Boston Makes Top 10 on List of Cities with the Worst Traffic

Photo by Michael Dwyer / AP

If you think traffic around Boston is pretty horrendous, you are now officially justified in complaining. And it’s only going to get worse.

According to the Boston Business Journal, a new report from traffic analytics company INRIX Inc. states that Boston ranks No. 7 on a list of U.S. cities with the worst traffic. The study found that commuters in Boston wasted an average of 64 hours per person sitting in gridlock traffic last year. That’s a lot of episodes of Serial to listen to.

Los Angeles came in at No. 1 on the list, with the city’s commuters having wasted an average of 81 hours stuck in traffic last year, while Washington D.C. took second place with 75 hours. New York City, meanwhile, was only slightly worse than Boston, with its commuters having wasted an average of 73 hours in their cars last year.

The report links recent economic improvements to the increase in gridlock traffic.

Even though many cities, including Boston, have reduced their unemployment rates below the national average of 5.3 percent, the larger workforce means more people on the road. As more people drive to work, traffic in Boston and other major cities will only get worse.

According to INRIX, daily car commuters in Washington D.C., San Francisco, New York, Seattle, and Boston combined to waste 1.5 billion hours last year.