Analysis: Atlanta clunks as top 20 worst traffic city—on the planet

If traffic congestion is a sign of desirability, metro Atlanta is emerging as the Southeast’s municipal equivalent of Margot Robbie and Michael B. Jordan.

Which isn’t a pretty scenario.

According to a new global analysis by Inrix, a transportation software company specializing in real-time analytics and traffic data, the Atlanta area clunks as not just one of the most congested in the U.S.—it’s currently the No. 16 worst city for traffic jams in the world.

Inrix’s 2025 Global Traffic Scorecard, published Dec. 1, crunched three years of transportation data from more than 900 cities, spanning 36 countries and seven continents.

Metro Atlanta ranked as No. 7 in the U.S. for worst traffic congestion, between Miami and Houston, respectively. That’s despite billions of dollars that state government and now private entities continue to pour into highway expansions.

Graphic-based overview of U.S. traffic hotspots. Inrix

The analysis weighed commuting trends, travel delays, and costs of congestion to drivers and unique regions. It indicates that Atlanta drivers have lost on average about 75 hours to traffic in 2025 alone—a bump of 15 percent from last year.

In the U.S., Chicago, New York City, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles, respectively, were all ranked in the global top 10. So on the bright side, it could be worse.

Here’s a breakdown:

Inrix

A silver lining in the analysis, in terms of alternate transportation, could be a bump in shared mobility in Atlanta, though adoption rates haven’t been as high as in competing metros. For instance, upward growth in Seattle (+74 percent) and Washington D.C. (48 percent) has outpaced Atlanta (22 percent), per Inrix’s findings.

“Congestion has long been part of Atlanta’s story, and the loss of 75 hours a year to traffic reflects the challenges residents face when trying to move around a fast-growing region,” said Carol Antunez, a Southeast team leader at micromobility provider Lime, in response to the Inrix report.

“When we expand the range of reliable transportation options,” Antunez continued, “we give Atlantans more control over their routines and help relieve the daily pressure of getting around.”

Inrix