Worst Cities for Traffic

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Worst Cities for Traffic
Forbes.com
By Robert Malone

NEW YORK - The worst traffic in the U.S. is getting even worse. It pollutes as the vehicles idle. It wastes the time of trucks and passenger cars. The annual delay per driver is in excess of 47 hours per year. It creates delayed shipments. It wastes more than 2.3 billion gallons of fuel each year.

The cost of U.S. traffic delays is, conservatively, $63.1 billion a year, based on 2003 figures, the Texas Transportation Institute says. And it's not getting any better.

"We would think that today the figure might be $2 billion to $3 billion more with the rise in fuel prices,” says David Schrank, author of the 2005 Urban Utility Report for the Texas Transportation Institute. He suggests further that despite this escalating problem, the commuting public has not changed its driving habits all that much. People have done some chaining of chores and shared driving to malls and offices. But the driving has continued, and the delays continue to get worse.

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By the Texas Transportation Institute's reckoning, the cities having the worst traffic problems are:

1. Los Angeles, Long Beach, Santa Ana, Calif.
2. San Francisco, Oakland, Calif.
3. Washington, D.C.
4. Atlanta
5. Houston
6. Dallas, Fort Worth, Arlington, Tex.
7. Chicago.
8. Detroit
9. Riverside, San Bernardino, Calif.
9. Orlando, Fla.
11. San Jose, Calif.
12. San Diego

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http://biz.yahoo.com/weekend/traffic_1.html