Chicago is one of the most congested cities in the country, ranking second only to New York City last year for the severity of traffic, a recently released annual study found.
The region also had one of the biggest jumps in traffic congestion in 2023 compared with pre-pandemic, according to the new report from mobility analytics firm Inrix, made public Tuesday. Traffic was up 18% over 2019 levels, tying for the highest growth among the cities studied.
Though a frustration for drivers, increasing traffic might be a positive reflection of the region’s economy, said P.S. Sriraj, director of the Urban Transportation Center at the University of Illinois Chicago.But it also reflects challenges across the region, coming despite — or perhaps because of — changing office-commuting habits, as more delivery trucks hit the region’s roads and as public transit struggles to draw back riders, he said.
“It’s a reflection of the economic strength of the region,” he said. “But at the same time, ‘is it actually hurting’ is the bigger question.”
The findings are part of an annual Inrix study of traffic in major metropolitan areas in the U.S. and around the world, based on anonymized data from sources like GPS apps in vehicles and trucking fleets.
The firm found the typical American driver lost 42 hours to traffic jams in 2023. But in the Chicago area, the average driver spent 96 hours in congestion on expressways and local roads last year. That put Chicago’s traffic at second-worst in the country, and the city ranked fifth for most severe traffic globally, according to Inrix.
The hours lost in traffic also cost the city $6.1 billion in wasted time, according to Inrix’s analysis of federal values of travel time. Among the worst of the area’s roads for traffic was I-94 eastbound between I-57 and the Eisenhower Expressway in the afternoon, which ranked in the top-10 most congested stretches of road in the country.
But there might be good news for Chicago drivers. Through the first quarter of 2024, travel times dropped 8% from the year before, meaning traffic eased up slightly, Inrix found.
Though Chicago and New York often rank among the most congested cities in the country, traffic rebounded from pandemic lows quicker in the two regions than in other major U.S. cities, said Inrix transportation analyst and study author Bob Pishue.
And more of the trips are to places outside downtown, he said. Chicago saw slightly fewer trips downtown in 2023 than in 2022, but downtown speeds still remained slow, averaging about 11 miles per hour, Inrix found.
Chicago’s traffic woes could be exacerbated by construction, or by drivers taking more trips at the same time, Pishue said. Inrix found traffic around Chicago, like in other cities nationwide, no longer revolves around peak morning and evening rush hours, but instead can tick up around midday and through the evening.
And adding to the traffic is continued low transit ridership, he said.
“People are still making those trips, but aren’t on transit as much,” he said. “There may be a good chance that they’re driving.”
Ridership on Metra, CTA and Pace has remained below pre-pandemic levels as people’s daily habits have changed and office commuters often have not returned to in-person work five days a week. The CTA, the largest of the transit agencies, has struggled with complaints about the transit agency’s ability to provide frequent, reliable, safe and clean service, and in March ridership on the agency’s buses and trains was about 65% of 2019 levels.
Just the perception of problems on the CTA is enough to drive people off transit, Sriraj said. And those who cannot work from home will turn to driving if there’s no public transit route that will get them to their jobs in a reasonable amount of time, he said.
Employees who can work from home but split their time in an office might now be driving when they go in instead of taking public transit, Sriraj said. That could be because they are commuting at irregular times or because fighting traffic and paying for parking is more palatable if it’s only a few days a week, he said.
“It just seems like the expressways are congested all the time,” he said. “Because the work from home is not entirely work from home. It’s a random work from home.”
Freight traffic could also be playing a role, Sriraj said. As online shopping has boomed since the pandemic, more delivery trucks are hitting the roads, likely making up for any traffic taken off the road by people spending more time working from home, he said.
One solution could be to focus local and long-haul freight delivery on off-peak times, though that could take careful coordination of supply chains nationwide, he said.
Efforts like adjusting the timing of traffic signals can help make roads more efficient, which can also help, Pishue said. So can better managing demand on city streets for blockages like delivery drop-offs, and having cities plan for the busiest travel times to be midday, rather than the traditional rush hours, he said.
“It shows that we need all different types of transportation working and moving people and goods,” he said.
But ultimately, there’s no one quick easy fix to the region’s congestion, Sriraj said. It will take input from private employers, public officials and the region’s transit agencies.
“The world has changed in more ways than we can account for,” he said. “So not only have the destinations changed, the times have changed, the system offerings have changed, people’s perceptions have changed.”
