The TomTom North American Congestion Index

 

2012 Ranking		2011 Ranking	% delay from congestion
1.	Los Angeles	1	33%
2.	Vancouver	2	30%
3.	Miami	5	26%
4.	Seattle	12	25%
5.	Tampa	6	25%
6.	San Francisco	9	25%
7.	Washington, D.C.	4	24%
8.	Houston	18	23%
9.	Toronto	3	22%
10.	Ottawa, Canada	15	22%
11.	Atlanta	11	21%
12.	Montreal	7	20%
13.	San Diego	17	19%
14.	Chicago	19	19%
15.	New York	10	17%
16.	Calgary, Canada	13	17%
17.	Philadelphia	16	17%
18.	Dallas-Fort Worth	20	16%
19.	Boston	14	16%
20.	Baltimore	25	15%

 
TomTom's numbers do put some manageable figures to the purgatory of Los Angeles traffic. The average City of Angels resident with a 30-minute commute loses 92 hours a year -- nearly four days -- to traffic congestion. No city in North America suffers a worse backup in evening commutes, or sees its side roads slow down more under the burden.
Other cities are not that far behind. TomTom's study also covered Canada, and found that despite smaller populations, its cities were just as traffic-choked, with Vancouver worse than any U.S. city outside Los Angeles. The next four cities on the ranking -- Miami, Seattle, Tampa and San Francisco -- all suffer similar amounts of delay at rush hour. Only Tampa was not also among the cities with the worst increase in congestion, with Seattle gaining four percentage points of delay time from 2011 to 2012.

The least-congested city in TomTom's list? Minneapolis, where an hour in a peak commute will add an average of 16 minutes in delays, and where traffic moves at a relatively speedy average of 40 mph. Even with that relative brisk pace, Twin Cities commuters still spend a total of two days a year stuck in traffic. No wonder automakers think people might check Facebook and Twitter from behind the wheel. With that much time to waste, what else can they do?
 
 
http://autos.yahoo.com/blogs/motoramic/20-cities-worst-traffic-north-america-far-beyond-181602175.html