Here’s how much of your life you waste in traffic in Phoenix

Braving the summer heat in Phoenix is a grueling task for anyone. But what can really set a desert dweller over the edge is sitting in rush hour traffic with the air conditioning blasted and the sun in full force. When the writers of “King of the Hill” called Phoenix a “monument to man’s hubris,” that’s what they meant.

But how bad is traffic in Phoenix, really? How much time do Valley residents spend stuck in highway congestion?

An August study from the Texas A&M Transportation Institute aimed to answer these questions for urban areas across the country. The team behind the study also created an online tool that makes it easy to view data, dating back to the 1980s, for a particular city.

Drivers in Phoenix, predictably, experience some of the highest traffic delays in the country — though, considering it’s the fifth-largest city in the country and one of the largest metropolitan areas, it might not be as high as you’d think.

Across the Valley, drivers were delayed more than 203 million hours in 2024, according to the study. That was the 11th-highest figure among major urban areas in the country, and 6% higher than what the Phoenix metro experienced in 2023. The average Valley commuter spent 76 hours in traffic every year — more than three days — which is the 12th-highest average in the nation.

Phoenix’s annual estimated congestion cost — a metric that puts a price on every hour of delay in addition to the cost of excess fuel spent in traffic — was more than $5.6 million. That comes out to an average of $1,645 per person last year.

In Phoenix, peak congestion hours occurred between 3 and 6 p.m. on weekdays, with the city experiencing approximately five hours of congestion each day. Approximately 37% of delays were caused by traffic on freeways during peak hours, while 26% occurred on normal city streets during the same times.

Traffic congestion got markedly worse in 2024 compared to the year before, the study showed, with the total time spent in traffic jumping by more than 10 million hours. If it’s any consolation, though, 2025 should be better now that the Interstate 10 Broadway Curve expansion project is complete.

If you want to know how Phoenix stacks up against other major cities, here are the top 12 by hours wasted in traffic per person.

1. Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim: 137 hours
2. San Francisco-Oakland: 134 hours
3. New York-Newark: 99 hours
4. Miami: 93 hours
5. Washington, D.C.: 90 hours
6. San Diego: 88 hours
7. Atlanta: 87 hours
8. Chicago: 87 hours
9. Seattle: 87 hours
10. Boston: 80 hours
11. Houston: 77 hours
12. Phoenix-Mesa: 76 hours