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I can guarantee you that St. Louis and Cleveland and Indianapolis with the total volumes of traffic passing through their areas would make among the most congested cities were their interstate highway systems not designed the way they were. I-70, I-64, I-44, and I-55 all bring VOLUMES of traffic into the St. Louis area. Same thing goes for I-65, I-69, I-70, and I-74 in Indiana. St. Louis and Indianapolis in particular because of the way the roads form a big "X" in their metro areas get lots of traffic condition. Indy was smart enough to not allow I-74 to go through downtown. St. Louis on the other hand chose to have four interstate highways converge at one point downtown. Luckily it is not as big of a problem because St. Louis provides relief for the Poplar Street Bridge by encouraging traffic to use I-270 or I-255 to cross into Illinois. Indy's I-465 forms a nice bypass too. I-57 also takes significant traffic relief off I-55 going from Chicago to Memphis, and I-76 does the same for Cleveland for I-71 traffic wishing to get to I-80 in Youngstown. Cleveland has I-90, I-80, I-77, and I-71, and then it has I-490, I-480 and I-271 which provide relieve through the downtown areas. THese cities without their great designed route system effectively allow traffic to move smoothly through their areas. My prediction is St. Louis with the reconstruction of I-64 in Missouri will become far less congested...they've already freed TONS of congestion on I-64 in the Illinois side. And once they relocate I-70 north of the MLK bridge, traffic will flow even smoother. Cities IMO need to adopt St. Louis' method of the interstate highway designs in their cities. St. Louis essentially has efficient bypass routes of downtown for through traffic so that the only traffic going through downtown is headed to downtown or to switch interstate highways. (example I-70E to I-64E, I-70W to I-44W, I-64W to I-70W, etc. Why other cities don't do this I have no clue. It is crazy to force through traffic to head through a city's downtown area. Efficient bypass routes allow the city to increase its land area to a great degree. Without the interstate highway system ST. Louis has, it would be in the top ten congested cities in the U.S., possibly in the top five. Overall, I would say the interstate highway system it has makes it one of the most desirable cities to travel through. Even taking the two-digit interstate routes instead of the bypass ones through downtown is very fast, even if some of the bypass ones may be a few miles shorter. I am relatively surprised Kansas City isn't among the more congested areas.
"It is crazy to force through traffic to head through a city's downtown area." I agree. The 35W bridge over the Mississippi that collapsed in Minneapolis last month is an example of this. Why should newsprint from Canadian paper mills bound for Dallas or frozen pizzas from Duluth bound for KC come through downtown Minneapolis? Someone was asleep at the switch when they designed the routes of 35W and 35E (thru downtown St Paul) through the Twin Cities area.
"It is crazy to force through traffic to head through a city's downtown area." I agree. The 35W bridge over the Mississippi that collapsed in Minneapolis last month is an example of this. Why should newsprint from Canadian paper mills bound for Dallas or frozen pizzas from Duluth bound for KC come through downtown Minneapolis? Someone was asleep at the switch when they designed the routes of 35W and 35E (thru downtown St Paul) through the Twin Cities area.
I would certainly agree with that, having driven it a few times. Yikes! Someone ought to teach those Minnesotans to slow down a little bit, too.
"It is crazy to force through traffic to head through a city's downtown area." I agree. The 35W bridge over the Mississippi that collapsed in Minneapolis last month is an example of this. Why should newsprint from Canadian paper mills bound for Dallas or frozen pizzas from Duluth bound for KC come through downtown Minneapolis? Someone was asleep at the switch when they designed the routes of 35W and 35E (thru downtown St Paul) through the Twin Cities area.
It's one of the rules of the Interstate Highway System--mainline routes must go through the city centre. This is what makes the Interstates different from the Autobahns that inspired Eisenhower.
From Wikipedia:
-Colorado Springs has the worst traffic congestion for a city its size. I can vouch for this.
My nominees:
-Needless to say Manhattan is no walk in the park.
-Denver was totally miserable before the TREX project was completed.
-Boston, ugh.
-Seattle get's a vote.
-Bay Area
-LA
u cant vouch for $hit. go to LA. LA is knownnnnnnn for the worst traffic in the world.
The abundance of bridges (and thus toll plazas) factors heavily into the Bay Area stats.
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