Atlanta commute is the worst

By ARIEL HART The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 05/02/08

Forbes.com has dipped its hand back into the bag of travel statistics and decided Atlanta's commute is the worst in the nation.

Last July Forbes.com combined commute statistics a different way, counting health measures like crash rates, and found Atlanta was second-worst.

This month, Forbes.com combined figures like how much time Atlantans spend per year stuck in traffic and what portion of the area's commutes fall under 20 minutes. It also cited the fact that MARTA's rail system is limited.

When organizations do original research on travel statistics, Atlanta generally falls near the top but hasn't won worst honors recently. However, when various statistics are combined as they are in Forbes.com's calculations, Atlanta's rankings can move higher.

In one piece of original research that Forbes.com used and is widely cited as a measure of congestion, the Texas Transportation Institute found that Atlanta commuters tied for second with two other areas in the amount of time they waste in congestion. Each commuter on average loses 60 hours a year, the institute found. Los Angeles was worst, at 72 hours.