(NEXSTAR) – You're not imagining it. Traffic congestion worsened last year in just about every American city studied by navigation and GPS company TomTom.
Residents of 90 large and mid-sized cities, from Tampa, Florida, to Portland, Oregon, were stuck in traffic more often and for longer in 2024 than they were the year prior.
Things grew terribly worse in Providence, Rhode Island, last year, with a massive 54% more time spent in traffic than in 2023. The sudden closure of the Washington Bridge in December 2023 is likely to blame, rerouting traffic and creating major rush hour congestion since. (Locals can expect more of the same next year. The bridge isn't projected to reopen until fall of 2026.)
Not far behind — and for a pretty similar reason — is Baltimore, where time spent in traffic jumped 37% in 2024. The Francis Scott Key Bridge remains closed after a deadly collapse in March.
People driving through Indianapolis (home to two of the country's "most loathed" highways) spent 27% more time sitting in traffic, according to TomTom's tracking. Those passing through Grand Rapids, Michigan, had a similar experience (26% more time in traffic).
Congestion also worsened across Ohio in 2024. Cincinnati, Dayton and Akron all saw time spent in traffic balloon by 17% to 20% in just one year.
The only cities to see traffic improvements last year, according to TomTom, were Bakersfield, California; Richmond, Virginia; Houston; and Las Vegas. (In Richmond, Houston and Las Vegas the change was subtle: 3% or less.)
Why does traffic keep getting worse pretty much everywhere? In many cases, it's because roads are free, explain the experts at UCLA's Institute of Transportation Studies.
Other valuable things that everybody needs — like water and electricity — have a price associated with them, the Institute writes. The same goes for other aspects of driving, like gas and vehicles. They have prices that fluctuate based on supply and demand, and we don't typically see those goods run out.
But that's not the case for most roads and highways.
"When goods are underpriced, they are prone to shortages," the Institute explains. "We choose to leave our roads free despite them being very valuable, and as a result they get overused and congested."
New York City, where traffic congestion ranks worst overall in North America, is doing something about it. A new toll, known as congestion pricing, just went into effect, charging most drivers $9 to enter part of Manhattan during peak hours. The toll is meant to reduce gridlock in the busiest part of the city, plus raise money to improve public transit.
While congestion pricing is often politically unpopular, it has worked to reduce traffic in cities around the world that have implemented it, according to the UCLA researchers. New York is the first American city to try it out. Only time will tell if the Big Apple finds itself lower on the list of most traffic-logged cities next year.
