![]() ![]() The report is timely, especially in light of the three-day sickout by Muni operators earlier this week and a recent poll by the Bay Area Council, a business-sponsored public policy group, which found that more than 71 percent of respondents think traffic congestion in the region is a crisis. In fact, the Thursday evening commute was the worst peak congestion in most U.S. The worst were Tuesday morning and Thursday night. The best rush-hour commutes were Friday morning and Monday evening. The spots with the worst congestion in the Bay Area, according to the report, include: 101/Bayshore Freeway between the I-280 interchange and downtown, Stockton and Montgomery streets downtown, Oak/Octavia/Central Freeway, 19th Avenue south of Sloat Boulevard, the Bay Bridge approaches in Oakland, and I-280/King Street/Embarcadero. Nobody knows why, although that day was the Friday before Thanksgiving week began, which is typically a chaotic period, with lots of comings and goings. The single most congested day of the year was Nov. San Francisco, which moved up from third place in 2012, registered 48 percent congestion in the morning peak and 66 percent in evening rush hour. Clearly, the West Coast - which occupies five of the top 10 spots - is not an easy place to get around. The least jammed city in the country was Kansas City, with only 9 percent congestion, followed closely by Indianapolis, Cleveland and Richmond, Virginia, which were all tied at 10 percent. In the United States, Honolulu was third, followed by Seattle, San Jose, New York, Miami, Washington, D.C., Portland and New Orleans. The upcoming World Cup might push Brazil's numbers into the stratosphere. slogged in at 36 percent - leading the pack in this country but well behind the world's three most congested cities: Rio de Janeiro (55 percent), Mexico City (54 percent) and Sao Paulo (46 percent). "As the economy gets better, as more people are working, as more people have more discretionary spending, they drive a lot more," said Michael Cabanatuan, who covers transportation for the San Francisco Chronicle, on KQED Forum Wednesday. The numbers translate into lots of wasted time, motorist bile, air pollution and probably higher blood pressure. The delay per hour for a driver in a peak period was 34 minutes. For San Francisco, the congestion level of 32 percent means that, on average, a driver in San Francisco experienced 32 percent extra travel time on an average trip compared with non-congested situations at the quietest times of day. The index compared travel times during non-congested, or free flow, times with travel times in peak hours. ![]() The survey looked at congestion levels on highways, freeways, local roads and city streets. Tom Tom, a firm based in Amsterdam that sells GPS-based navigation and mapping products, released its fourth annual traffic index on Wednesday. Only Los Angeles is more arterially clogged. On average, a driver here with a 30-minute commute spent 83 hours stuck in traffic in 2013. ![]() ![]() San Francisco has the second-worst congestion in the United States, according to a new report. Traffic clogs Montgomery Street, one of the most congested thorougfares in S.F., on Thursday, June 5, 2014. ![]()
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