Cars and trucks move along the Cross Bronx Expressway on November 16, 2021 in New York City. (Getty Images)
While commuters are often the first people you think about when you imagine bumper-to-bumper traffic, America’s long haul truck drivers often have it worse when traffic slows to a snail’s pace.
Each year, the American Transportation Research Institute studies the places across the country where truck traffic gets the most congested and creates its annual Truck Bottleneck List.
The list measures the level of truck-involved congestion at hundreds of locations throughout the national highway system. Researchers use GPS data of freight trucks, custom software and “terabytes of data from trucking operations” to create the annual rankings.
Eight spots in California landed in the top 100 of the annual list, including three in the top 20.
These are the worst truck bottlenecks in California:
- No. 7 Los Angeles: Highway 60 at Highway 57
- No. 11 Los Angeles: I-710 at I-105
- No. 18 Ontario: I-10 at I-15
- No. 42 Corona: I-15 at Highway 91
- No. 45 Oakland: I-880 at I-238
- No. 60 Los Angeles: I-110 at I-105
- No. 87 Los Angeles: Highway 91 at Highway 55
- No. 96 Oakland: I-80 at I-580/I-880
The worst bottleneck in America was at I-95 and Highway 4 in Fort Lee, New Jersey. The second- and third-worst bottlenecks were located near Chicago, the list shows.
Truck bottlenecks aren’t just inconvenient for drivers stuck in snarled traffic. They also lead to supply chain delays and increased freight costs, according to the California Trucking Association.
Chris Spear, CEO and president of the nonprofit research institute, said the annual list is made to provide an “actionable blueprint” for state and federal transportation agencies on the best places to allocate infrastructure funding and improvements.
“Traffic congestion on our National Highway System inflicts an enormous cost on the supply chain and environment, adding $95 billion to the cost of freight transportation and generating 69 million metric tons of excess carbon emissions every year,” Spear said.
Increasing freight efficiency should be a top priority for the U.S. Department of Transportation, Spear said, adding that reducing bottlenecks would improve highway safety, support interstate commerce and protect the environment.
To see the top 100 worst truck bottlenecks list and read more about the methodology used by researchers, click here.
