-afternoon spike reflects a new midday traffic peak following changing post-pandemic work patterns.

Midday trips in the U.S. have increased by 23% compared to 2019, with nearly as many trips taken at noon as at 5 p.m.

Trip analysis indicated 10 a.m.-4 p.m. is the new “9-to-5.”

“Although congestion is returning to pre-COVID levels, we’re seeing interesting changes in congestion patterns due to the lingering effects of the pandemic,” said Pishue in a statement. “The continuation of hybrid and remote work is creating new travel peaks from what we’ve seen previously.”

Americans as a whole lost an average of 42 hours to congestion, up 11% from 2022, costing $733 per driver.

The most congested road in America was Orlando’s I-4 westbound from Beachline Expressway to Western Beltway, followed by LA’s I-5, I-95 in Stamford, and New York’s I-278.