What is the worst traffic bottleneck in the country? Yep, it’s the one that marks the route of my commute to work every morning and evening:
CHICAGO — A new study released Monday by the American Highway Users Alliance identifies America’s 50 worst bottlenecks and finds that the very worst bottleneck, as measured by hours of delay, is in Chicago.
The top-ranked Chicago chokepoint is located on the Kennedy Expressway (I-90) between the Circle Interchange (I-290) and Edens junction (I-94). The bottleneck was found to extend 12 miles, costing motorists 16.9 million hours’ worth of time, equivalent to $418 million in 2014. More than 6.3 million gallons of fuel is wasted on I-90 while cars idle or crawl in traffic.
By just fixing America’s worst bottleneck, an annual reduction of 133 million pounds of carbon dioxide emissions would also be likely, the study found.
In fairness to California, the next six worst traffic bottlenecks are in the Golden State.
My commute time is completely unpredictable. Some days it’s twenty minutes. Others it’s two hours. There is no rhyme or reason. Depart any time between 6:00am and 9:00am and it’s the same story—something between twenty minutes and two hours.
And I live in the city. In it. Eight miles from the Loop. I shudder to think of the commutes of people who drive in every morning from the western ‘burbs.
Actually, there’s no secret as to the source of the problem. Chicago’s traffic plan has fallen and it can’t get up. It was formulated a half century ago when the late Mayor Daley decided that everybody commuted into the city in the morning and commuted out of the city into the surrounding suburbs in the evening.
Nowadays there’s as much outbound traffic as inbound traffic at any given time. There aren’t as many people commuting by train, El, or bus as the mayor envisioned, either.
A good start at correcting the problem, at least within the Loop, would be to enforce existing law. On any given morning I see at least two dozen trucks, buses, and taxis speeding on the city streets, running red lights, parked or standing illegally, or driving the wrong way down the street.
Got stuck in it after a charity event just this weekend. No baseball, Hawks, Bulls, Bears etc. No reason to be backed up. My only surprise is it’s not the Hillside strangler.
I hate commutes. Hate, hate hate. One reason I would never live in DC and have no desire to return to Denver, my hometown. I guess I can scratch Chicago off the list as well.
‘In fairness to California, the next six worst traffic bottlenecks are in the Golden State.”
The 405, even with the expensive widening efforts, remains like slow lava during rush hour.