This Is the Worst Traffic Bottleneck in the Country

While Los Angeles has the dubious claim to being home to more traffic bottlenecks than any other metropolitan area, the prize for the single worst traffic bottleneck in the country belongs to Chicago.

A new study of the worst traffic across the United States found that a 12-mile stretch of the Kennedy Expressway (I-90) in the Windy City cost motorists 16.9 million hours’ worth of time in 2014, equivalent to $418 million in lost revenue.

The second to seventh worst traffic bottlenecks in the country are in the famously traffic-prone Los Angeles, the American Highway Users Alliance found in a study published Monday, and a total of 12 in the top 50 worst stops are in the City of Angels.

High traffic is a major drag on the U.S. economy, according to the study, which estimates that fixing the top 30 chokepoints would save $39 billion due to lost time and 830 million gallons of fuel over 20 years. “This report furthers the unassailable truth that America is stuck in traffic,” said the U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx.