LAS VEGAS, Nev. (702 Times, NV Globe) – It is not your imagination that your commute to work is taking longer. According to a recent study, Las Vegas is the 22nd busiest city in the United States. According to the study, drivers in the Las Vegas Metro spent an average of 41 hours each year sitting in traffic in 2022.

Bob Pishue, an Inrix Transportation Analyst, provided the following explanation: “We collected data from billions of data sources worldwide.”

On the Inrix 2022 scorecard, Las Vegas ranked 127th for the worst traffic congestion among the 1,000 major cities studied worldwide. Additionally, Vegas moved up the list of US cities.

Pishue recalled, “You have Vegas showing up again in the top 25 for the second year in a row.”

The average morning or afternoon commute speed in Las Vegas was 37 miles per hour prior to the pandemic; it is now 9 miles per hour slower.

According to Pishue, “Transportation departments come up with this number which is called the value of time.” By utilizing that value of time, the organization was able to determine that the typical commuter in Las Vegas loses approximately $700.

Even though this isn’t nearly as bad as drivers in Los Angeles, New York, or Chicago, where commuters spend an average of 155 hours a year stuck in traffic, average drive times in Vegas are still rising due to fewer people working from home and more people moving to the area.

Pishue continued, “Obviously with Covid-19 we saw a sharp reduction, a really unprecedented reduction in the number of people traveling… Essential businesses were open, but non-essential ones weren’t.” Pishue reports good news. He doesn’t think that commute times will continue to get longer.

A place like Las Vegas ought to probably level out in some way. Pishue predicted that authorities there are keeping a close eye on the road network.

The University of Nevada, Las Vegas’ Center for Business and Economic Research predicts that over the next forty years, one million more people will live in the Las Vegas Valley, bringing the total population to 2.3 million. However, Pishue claims that projects to accommodate that growth are already under way, and traffic in Vegas could certainly get worse.

Pishue stated, “People who drive there won’t agree with me here, but it is not astronomically high, so at least drivers can know that people have it worse elsewhere.” “People who drive there will not agree with me here.”

You can find the entire study here.

Credits: FOX 5 VEGAS

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