Traffic is a beast most of us have to deal with, so you might as well try to tame it.
One way to do so: move. That is, if your city is in the top 10 most congested North American cities list, recently released from GPS company TomTom. Los Angeles confirmed its car obsession and dependency by securing the number one spot. Angelenos experience a whopping 40-minute delay per hour driven in peak traffic.
Click through the slideshow below to see if your city made the bumper-to-bumper list.
As much as it is despised and inefficient, traffic is generally a sign of economic growth. According to TomTom, national congestion levels have remained mostly flat since early 2011, reflecting lackluster job and economic growth.
Here are the top five North American cities where traffic has increased most in the past year:
1) Seattle
2) Houston
3) Ottawa, Ontario
4) San Francisco
5) Miami
If you prefer smooth-sailing traffic over a smooth-sailing economy, these are your cities. Traffic has decreased most in the past year in:
1) Edmonton, Alberta
2) New York
3) Boston
4) Minneapolis
5) Toronto
Perhaps more helpful (and if moving isn't an option), TomTom reports the least and most congested commuting hours for each of the 10 cities on its traffic-from-hell list. For a number of the cities, it is as follows:
Worst congested:
Thursday morning.
Friday evening.
Least congested:
Monday evening.
Friday morning.
But unless you plan on sleeping at work Monday through Thursday (and if you perpetually feel like this guy), get out of these traffic-jammed cities quick::
All photos courtesy of Alamy:
