In the past I’ve had New York City friends pooh-pooh me when I would contend that traffic on the West Coast — the San Francisco Bay Area or Los Angeles, take your pick — was worse than it was in New York City. They would contend that even traffic congestion was superior in the Big Apple, just like everything else (‘cept sushi and weather; I had them there). But now data from TomTom’s mapping company, Tele Atlas has data to back me up. In fact, NYC only ranks sixth on its list of most congested U.S. cities, behind both San Francisco and L.A.

TomTom and Tele Atlas have released their list of 30 U.S. cities with the highest percentage of clogged roadways, just in time for the holiday travel season. The companies based the list on aggregate data derived from anonymous, GPS-enabled commercial and private drivers using TomTom devices as part of Tele Atlas’ Speed Profiles offering. The program provides actual average speeds for every five minutes of the day on roads across the full collection network to provide an accurate view of historic traffic patterns, according to the company.

Which city is at the top of the list for bolluxed traffic? Seattle gets the unpleasant distinction with 43 percent congested roadways, followed by L.A. And Chicago, with 38 percent and 37 percent congested roadways, respectively. San Francisco comes in at no. 5, with 35 percent.

My former stomping grounds, the San Francisco Bay Area, is one of the worst regions in the nation for traffic, however, as TeleAtlas notes, as it has the most cities in the top 30. In addition to ‘Frisco (they hate it when you call it that, heh,), we have San Jose, just down 101 — excuse me, Californians, “the” 101 — from San Francisco; San Jose comes in at no. 8 (29 percent followed by Oakland (Alameda County, California, 28 percent). True story: I once got stuck in stop and go traffic for 20 minutes around 3 a.m. on a Tuesday morning north of Oakland. Yep, 3 o’clock. In the morning. On a Tuesday. In the summer. I never did find out why there were that many people on the freeway at the time of day in the middle of the week. Argh.

Anyway, the top 30 list shakes out like this (place names are followed by the percentage of congested roads):

1. Seattle, WA 43%
2. Los Angeles, CA 38%
3. Chicago, IL 37%
4. Montgomery County, MD 37%
5. San Francisco, CA 35%
6. New York, NY 31%
7. Washington, DC 30%
8. San Jose, CA 29%
9. Alexandria, VA 28%
10. Oakland, CA (Alameda County) 28%
11. Atlanta, GA (Cobb County) 27%
12. Boston, MA 27%
13. Fairfax County, VA 26%
14. Philadelphia, PA 25%
15. Austin, TX 25%
16. Phoenix, AZ 25%
17. Long Island, NY (Nassau County) 24%
18. Portland, OR 23%
19. Houston, TX 23%
20. Contra Costa County, CA 23%
21. Arlington, VA 23%
22. Orange County, CA 20%
23. New Orleans, LA 20%
24. Norfolk County, MA 20%
25. Denver, CO 20%
26. Morris County, NJ 20%
27. Miami-Dade, FL 20%
28. Dallas, TX 20%
29. Charlottesville, VA 19%
30. Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN 17%

Want to see how traffic shakes out in your state or town? Check out this pdf file over at Tele Atlas which provides traffic data all U.S. states and territories. Speed Profiles, which is part of TomTom’s IQ Routes services on its portable navigation devices, is available in 27 countries and territories, covering 35 million kilometers of both directions of roads, Tele Atlas says.

All this got me to thinking and I did a little quick searching. What’s the worst city for traffic in the world? I was guessing Berlin, or maybe some large Asian city such as Tokyo, Beijing, or perhaps Mumbai. But according to Time Magazine, the worst traffic in the world is in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

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