San Francisco ranks No. 3 in the nation for gridlock

http://blog.sfgate.com/cityinsider/2012/05/22/san-francisco-ranks-no-3-in-the-nation-for-gridlock/

Nope, it wasn’t just your imagination: San Francisco has some of the worst traffic congestion in the nation.

Beating out jammed-up east coast cities such as New York and Boston, San Francisco ranked third in the country for worst traffic congestion in 2011. INRIX, a company that specializes in traffic and navigation, released its 2011 traffic scorecard Tuesday.

On average, San Francisco drivers sat in traffic for about 48 hours in 2011, the findings show. Traffic in the city tends to hit its peak on Thursdays, from 5:45 to 6:00 p.m.

It’s no surprise that Los Angeles, where terms like “Carmaggedon” are born, ranked higher than San Francisco for worst traffic — No. 2 on the list with drivers having wasted on average 56 hours in traffic, and four corridors on the top 10 most congested list — but No. 1 on the list is actually a city in paradise. Drivers in Honolulu wasted about 58 hours in 2011, according to the findings.

Cities showing the biggest drops in congestion — San Francisco was one — were cities where gas prices exceeded the national average at its April 2011 peak. San Francisco beat out the national average, $3.96, by 29 cents.