New Congestion Study Shows Canadian Commutes Improving

When it comes to traffic congestion, Los Angeles continues to lead the way. Or, more accurately, its drivers sit the longest. But Canadian data shows that congestion is mostly improving here, even if it doesn't feel like it.

LA tops the Inrix global traffic scorecard for the sixth straight year. Drivers there spent an average of 102 hours in congestion during peak times last year. Moscow and New York tied for second at 91 hours.

When it comes to Canadian cities, LA makes our worst traffic look not so bad. The worst city for congestion here was Montreal, 38th overall and 27th out of the 200 largest cities. Drivers there spent 50 hours in congestion last year. But that's better than last year, by two hours a year. Maybe not a huge amount of time, but it's better than Toronto.

Toronto was one of just two Canadian cities to move to a worse position on the list this year. From 53rd to 49th, and 34th out of the top 200. Drivers there spent an extra hour in traffic, at 47 hours.

Third place in Canada is a bit of a surprise. Drivers in St. John's spent 34 hours in congestion last year, with the city coming in 137th overall. Twelve of 21 Canadian cities listed saw improvements in the amount of time spent in congestion compared with 2016.

Drivers in Halifax, Regina, Saskatoon and Winnipeg all saw relaxed commutes, spending between 13 and 11 hours stuck in traffic. The least congested city in the country was St. Catharines, ON, with drivers spending just six hours in traffic per year.

The national average was 27 peak hours in congestion. Congestion costs everyone in time and dollars. Inrix found that congestion cost US drivers $305 billion last year. A Transport Canada study in 2006 found that congestion in the nine largest Canadian cities cost $4.6 billion per year.

Inrix monitors more than 300 million connected cars and devices to get the data, which covered more than 8 million kilometres of roads in 40 countries. The study defines congestion as a speed below 65 percent of the typical uncongested speed on a segment of road.