Traffic congestion has reached an all-time high, spreading across more hours of the week.
A few weeks ago, Taelyr Vecchione vented her growing frustration with traffic in San Diego in a TikTok video. She filmed herself sitting in her car, lamenting how her Southern California hometown has changed: “Do you remember when traffic started at, like, 5?,” she asks. “Now there is always traffic. Always!”
There is data to back up her experience. San Diego has seen a notable rise in traffic delays, and congestion nationwide climbed to record levels in 2024. If it feels like traffic is getting worse where you live, that impression is increasingly accurate. After dipping during the COVID-19 lockdown, congestion has returned to—and in many places surpassed—pre-pandemic levels, and those delays are spreading to more times of day and more days of the week.
"We are back. But the delay has a different feel than before," notes David Schrank, a senior research scientist at the Texas A&M Transportation Institute, which has tracked congestion since the 1980s in its annual Urban Mobility Report. Historically, patterns hardly moved for decades. Then, in 2020, lockdowns sent congestion plunging. Now it’s back at record levels, with the average American spending about 63 hours per year stuck in traffic.
There are several notable changes from prior years. Rush hours remain the peak times for traffic, but congestion is now spreading to other parts of the day as well, making it less of a pure commuter issue and more of a daily nuisance for many travelers.
"It’s spread out over more of the day, and thus it’s not just a commuter issue," Schrank told NPR. "Everyone is experiencing more of that delay."
The data also show more weekend delays. Mondays tend to be lighter than other weekdays, while Thursdays have nearly matched Fridays as the busiest day. He notes more variability from day to day, with both the day of the week and the time of day mattering more than before.
Trucks are contributing more to congestion as well. After shifting to off-peak hours during 2020 and 2021, truck-related delays during rush hours have been climbing back toward pre-pandemic levels.
Texas A&M researchers ranked U.S. metropolitan areas by hours of traffic delay. San Diego posted the largest percentage increase in delay hours per commuter since 2019—more than 37%. Miami, Phoenix, and the San Francisco Bay Area also saw substantial rises. Yet Greater Los Angeles remains at the top, with the average commuter losing 137 hours to delays last year.
In Pasadena, California, traffic during the morning commute on I-210 reflects the broader trend: Angelenos lost a record 137 hours to traffic delays in 2024—the most of any U.S. city.
Michael Manville, a professor of urban planning at UCLA, cautions against overinterpreting city-by-city rankings. Still, he says the overall findings align with common sense: congestion tends to move in step with regional economies. When the economy is strong, congestion worsens; when a recession hits, conditions often improve somewhat.
There are a few regions where congestion has declined since the pre-pandemic period, notably Washington, D.C., where remote work within the federal government persisted into 2024. Local strategies to combat congestion—such as dynamic toll pricing—may also play a role.
"If you contribute to peak and evening delays, you’ll face higher tolls," says Robert Puentes, a vice president at the Brookings Institution. He points to Northern Virginia’s extensive toll system that varies by time of day and has shown noticeable congestion relief—an approach that could be used in other metro areas.
New York City is pursuing a bold congestion-fighting measure: drivers pay as much as $9 to enter Lower Manhattan. Since its January rollout, the pricing zone has already reduced traffic in the toll area, though it’s still early to gauge broader effects on regional commuting patterns.
