Familiar traffic backups during weekday rush hours (By Daniel Reynaga)
Traffic, San Diego

Rush Hour Consolation

By Frank Sabatini Jr.

The next time you’re anxiously crawling in traffic within metro San Diego, you can perhaps take solace in the fact there are scores of commuters in other cities who have it a lot worse than us.

We’re normally proud when San Diego makes it onto any “best of” list based on national research and opinion polls. But in the case of a recent “most of” list titled, “U.S. Cities with the Worst Traffic,” we’ve steered clear of it.

The rankings were compiled by Visual Capitalist, a data-driven firm that focuses on technology, energy and lifestyle trends. Fifteen cities were named on the traffic scorecard, with New York landing as the worst. It shows that NYC traffic delays in 2023 resulted in 101 hours of wasted time per driver.

Chicago came in second, with drivers spending 96 hours in traffic snarls last year. And surprisingly, Los Angeles ranked third on the list, with drivers losing 89 hours of their precious lives in traffic gridlock. (We expected L.A. to be number 1 or 2.)

The figures were based on traffic congestion during peak commute hours in a number of cities. San Diego was nowhere in sight in the study–and we hope it stays that way for years to come.