Edmontonians spend less time stuck in traffic than Calgarians do: report

When it comes to traffic congestion around the world, Edmonton is unremarkably average.

A recently released traffic scorecard for 2017 ranked Edmonton 10th out of 22 Canadian cities, beating Calgary by two spots.

Alberta’s capital took 114th place out of 319 North American cities. Its global ranking was 696th out of 1,360 cities worldwide. That’s a marked improvement from a global ranking of 447 in 2016.

The rankings came from the 2017 INRIX Global Traffic Scorecard, which ranks the impact of traffic congestion in cities across 38 countries. Data from 300 million different sources covering over 5 million miles of road was used in the study.

The study found Edmonton drivers spent about five per cent of their commute stuck in traffic. That amounts to an average of 14 hours during peak travel times.

Calgarians also spent an average of five per cent of their commute in congestion, or 16 hours in traffic during peak times.

Montreal took top honours as Canada’s most congested city, with drivers spending 50 hours — or 13 per cent of their commute — stuck in traffic. But like most of the Canadian cities on the list, Montreal improved its ranking from last year. Traffic congestion in Toronto and St. John’s, N.L., got worse, while Waterloo, Ont., and St. John, N.B., were unchanged.

Los Angeles topped the list as the world’s most gridlocked city for the sixth year in a row. Drivers there spent an average of 102 hours in traffic jams last year.

Canada’s top 10 most congested areas by 2017 global ranking (2016) Montreal: 38 (27)

Toronto: 49 (53)

St. John’s, N.L.: 137 (144)

Ottawa: 171 (150)

Vancouver: 203 (157)

Quebec: 227 (165)

Victoria: 399 (347)

Calgary: 596 (481)

Hamilton: 659 (465)

Edmonton: 696 (447)