Area Ranked Among the Worst for Commutes

WASHINGTON - It's not exactly a well-kept secret that traffic in this region isn't great, and it's not getting any better.

The average commuter in the U.S. now loses 47 hours every year thanks to gridlocked traffic.

The latest edition of U.S. News & World Report has recently listed the D.C. area as one of "The 10 Worst Commuter Cities."

Prince William County residents have it the worst in the region -- and are ranked 5th across the country in long commutes. The average commute in Prince William County is 40 minutes.

Two other counties, Montgomery and Prince George's, have also made the list.

Prince George's ranked 6th across the nation, and Montgomery came in 10th. Fairfax County just missed the top 20. It ranked as the 22nd worst county.

"This is no surprise to Washington area commuters who already know they have it bad," said Lon Anderson, AAA Mid-Atlantic's Director of Public and Government Affairs in a prepared statement. "They've been told regularly they suffer from some of the worst gridlock in the nation."

Gordon Witkin from U.S. News & World Report says that mass transit has not made much of a dent in commute times.

"Suburb commutes present difficulties, because traditionally our roads and some of our mass transit systems have not been laid out that way," said Witkin.

The report currently names Los Angeles as the city with the worst commute, but estimates D.C. and several other cities will actually be worse than present day Los Angeles by 2030.

Even people living in the District don't get much of a break when it comes to spending time out of the car with their average commute taking 29.3 minutes.

The magazine based its rankings on 2005 data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Washington and several other cities are trying to fight rising commute times by trying to keep people off the roads and encouraging public transportation by issuing commuting tolls. Such tolls have already been proposed for Washington and New York.

(Copyright 2007 WTOP. All Rights Reserved.)