We’re number one—in traffic jams. Last month the American Automobile Association announced that New York City had overtaken Los Angeles for having “the worst traffic of any city in the United States,” according to the Texas A&M Transportation Institute’s Urban Mobility Report. LA had held the top spot for nearly 30 years.

In an online article posted July 1, AAA’s Andrew Sheldon writes, “The results were based on the total amount of hours drivers were delayed in 2020. Motorists in the New York-Newark region spent nearly 500,000 hours stuck in traffic, compared to the roughly 365,000 hours those in the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim (area) did.

“The report also looked at the average time drivers spent in traffic, and again, New York reigned supreme. The average Big Apple motorist spent an average of 56 hours in traffic in 2020. Boston came in second with an average of 50 hours, followed by Houston, Los Angeles and San Francisco.”

While those statistics represent a steep drop from 2019, when drivers had twice as much “idle” time, the change is attributed to the increase in people working from home during the pandemic.

For more about the latest Urban Mobility Report, visit Mobility.tamu.edu.