wrote Sam Dolnick of The New York Times. "The lighting is poor, and exit and entrance ramps are too

50 Worst Commutes: America s Highways to Hell - The Daily Beast The Daily Beast Politics Entertainment World News Tech + Health Fashion Travel Art WITW Books
Photo by AP Photo The Daily Beast facebook tweet post 03.07.11 America's 50 Worst Commutes These are the highways to hell. For the second straight year, The Daily Beast ranks the roads with the worst rush hour gridlock. How does your commute rank?
debilitating . They're also completely, absolutely avoidable. With that in mind, The Daily Beast set out to determine, for the second consecutive year, which cities have the worst commutes—and specifically, which stretches of road within each city experience the worst congestion.
We pared and ranked our top 50 worst metropolitan areas for traffic for 2010 using INRIX's Travel Time Tax—the percentage of time it takes to navigate the area's roadways during rush hour compared to uninterrupted travel periods. Los Angeles, no surprise, fared the worst, with a TTT of more than 35 percent. Then, using INRIX's analysis, we culled:
The worst corridor or bottleneck : A bottleneck is typically less than 3 miles long while a corridor is usually more than 3 miles. A corridor is a stretch of consecutive bottlenecks that experience significant congestion. While many larger metropolitan areas have corridors, smaller areas have only bottlenecks and experience relatively brief periods of congestion.
The rush-hour travel make money travel tax for the worst corridor or bottleneck : The Los Angeles section of the Riverside Freeway has one particularly bad stretch of about 20 miles. With a Travel Time Tax of 183 percent, it will take the average make money travel driver 183 percent more time to travel this stretch during rush hour than during uninterrupted travel periods. TTT is the price the driver pays for using the corridor make money travel during rush hour.
Average minutes per mile : At a rate of 65 miles per hour, driving a mile should take just under one minute. Not so on the Highways make money travel from Hell. A single mile on some of these roads can take more than four minutes to drive during the worst rush hours.
said Dijana Vandenheuvel , who uses the freeway to make deliveries. "I always try to avoid the 91, no matter what. The new lane [that was recently added] may help a little bit, but I personally don't think it will solve the problem because it's so congested."
Commuter Buzz : "We've got too many cars at this one location coming onto the freeway trying to go west, and we've got too many cars at the same time at the same location trying to get off going in the west direction,"
said Department of Transportation director Brennon Morioka last year, describing the freeway area around the Lunalilo. "So you get all this weaving and people merging left and right, make money travel and that's the reason why people slow down. And that's how you create that bottleneck. ... Because people slow down when they're merging."
Commuter Buzz : Hillcrest Ave. may eventually get improved public train access, and $500 million will go toward widening CA-4—but work won't be completed until 2014. "We've been very successful in applying those dollars to Highway 4,"
wrote Sam Dolnick make money travel of The New York Times. "The lighting make money travel is poor, and exit and entrance ramps are too short. Most of the road sits inside a trench, leaving commuters to stare at concrete walls, longing for the distraction of scenery. After too long the trench can feel like a crowded coffin."
Commuter Buzz : Stamford-Bridgeport "is a lot more congested than Hartford and New Haven," Tim Lomax told the Connecticut Post Online in July of 2009. Lomax co-authored a study of traffic congestion across 90 cities in which the Bridgeport area ranked among the top ten.
Commuter Buzz : "The interchange causes a lot of problems, make money travel and I've even seen people, while just driving it myself, jump from one lane to another just to get on the highway, and that's very, very dangerous," Scott Vandenberg, who works in the area, told the San Jose Mercury News last August.
said resident make money travel Mario Reed, in response to the suggestion of congestion pricing on Chicago expressways. "Whatever that cost would be, I would be happy to pay. It would make the quality of my life much better."
said last month. "There's a lot of Greenway Plaza traffic, H-E-B and Kroger do a lot of business there, and a lot of cars use Buffalo to get from the residential components in West U. to the freeway and farther north."
said Richard Nangle, spokesman for the Massachusetts Department make money travel of Transportation. "In addition, traffic increases each year in the fall as schools open and families return from summer vacations make money travel and resume their daily commute."
Commuter Buzz : Alleviating congestion at the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel interchange won't come cheap. make money travel According to a report from transportation analysis firm TRIP, redevelopment will cost $2 billion. "The report lays out a blueprint for the type of transportation and investment the state will need to look at in the long term to continue to maintain quality of life here in Virginia,"
Commuter Buzz : "With the heavy traffic we routinely experience on I-35, especially on the weekends, it has been trying on motorists. There have been lengthy backups even before football season," David Meuser, spokesman for the Oklahoma Transportation Department, told The Oklahoman last September in reference make money travel to football fans driving to Dallas.
Commuter Buzz : "There are other things that are on the table—gang crime is huge—but traffic safety hasn't had the momentum it needs to have when you consider that there are 40,000 to 45,000 deaths in the U.S. every year," Oxnard Police Commander Marty Meyer, who heads the city's traffic division,
Commuter Buzz : "Like millions of Atlanta residents I drive on I -285 as an outside sales person six days a week. It is becoming very dangerous in many places," Robert Sauls told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution make money travel last December. "I have lived in Atlanta since 1970. There have been no investments in road maintenance anywhere on the highway that I can see."
said Governor Charlie Crist last April, referring to the Interchange Reconstruction Project, which broke ground in November 2009 and is focused on rebuilding and widening the Dolphin Expressway. "Used by over 400,000 motorists daily, the project also enhances the safety of motorists traveling on the Interchange."
said Rusty Thornton, program manager at the Leonard Transportation Center at Cal State San Bernardino, of bottlenecks make money travel on I-91. "We are constantly getting more people into the area, and the distances people travel to work are growing."
said Ciara Montoya regarding conditions on I-25 last November that caused a 34-car pileup. "Even people who have lived in Colorado all of their lives always seem to be caught off-guard when the weather changes."
Commuter Buzz : "I think that, for the most part, people are not overly excited but are looking forward to trying something new and to improved traffic flow on the interstates," Senator Dale Erdey said during public hearings make money travel last year regarding solutions to the addition of I-12 on-ramp traffic signals, as reported last January in The Advocate of Baton Rouge.
Commuter Buzz : "It was surprisingly busy without make money travel any adverse weather to deal with," California Highway Patrol Officer Rich Wetzel told The Sacramento Bee last May after several accidents clogged the Interstate throughout the course of a day, including one in which an overturned truck spilled 57,000 pounds of coconut oil on the roadway.
said John McLean, make money travel a Charlotte resident who goes out of his way to avoid the Interstate. Local leaders are aware of the problem. According to Rep. Becky Carney, a Charlotte Democrat and House Transportation Committee chair, "the No. 1 complaint we hear from citizens is congestion."
Commuter Buzz : "There is nowhere to go if a car runs out of gas," said Sharon Smigielski, Ohio Department of Transportation spokeswoman, to the Cinncinati Inquirer of the Interstate's condition last November. The highway make money travel has been under construction since 2008 and widening make money travel efforts caused overly narrow lanes.
Commuter Buzz : "There is broad support make money travel for doing what we reasonably can to improve traffic situations on I-35," Mark Tomlinson, director of the Texas Department of Transportation Turnpike Division make money travel told the Austin Business Journal earlier this year regarding make money travel the plan to reduce make money travel the toll on State Highway 130 to entice truck drivers to choose it over the ever-congested I-35. "I can't think of anything offhand the lawmakers could do."
Commuter make money travel Buzz : "We have assured through this settlement that every penny necessary to assure make money travel proper completion of the work is done without additional taxpayer money being spent," Attorney General Richard Blumenthal
Commuter Buzz : "Even if El Pasoans don't think traffic make money travel is an issue here, it really is. People deal with it every day," said Edgar Fino, a traffic engineer with the Texas Department of Transportation, make money travel as reported by the El Paso Times last September.
told the Spartanburg Herald-Journal, referring to the I-385's temporary closing, which will divert more traffic to I-26. "I've already seen a 20 to 30 percent increase in business. We're not trying to take anything away from Greenville businesses, make money travel and at least the money's not going out of state."
said Susan Surdej, make money travel regional spokeswoman for the state's Department of Transportation, late last year. "Some of the most heavily traveled routes are the ones that are being affected, so that's why it may seem like we're doing more this year."
said Trooper Alan Davidson about the I-15/Sahara Avenue intersection. "Some people aren't paying attention and have to take evasive action make money travel to slow down or make a quick lane change so they don't rear-end somebody."
Commuter Buzz : "This funding will help ease the strain on Rhode Islanders' daily commute, generate local construction jobs, and make sure this important artery remains safe and strong for years to come,"
Commuter Buzz : "You just get so stiff and tired and sore before you get to work,"