DETROIT – If there’s one thing the Motor City is good at, it’s stop-and-go traffic.
As the essential center of the nation’s automobile industry, Detroit sees a lot of cars coming and going -- sometimes, seemingly, all at once. Traffic was so bad in Detroit last year that one study found the city to have some of the highest odds of drivers being late.
Recommended Videos
Here’s a look at the study’s findings.
Longest travel times in US
When you think of the most awful traffic in the U.S., your mind probably goes straight to Los Angeles -- and you’d be exactly right. The average one-way journey across the city was 61.07 minutes in 2022, which is the longest of any major U.S. city, according to a study by BetGeorgia.com.
But, maybe not surprisingly, traveling one way across Detroit takes almost as long, despite the Motor City being smaller than L.A. by hundreds of square miles. In 2022, it took 45.09 minutes to drive one way across Detroit, according to the study.
The study, which looked at major cities throughout the country, found Detroit had the third-longest drive time to get across the city. San Francisco came in second place, with a one-way trip across the city taking an average of 51.33 minutes last year.
These are the 10 major U.S. cities ( ... and Toronto) that had the longest average one-way driving times in 2022.
Future Detroit traffic outlook
The forecast for future Detroit traffic is quite similar to today, the study finds.
The predicted travel time in Detroit in 2030 is 45.71 minutes one way -- a .62 growth from 2022.
Detroit isn’t predicted to have the third-worst travel time by 2030, though, according to the study. The Motor City is expected to move down to the sixth spot, while L.A. will remain in first, San Francisco will remain in second, then Boston in third, Toronto in fourth and Minneapolis in fifth.
Click here to see BetGeorgia.com’s full study.
Traffic congestion is likely going to get generally worse in the future, though, as it’s still below pre-pandemic levels across the country, according to experts. Congestion grew significantly in 2022 after lockdowns ceased, but that growth was reportedly slowed down by higher gasoline prices and the ongoing shift to hybrid work caused by the pandemic.
Conversely, traffic congestion was worse in 2022 than it was before the pandemic in Chicago and Miami, NPR reports.
Previously on Data Drop: