- U.S. drivers lost nearly 4.7 billion hours to traffic congestion in 2025, costing the economy close to $86 billion.
For tens of millions of Americans, the morning commute has become less of a routine and more of an endurance test. Roads that once moved at a reasonable clip now lock up for hours, stealing time that could be spent with family, at work, or simply at rest. The gridlock is not a new story, but the scale of it in 2025 and 2026 has reached levels that are genuinely alarming – and the data backs that up completely.
The typical U.S. driver lost 49 hours to traffic congestion in 2025, an 11 percent increase from the year before – more than a full work week, and amounting to roughly $894 in lost time per driver. Across the entire country, that added up to nearly 4.7 billion hours lost to traffic, costing the economy close to $86 billion. These are not abstract numbers. They represent real people sitting in real cars, watching their dashboards tick and their patience run thin.
Chicago: America’s Most Congested City
Chicago claimed the unfortunate title of 2025’s most traffic-congested city in the U.S. Traffic was so severe that the Windy City also ranked third worst globally, according to INRIX data. Drivers in Chicago lost 112 hours to traffic jams in 2025, compared to 102 in 2024, costing the average driver $2,063 and the city a staggering $7.5 billion.
During the worst parts of the morning and evening commutes, peak speeds in Chicago dropped to just 21 mph, while off-peak driving averaged 42 mph. For workers headed downtown, speeds during that last painful mile of the morning commute fell to a crawl of 9 mph in 2025. INRIX transportation analyst Bob Pishue explains part of why Chicago struggles so much: “Chicago has a funky geography because one direction is completely blocked off by water. Because of water, it’s just going to have transportation challenges.”
New York City: A Gridlock Giant Trying Something New
Drivers in New York City lost 102 hours to traffic jams in 2025, and those delays cost the average driver $1,879 while costing the city as a whole a remarkable $9.7 billion. Peak speeds in New York dropped to just 15 mph during the worst parts of the morning and afternoon rush hour, rising to 30 mph during off-peak periods and averaging 11 mph on downtown last-mile routes during the morning commute…