London was the most traffic-choked city in Europe last year, according to transport data specialist Inrix, and it’s getting worse, with car drivers losing 99 hours of time and having to cope with an average speed of just 10mph. It’s ranked second in the world (New York City tops the congestion charts) followed by Mexico City, Paris and Chicago.

Nor is it just a problem in Britain’s capital, with congestion worsening across all top ten UK cities compared to 2022, as traffic levels continued to increase post-Covid. In fact, according to these figures, congestion is now worse that it was before the pandemic, which temporarily emptied our urban roads.

In terms of hours lost per driver per year, London is followed by Bristol, Birmingham, Wigan and Leeds – Bath, Chelmsford, Manchester, Hertford-Harlow and Burton upon Trent fill out the top ten. Inrix collated data from phones, cars, trucks and the cities themselves to measure congestion on each segment of road, for every minute of each day.

What the report doesn’t cover is powered two-wheelers, which of course aren’t as affected by congestion and low average speeds as cars, trucks and buses. Jim Freeman, chair of the BMF drew a clear lesson from the sorry state of Britain’s congested urban streets: “Get a bike! If your personal transport needs are met by a motorcycle, don’t delay, get one today! London is the classic conurbation, with swathes of suburbia especially, where public transport simply doesn’t work. If you have to be somewhere, using buses or the underground simply doesn’t work very well, it takes too long. As to cycling, London’s big, if your journey is 20 miles, up hill and down dale, even an electric bike isn’t necessarily the answer, particularly if the route involves dual carriage ways.”

Written by Peter Henshaw

Top image authors own.