Which Metro has the WORST Traffic in the Midwest? | Top 10 Metros Ranked by Traffic
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- čas přidán 27. 06. 2024
- On this video we take a look at the traffic of the 10 largest metro's in America's Midwest Region.
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I lived in Chicago, Cleveland, and St. Louis. Chicago is far and away the worst, not only in traffic volume, but in road rage aggression. When driving in to visit the city after I moved to another metro area, I'd park my car at the O'Hare lot and taking the train to downtown.
I do the same coming up I-57 from Southern Illinois. Park at Midway Airport Economy Garage and take the Orange Line into the Loop.
That’s a good idea. I live in a distant suburb of Chicago but the metra still reaches us. For sports games me and my friends always take the train. Even to cubs games where you have to Uber from Irving park. My mom’s side lives on western Michigan so we have to travel either through or around the city. Sometimes even going around the city is worse. Sometimes we will take the Amtrak from Chicago to holland Michigan cause of how bad the traffic is
@@DomCollado78 I have a place in Western Michigan about an hour south of Traverse City and have experimented with all those ways of getting to Chicago without driving. We have a twice-daily45 minute commuter flight that goes across the lake to O'Hare, and that is the best way to get to downtown. I've thought about driving down to Holland to take Amtrak into the city, and considered buying a place in Holland for that very reason. I've also crossed the lake from Ludington to Manitowoc on the auto-ferry and then driven in from the north. I once drove down to South Bend and put my wife on the bus that goes to O'Hare where her flight departed so I wouldn't have to drive around or through the city to get there. When I lived in Chicago I had a residence on the 38th floor of a high-rise and an office on the 31st floor, so that 7-floor commute by elevator was the best I ever had. My best friend still in Chicago lives in Batavia, and I rode into the city from there on the train a couple times, which was an easy trip from 40 miles out, compared to driving it.
Agreed! When I drive in Chicago- during non-peak times I feel like you have to drive 80 or 90 mph sometimes or else people are going to force you into an accident. Crazy aggressive!
Chicago is still better than Atlanta or any of the major Texas cities for road rage/stupidity.
All those people that use A.I. for the voice on their videos should offer you the job of narrating. Such a soothing cadence. Keep up the good work Mike. Also, the Mpls-St. Paul cloverleafs are insane. Even smaller cities further south on I-35, like Owatonna, have the same stupid merges with traffic trying to get off and on in the same lane, and tight turns coupled with a short distance to accelerate to freeway speed.
@user-oh2hs6jh5x, I couldn't agree more, and a sure giveaway is ridiculously poor pronunciation of something simple, at which point I roll my eyes, and say, "Not again!"
Aren’t they working on fixing that? We have a lot of horrible drivers here I will say.
The lights are also SOOO bright for it too.
I'd hate to drive on those when freezing rain occurs
i’m from chicago, lived here my entire life, i remember going out to kc for the first time and leaving to head back to chicago at about 5:30pm, i remember just following the flow of traffic and looked at my dash and saw i was going about 90 in the middle lane with no issue, keep in mind this was on a tuesday, completely blew me away
My sister lives in a KC suburb, I'm around Chicago. I was visiting her about a year or so ago, and we were heading out to an event in the city, and she commented that "traffic is probably going to be bad". Yeah, "bad" in KC speak apparently just means "there are a lot of cars" - everyone was traveling at highway speeds and there was no real slowdown.
I would take that kind of "bad traffic" anyday rather than trying to commute from Chicago's south suburbs into the city during rush hour.
Columbus, OH native here and I can say you basically nailed it. The spots in red (see 10:15) are bad every morning and evening M-F. One thing to note, the traffic doesn't really die down at 6:00pm, it's more like 7:00pm, depending on the day. Most of us work 2days on site with 3days at home, so …. traffic can vary each business day. Overall, another great job!
Columbus Ohio and Indianapolis Are so much alike their both really big cities on just a regular river not major waterways
I agree accept traffic is almost gone by 6pm
it’s guaranteed gone by 7… 6 it depends on where you’re going
Columbus reminds me of the way Atlanta used to be, back around 1980 --- a city on the boom, and you know its days of being a laid back, easy-going town are over.
One thing he either didn't see or forgot about was 33, it's always backed up or has an accident from 6 am until sometimes 10 at night. 315 can get especially bad during evening hours as well, so much so that ODOT has been doing road studies to either upgrade to interstate spur or downgrade to parkway.
As a truck driver and a fan, Indianapolis definitely needs to be higher on this list lol
I'm also a trucker, and Indianapolis is just all over the place. It seems like Indianapolis, like much of the state as a whole, loves to completely shut down roads...though Indy seems to do so with their interstates on a rolling basis. Indy would probably flow fine even at rush hour if all the interstates were undisturbed for once...
@@sarysa yes. I actually can’t stand that state. The only state i seen where the backroads are always shut down and you have to make a last minute detour just to make it to your destination. Can’t stand that place. Plus i70 is raggedy as hell and will destroy your truck
@@Zaybreeze I-70 oh yeah...I go into jello mode on that so it doesn't destroy my back as well. But yeah I've hit random side road closures 3 times in the last year...once when trying to shortcut a little south of I69 and I80, once when trying to detour around all those unactuated traffic lights east of i65 on us30, and once...I forgot the US route number but it forced me down some small town streets that I never want to navigate again. I had to creep past raised tracks at under 1mph that I was afraid I could ground on, but luckily didn't.
I'm a trucker myself who goes thru Indy alot. And I totally agree. When they had the southeast chunk of 465 shutdoown most of the city went into gridlock. Whats worse is they are gonna do the same to the opposite side in the other direction in 2 weeks.
as a columbus native who’s driven through indy a decent amount of times… indy is definitely worse
Nice job Mike. Agree, the Minneapolis cloverleaf is its demise. Great observation!!. Kansas City is a wonderful experience. Ahead of its growth. Chicago, well, trains are king.
Minneapolis/St Paul needs to upgrade its interchanges with flyover ramps instead of cloverleaf ramps in that area
With construction season going on, traffic is even worse, 2 pm, traffic starts pickup, by 4pm it's a stop and go
I live less than a mile between the cedar & 62 Interchange youve used on a few videos.......... Couldn't be more right about the clover leafs. But is it worth shutting down an artery for months to a year? They did that with 62 and 35, but that was just because it was such a dangerous corridor, with a tonnnnnnn of fatalities. Can't see them doing that again, even if it's a net gain over the long run.
@@ryanrobinson5638the northeast corner of the 494/35W interchange is being converted from cloverleaf to turbine interchange right now.
As someone who’s been learning to drive and drove to Chicago yesterday, I-90 and I-94 are nightmares
You really don't learn to drive until you drive around chicago everyday. I moved here when I was 18 and thought I knew how to drive and 5 years later I'm a better driver than all of my suburb family members. One tip is to ALWAYS make sure you remember your route if it has you on wacker/lower wacker. You will get no reception and GPS will have no clue where you are with the 4 layers of roads. There's a secret lower lower Wacker that cars get towed to downtown which I think is cool
Always love your content. Born and raised the greater Cincinnati area. Rush hour is really bad, but at other times of the day, it flows rather well UNLESS they are working on I-75 or the junction with 75 and 74. By the way, they always seem to be working on I-75 from the Norwood Lateral to downtown. Before Kentucky "fixed" the cut-in-the-hill" on 75/71, traffic going both ways would slow down due to sharp turns and a steep hill that would slow trucks headed southbound. The northbound lanes on 75/71 provide one of the best dramatic downtown views in the country. Only Pittsburgh might rival it.
They have been "working" on I-75 through Ohio in all the 33 years I've been driving it. They have improved it a lot, but it's taken ten times longer to improve it than to build it. It's one of the most heavily travelled Intestates, so the work and the time it took to complete it, was worthwhile.
494 at Bloomington always reminds me of LA - feels narrow, surrounded by a lot of low-rise development punctuated by taller office buildings, and usually congested. It's the 3 cloverleafs in 5 miles that makes it notably worse than anywhere else in Minneapolis-St. Paul. Other than that though, I feel like I rarely run into congestion outside of rush hour, maybe because I rarely take 394 or the bit of 35W just south of downtown.
494 through Bloomington has always been the worst spot for congestion in the metro for me by far.
@@TallgrassMeanderagreed. Still better than before the crosstown commons redesign. 1990s 494 was brutal.
Isn't there a multi-year construction plan to hopefully "fix" the 494 issue?
@@stephengnbyeah and currently that narrow highway has over 5 speed cameras that forces traffic to drive below 50 mph 😂
As bad as the stretch is don't downplay the 394 stretch merging down to one lane to get onto 94 east. That never clears up during the day. The current construction on 494 has definitely helped yet. I'm still skeptical a carpool lane being added will fix much.
The sprawl of Indianapolis is crazy. It's like the midwest version of Atlanta...and you can tell because for some reason traffic is worse than it should be.
As someone who drives through Chicago to visit family several times a year, I wish they'd stop screwing it up and realize the point of a ring road isn't to develop around it, but to keep it only for thru trips. Instead I see more oasis's being removed and more development around exits which will only make the tollway worse. It's already a rough spot because the lake concentrates so much regional traffic into one highway and there's not a good regional train system in the midwest to help pull trips off the highway.
I'd love to be able to take a train from Madison to SW Michigan and just be done with the whole driving around Chicago thing.
As a Chicagoan I agree. 294 used to be the “back way” as I use to work in the O hare area and have family who frequently fly into ohare. Now it’s nothing but construction and when it’s not construction, it’s freaking winter….
Indianapolis is like one big suburb, not densely populated and extremely easy and less traffic compared to most places.
There are a couple car ferries from Wisconsin to Michigan that get you across the lake in four hours without going through Chicago.
More like the Midwest version of DC or Boston, because two of the highways that were supposed to go through the city were detoured onto the beltway.
@@EngMadison if your okay with paying tolls I recommend completely bypassing the most of the Chicago inner western suburbs when traveling from Madison I recommend when coming into Chicago metro and when coming into Schaumburg exit from 90 to 290 continue on 290 it will split stay straight when it says 355 to Joliet and 290 to Chicago take 355 continue on that all the way to I-80 if not during peak traffic times, or between 3-6~ pm and 7-10~am, but even then it is probably faster than the other routes because you can average on that over 70mph especially on the southern portion where people usually driving upwards of 90mph, it may be a bit more miles of travel but you will avoid the city and the inner suburbs, but traffic when coming into Indiana is unavoidable especially after I-80 merges into 294
Great content Mike! I agree with you on that view of Cincinnati when coming in northbound on I-71/75. I remember the first time I crested that hill as a rookie trucker and was overwhelmed by that night time view! Still haven’t gotten to spend any time there yet but planning to go to a Bengals game so I can finally see what is like on ground level. Keep these vids coming bro.
i-75 is congested through Cincinnati i rather take the i-275 Beltway Bypass or i-471 around Downtown
@@fgjr96way I’ll have to give that a shot sometime soon
Great Video. You were spot on for Milwaukee and minneapolis
Good analysis Mike. I live in Metro Detroit and have driven in most of the other metros over the years. In my experience, the worst congestion by far is the area just south of Lake Michigan, either side of the Ilinois / Indiana border. The problems haven't changed for the past half century. Three major east/west Interstates converge here... I-80, I-90, and I-94. With a maximum of 4 travel lanes most of the way... five for short distances here and there... the traffic is bearable at 3:00 am, and misserable to madening the rest of most days. Lane reductions and delays for maintenance and repairs never end, they just move around as the decades pass. Throw in a dozen or so "lake effect" snow storms every winter... the truckers earn their pay!!!
It was hellish when I-65 was under construction a few years ago
As a truck driver, I can mostly agree with these rankings. Chicago is by far the worst with traffic, and Indy is only an issue due to the major road work on the loop.
Minnesota here. After traveling around the country a bit, I'm thankful for our traffic problems. They are pretty low level for a big city.
Love this new video format! Would be cool to see this for states with multiple big metros
Cleveland resident checking in. I’m thankful for our relatively light traffic 🙏
The only knock on Cleveland are the horrible potholes.
And the city itself
Good Job! Informative annnnnnnd entertaining!
This just made me think of a video idea that I don't think you've done... Small cities with abnormally bad traffic. Cities that you wouldn't expect to have traffic due to their population but are actually painful to drive through. I think of Mobile, Baton Rouge, Bridgeport, even Sarasota, Florida has insane interstate traffic.
Sarasota isn't a small city. The city proper might have only 50,000 people, but the metro area has over a million (Manatee and Sarasota counties), and there are plenty of people who commute in from Hillsborough County (Tampa area) and Charlotte County. It's also a popular vacation/tourist spot, with Siesta Key beach ranked #1 by Trip Advisor.
Bridgeport is also not an isolated small city. There are well over a million people in Fairfield and western New Haven county combined, with some of the most affluent towns in the country, and thus high rates of automobile ownership and labor force participation. Even with the Metro-North New Haven Line trains taking some of the demand, there is still a ton of rush hour traffic on I-95 and Merritt Parkway.
@@mirzaahmed6589 Cool
I agree about Sarasota. I-75 is the only expressway in the area, and it just runs north to south. You have nothing going east to west except for a couple 6 lane arterial boulevards with plenty of traffic lights.
@@thebobbyparkway1398 Nearby Bradenton isn't any better. When coming into Bradenton from the north, if I-75 is clogged up then traffic will divert to U.S. 41 and when that gets clogged traffic then diverts to Business Route 41 clogging the streets in Palmetto where I live. Talk about a domino effect.
The fact that you circled the I-64 and Kingshighway exit in STL proves that you know your stuff!
The Brentwood area of 64 is probably the worst in my eyes. It slows down there for no reason in my mind, even without being peak hours. While slow downs in general are annoying I don't necessarily mind a slow down for a legit reason. I've never seen a legit reason for it to slow down there aside from an accident. It's not like there are any sporting venues or anything in the area. I've driven Boston, NYC, LA, Nashville, and Honolulu traffic so I'm not a newbie to high congestion, but that area of 64 always frustrates me the most.
I grew up in Ohio and now live in St. Louis so I've driven most of these roadways and I have to say that 71 in the Kenwood area of Cincinnati is essentially identical to the Brentwood area of St. Louis, slow downs for no reason.
I enjoy driving in Chicago given that you can do 100 mph on the tollways without the chance of being pulled over.
Lol I've seen people doing 75 on lake shore drive in chicago
its a wonderful city to drive through at night
@@kylephillip6433 Literally happened to me last weekend.. I'm going 70 and people are FLYING by me. I hate going fast on LSD because of how narrow the lanes are.
@@kylephillip6433People routinely get up to 80. Limit is 40 but most traffic goes 60.
You can do that in most of the midwest except Ohio. I’m going triple digits in my corvette here in Indianapolis, At midnight in 465, everyone’s going 120+ mph lmao.
Some may not consider it Midwest but I find Louisville's traffic horrendous for a city it's size.
I've drove thru Louisville a couple times when I did a expedite driving job during the day the traffic was bad I drove thru their at 3am once it was smooth sailing
Louisville is one of those hybrid southern / midwestern towns like St. Louis. "Down home" with Southern hospitality and style, but busy in a Midwestern way. I worked there when they'd just opened the Gene Snyder outer belt. I take that around the city now when I pass through and don't see the places in town I used to work and visit.
@@alansewell7810Yeah, while some may use the Ohio River as a hard border for the South, the culture has a more gradual shift from North to South. So Cincinnati, Louisville, Evansville and St. Louis (just up the Mississippi from where the Ohio river meets) all are transitional cities that bridge the culture of the South and the Midwest
It wouldn’t have made the list based on population, but from experience I agree that Louisville has worse traffic than it should for its size. The four times I have had to drive through the city (Only have passed through driving from Indy to Nashville), I actively tried to avoid rush hour and yet I still dealt with a lot of slowdowns
@@alansewell7810 St Louis is definitely not southern
I would love you to do a video on Louisiana's I-10 corridor and other infrastructure problems. You have mentioned the difficult situation LA currently finds itself in in multiple videos such as I-69, I-49, and I-14 videos. However, you haven't yet gone super in-depth with the issue at heart. I think a video addressing and going over the plans and hurdles to mitigating the situation would be very informative.
Ambassador Bridge is an interesting case in Detroit, busiest single freight crossing in North America. Combine that with the delays of an international crossing and it’s very often end-to-end semis.
Absolutely true! For those not familiar with this VERY busy border crossing, parts and supplies for the auto industry are still the source of most truck traffic. A new crossing named the Gordy Howe Bridge (can you think of a better name for a Detroit-to-Ontario connection?) is nearing completion and should open in 2025. The commercial traffic at this international customs checkpoint is unbelievable... Semi-truck drivers can spend half of their day waiting in line. Hopefully the new bridge and customs checkpoints will greatly improve productivity at the border crossing.
Saint Louisian born and raised here! With the section of the Illinois side of the highways that you pointed out as being terrible, I agree ! It's always a pain to drive on that road. But recently as off April and May of 2024 they resurfaced it and it's really nice now! Major headache when it was being done but it got done quick and is very high quality!
I have always said that learning to drive in Missouri was a curse in terms of learning to drive in traffic. Kansas City and St. Louis are some of the easiest cities to drive through in the entire country. Learning to deal with traffic in my mid 20s in Austin and DFW was a very rude awakening.
It was at least a blessing in terms of learning to drive on hillier, windier roads (Thanks Ozarks!)
Growing up on the Kansas side of the Kansas City metro area, one of my favorite pasttimes was complaining about the aggressive Missouri drivers. Then I moved out to Virginia for a summer and realized that I just lacked perspective. Overall the scariest place to drive for me is Chicago, especially if you end up downtown. I would rather drive in Boston.
@@jr637-1 Chicago traffic is also definitely the worst I have experienced. I think it sets the record for the most time to go the least distance for me and that’s even without accidents or road construction.
I always appreciate your research
As a guy who has lived his whole life in the inner Chicago suburbs, I am surprised that the Kennedy Expressway doesn't have the worst traffic. Granted, I don't drive myself yet, but still, I remember back in 2017 when me and my dad went to see folks in Evanston, and the Kennedy was so slow it is unbelievable. I never remember the Eisenhower being as congested as it was in your driving footage. But to be fair, I haven't been on the Eisenhower in quite a long time.
When the Kennedy isn’t under construction I’ll take it over the Eisenhower any time. The inbound Eisenhower is almost always slow from the Tri-State until after Austin. The Kennedy is sometimes at least ok until the Edens merge.
The Eisenhower is either a parking lot or a racetrack. The Kennedy is almost always a parking lot. Only time I've ever gone fast on the Kennedy was early morning or COVID. During COVID, I would routinely cruise at 75 on the Kennedy express lanes
The Kennedy is terrible. The Eisenhower is Hell. The problem with the Ike is the Austin and Harlem exits and entrances because they exit and enter on the left lane which causes everybody to have to switch lanes to get over into the far left lane instead of all the other interchanges that enter and exit on the right like a normal interchange.
Once you get past Austin and Harlem, things start moving better.
@@glevii not sure how that changes anything though seeing as every other entrance and exit to highways are on the right and you regularly get people cutting over 4 lanes when they already technically missed their exit
Why Michigan traffic flows better? Because everyone drives 20-30 mph over the speed limit.
lol yes 😂
Also because Detroit is half empty and never reaches full congestion
They do that in most metros
Everyone drives just crazy enough…go to Indiana Illinois near Chicago then you get real boneheaded drivers
The only times our freeways are congested is from 6am-9pm and 4pm-7pm weekdays other times not congested, but not everyone goes that fast we all use the 5 mile over rule
I don’t know how I ended up here, and personally find stuff like this boring… BUT, I appreciate the research that went to this, and the clear and concise speaking. Good video.
Great video!
Great to see you back Mike. Rush hour on I95 from Golden Glades to downtown Miami. It’s always bad but rush hour is the worst.
I've lived in Metro Detroit my whole life (20+ years) and yes, that interchange is the WORST, even without construction there's usually a back up from around 5:30 PM to 6:30 PM (delayed due to how far it is from downtown). Otherwise traveling around is pretty calm, just busy. Unless there's an accident or construction it's pretty smooth sailing.
I've also traveled the region extensively, Chicago is so bad we often decide to go north through the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to avoid the area entirely! Cincinnati is also very bad but since I-75 is the problem child & that's what we always take through the city my opinion is skewed. I'd also like to point out I-75 in Dayton, just north of Cincinnati can be bad as well. Otherwise traffic in the region, as he said, is pretty calm.
Found you, friend!
The last two jobs I have had I had to drive to and in to Chicago, Detroit, Toledo, Indy, St Louis, the Twin Cities and KC. You are spot on.
Been through St Louis many times. Always go right through downtown, never had a problem and you get a good look at the Arch.
Ohioan who passes theough Columbus a few times a year here. Almost always some bottleneck in Columbus. Cincinnati is pretty bad too, again, I75... I75... And I75... Couldn't have been better summarized.
What route did you take? I usually take 315 and even during Ohio State games I haven’t had any issues if I stay to the left.
I was in Milwaukee last Friday; I absolutely love that town!! I am highly impressed with it!!
Former Greyhound bus driver here, Cleveland and the state of Ohio has been talking about redesigning dead mans curve for years and we're still waiting. Truck rollovers have closed the highway down periodically over the years, it can be a big inconvenience. The same can be said for the bridge in Cincinnati that crosses the Ohio River, a tanker truck flipped over and exploded closing the bridge for months. Ohio and Kentucky need to get together to rebuild the bridges down there, to make travel crossing the Ohio River easier.
Great video! I agree that the smaller (than Chicago) Midwestern offer so much for your money and time.
I grew up in the far NW suburbs of Chicago but would go to Milwaukee almost as frequently as Chicago to experience city amenities as it would only take like a half hour longer to get to but with less hassle.
Definitely agree with the rankings. I've been to all of these places and the video reflects my experiences in most of them as well.
As someone from the Twin Cities I think traffic gets bad in the I35W, MN36 and MN280 area as well during rush hour. I also avoid the areas pointed out in the video and have braved/survived Chicago traffic so many times I broke down and got an I Pass. 😅
Pretty good assessment. It was fair and accurate and matched my experiences.
1) 16:00 Most of the Chicago interstates are tolled - ugh, it's not like there a major bridges as there are in other metro areas that Illinois needs to toll. The Lake squeezes all the interstates in Gary, Indiana (80+90 are co-routed and 94 is no better.) so South Chicago/Gary is a rush hour nightmare. One numbering quirk, I-94 runs south of I-80 and I-90.
2) Minneapolis-St Paul is a mess at rush hour and drivers are speed demons - it seems you leave the quiet Midwest and enter New Jersey once you hit the Twin Cities.
Mike, my father grew up in Cincinnati so his mom and siblings lived there their entire lives and as I am 55, I have been visiting the Queen City where I can remember since the mid 70s. I-75 (as well as 71 and 74) thru downtown really haven't been redesigned or upgraded during the last 50 years. I just recently revisited the city after several years to unfortunately attend a memorial for my dad's recently deceased sister. While on 75, I did notice that a part of it near downtown was under construction...of course, the freeways are always being worked on...but I noticed that there seemed to be an attempt to improve the roadway. Despite all that, I-75 from the Ohio River to the Reagan Freeway still seemed to be the same curvy mess I remember it always being.
4:45 I was driving from South Bend, IN to Buffalo, NY and passed through this sharp curve on the highway. This was back in 2001 so I had no GPS and a brick phone using paper maps. It scared the hell out of me as I was cruising around 70mph in rain and fog and came out of nowhere so this brought back some memories.
In defense of Milwaukee, I've never seen a coastal city with great traffic flow. The inability to make a beltway around a city just means you're destined to have a bit of a clusterf#$k. Chicago doesn't even stand a chance to get much better.
There were plans for a beltway before too but wisdot folded the plans. Oh well…
What about Cleveland?
Driving US131 and I-96 through Grand Rapids, MI in peak hours is certainly a pain. But Chicago is a hellscape I try to avoid.
131 is bad?
cool post thanks for sharing, educational
I've lived in St. Louis, Chicago, and Minneapolis. You are 1000% right that Chicagoland traffic is the worst. But I think STL during peak and off hours is worse than MPS. But great video. That was fun.
Great video. Ive been to 8 of the 10 places and i would have to agree .
amazing video. thank you
I was in MSP a few weeks ago. The small, cloverleaf interchanges have been there for decades. I haven't seen them in any other city.
You need to visit Boston, where the cloverleafs were laid out by Paul Revere and the continental army core of engineers.
One of the bigger problems Chicago has with its traffic (besides all the recent construction in and around the city) is the amount of truck traffic that is on the highways here. In the past decade truck traffic in the region has exploded as more and more companies build warehouses and "logistics hubs" in the area putting all the crap coming on trains onto trucks and sending it across the Midwest. On a recent trip to Boston, I was shocked to see so few trucks on the highway compared to what I see daily around Chicago.
As a resident one sometimes wonders if one is making a bigger deal out of something than it really is. Thanks for affirming my viewpoint of Cincinnati's traffic. Incidentally, I remember driving 70 mph in downtown Cincinati on I-75 in the middle of the 60s. And yes, it was the legal speed limit then.
I have to agree with most of this. As a OTR driver who has been in all of the continental 48 I'd say you go most of it. I have always thought the cloverleafs in the Twin Cities was a bad idea. Also your correct.......have your transponder with you in the Chicago area. Good job!!
I'm from the immediate Detroit area but my in laws live in Fargo. You're correct in your assessment that Fargo's traffic isn't terrible in comparison to other Midwestern metros, from my experience visiting Fargo compared to other cities.
1)Not shocked Chicago being number 1. Shocked that Milwaukee is ranked number 4.
2)The amount of cloverleaf interchanges in the Minneapolis-St Paul Metropolitan Area is too much. Need to reconstruct some of them into partial cloverleaf with flyovers at least.
-Lifelong Cocoa, FL resident
As a Minnesota resident, I can at least tell you that the cloverleaf interchange of I-494 and I-35W is getting one clover ramp replaced by a flyover. The cloverleaf on US 169 at Rockford Rd got replaced by a folded diamond
@@knowbody6327 That’s good to hear.
Yea the primary problem with Milwaukee is that all the interstates are just old. The construction Mike was talking about on I-43 is the largest infrastructure project I've seen here in my life, they're making 43 3 lanes through the entire county and redoing a bunch of interchanges to make them more effecient
@@wms3860 👍🏾👍🏾
@@knowbody6327 I live near where US 8 terminates at I-35 near Forest Lake. They replaced a fly-over with a quarter diamond. So dumb.
I-271 east of Cleveland got a lot better IMO once they finished construction right at where the SB 'Express' lanes have to merge back into the regular lanes of the Interstate (on the southern end, where 271 and I-480 split). But that's just personal preference after having to travel through there several times per year on trips to visit family
I agree with the ranking. You didn't make mention of it but Columbus has A LOT of major construction on its highways. I70/I71/SR 315 for example has a massive interchange project going on that has been in the works for at least 10 years and may take another 10 years or longer to complete. It has done very well at upgrading some problem interchanges like I270/I670/Oh-161 and the thru traffic lanes on SR-23 from I270.
Although with its booming population, I think Columbus is going to need to invest in some high speed rail and upgrade its mass transit to accomodate. It's got a pretty heavy COTA bus system but that's about the extent.
Columbus has no passenger rail service. but there are plans for Daily Amtrak service to both Cincy (via Dayton) and Cleveland. Possible Chicago and Pittsburgh too.
Next time you’re in STL (my hometown) stop and grab some of our world famous bbq 😋shoutout to KC as well. Love your videos and safe travels brother ✊🏾 Peace & Blessings
I've been caught in jams at 5am on a Saturday on the Dan Ryan lol!
I grew up in Baltimore MD and outside of Chicago the traffic was a breeze when I visited most of these cities.
I live in a Northern suburb of Chicago. Thank God, I don’t live down there or have to commute down there. We avoid going down into the city as much as possible. We go up to Milwalkee for day trips. It’s much easlier to get around. Most Parking is free. I travel to northeast Iowa a few times a year to visit family. Getting through Milwalkee so much easlier in the last few years since they finished construction through city going towards Madison. It use to take up to a hour or more. I can now get through it in about 30 minutes even at rush hour. Keep up the good work mileage Mike 🚗🚕🚙👍🏻
Gurnee on top 👑👑👑
I just came back from a tour of the midWest. Chicago suffers from a condition that almost all the citys have, A never ending (to much money involved) construction project that makes driving through them miserable. Chicago just has more than most.
The funny part is that the interchanges you're talking about at 14:55 have been under renovation for about a month now, to remove the merging cloverleaf messes. Theyre also adding reversable lanes on 494 from 252 all the way to the river
Great job about Chicago nut you missed the other parking lot called the Stevenson Expressway ( I -55) which can rival the Eisenhower
You also missed I -80/94 in Illinois and Indiana .
Aldo a great job with the Twin Cities. Both zi '35E in St Paul and I - 35W on Minneapolis have a 1/3 mile concurre😅with I - 94. In both cases you enter the concurrency from the right but to continue to Istay on i -35 you have to exit from the left. This creases a nightmare as all of the traffic for both i -35 and I -94 have to change lanes to stay on the correct freeway..
I live in Metro Detroit as well, and yes, traffic is pretty good in Detroit, although there has been a lot of construction on some of the Interstates mentioned above, which really does slow things down, especially during peak hours of the day. I've also been to Cleveland, and traffic is pretty good there, though peak hours I haven't been there for, so I don't know what to say beyond that, lol.
I am from Des Moines. When I stay in the suburbs, I drive. If I stay in the city, I take the train. If I am staying in the city and want to venture around the suburbs, my gracious friend from Lake Forest meets us at either the Rosemont Blue Line stop or the Lake Forest Metra station, depending on whichever part of the metro we are going to. I’ve driven Downtown with no problems. I’ve also ventured The Loop on foot enough to know where to go.
I am from the South, but in my visits, I'd probably say that Chicago is worst. However, some freeways really flow well, such as 57 and 55. Even 80 isn't too bad, nor is 90 west of O'hare. I-94 is probably the most congested in that region, I'd say.
Detroit can be quite heavy on I-75 at rush hour. Cincinnati is fairly smooth sailing, as is Cleveland. Milwaukee has some backup out to Waukesha on 94, but it still flows better than a lot of places. Kansas City moves very well. The only place it even seems to heavily back up at times is I-35 south on the Kansas side near Overland Park. Indianapolis is about like Cincinnati. Overall, it isn't too bad. St. Louis moves fairly well, though I-70 can back up a bit. The Twin Cities are actually third most congested, I'd say. It's probably be worse if they didn't have more interconnected roads. That said, it's no Chicago. Small places like Des Moines have very little congestion.
Indy traffic is only ever bad because, in the summer, they are constantly closing streets due to construction.
Yes. Chicago is so bad, I was thinking homeland security or department of interior or congressional hearings. "We trapped", as they say.
1:01 shoutout to Grand Rapids, MI. Love to see the hometown representation.
That's also a stressful interchange if you're not a local driver
i live in at the m5 696 ect area and can confirm that theres a lot of construction going on rn, the orchard lake ramp reopened the other day and ramps to the m5 on 12 mile are closed periodically. the ramp in wixom also reopened recently as well
Cool to see Des Moines 235 have a cameo
Mike, would you be able to do a video about the Nipigon bridge in Canada? It's pretty crazy that it is the ONLY highway that connects Canada from west to east coast. That bridge failed several years back and many drivers especially long haul truckers had to make a detour thru the USA via Minnesota and Michigan to get around Lake Superior and in some cases several hundred mile detours.
Another fun bit of Chicago metro roadway. I-94 leading to O'Hare. It's either smooth sailing or it's not moving. There is no in between.
I94 doesn't go to Ohare
@@michaelconlee3925 Nope, but it can seriously back up at the interchange.
As someone from Seattle, the traffic in Kansas City is super smooth for that sized city compared to Seattle and Portland.
Indy is a big 9 x 9 mile grid that is constantly spreading with the suburbs
You are right that in Michigan M-5, I-96, I-696 and I-275 interchange is the only really really bad traffic probably in the entire state. All the traffic bottlenecks on to West I-96 their during rush hour. That one spot is terrible. Everywhere else in MI traffic is a breeze. Michigan fully completed its interstate plan in 1987 when the last 2 stretches of I-69 was completed. But the building of freeways has not stopped. Michigan has benefited from the last 2 governors who owned construction companies (Granholm and Snyder) who criminally built freeways to line their own pockets. Any city in Michigan with 20,000 people will have 2 freeways going through it. Now the citizens will be left paying to make sure the freeways in towns like Claire, Harrison, Cadillac and Ludington. Which normally would not be so bad considering the low volume of traffic but the weather in Northern lower MI is what the challenge is.
Theres a reason they call it the mixing bowl
just imagine if i-275 would have be built around Pontiac to connect back to i-275 would not have needed to make i-75 in Oakland County HOV lanes
@@fgjr96way I remember the people going bat shift crazy in Commerce about the idea of a freeway "ruining our beautiful lake front properties". I-275 is signed for Flint as a bypass for Detroit but without the northern connection back to 75 it doesn't go anywhere near Flint unless you take I-96 West to US 23 North. That is why there is so much traffic on that stretch of road. They tried building M-5 to Pontiac Trail. But the road continues as Martin to Richardson then to Union Lake. Traffic is a nightmare on that road too as it is a 2 or 4 lane road. It will either take another freeway extension or at least a divided highway with 4 to 6 lanes to address the problem but good luck getting the local residents to agree.
Nah us 23 between ann I-94 and I-96 in rush hour is way worse
@@kracklebtd6513 I went to Michigan. I know Ann Arbor traffic.
But I've been trapped on that stretch of 96 from 5 to 7:30 multiple times but on Friday, forget about it bring your camping equipment. The traffic in AA can be a problem but only during rush hour. That intersection is always a problem. But most of the traffic on North US 23 is a result of the traffic turning onto it from 96 in Brighton.
The Chicago metro area has the worst traffic in the Midwest. The Edens and Kennedy Expressways are frequent parking lots even during non rush hours.
I grew up in Cincinnati, my wife grew up in Minnesota and we live in two residences in the Chicago area. What connects the two residences - yep, it's the Eisenhower so we are masters of knowing how early or how late we have to be on the highway in each direction to avoid the worst of the traffic but still, our typical outbound trip which starts around 7pm on a weeknight unless we can leave before 2:30 pm, takes us about an hour. Inbound usually is done at around 7pm on a Sunday when there isn't usually an appreciable backup except right before we get the Jayne Byrne interchange with I-90/94 can be done in about 25 minutes.
The one quibble I would have with these rankings is that I have done lots of driving in the Minneapolis area and a fair amount of driving in Milwaukee. I would rank Milwaukee as far worse for congestion than Minneapolis. Mainly I only really experience much traffic backup in Minneapolis on I-94 if I happen to be driving on it during rush hour and also near Maple Grove where 494 and 94 meet while almost anytime I drive through Milwaukee I am gritting my teeth partly due to lots of confusing lane changes needed to stay on or get onto the highway I want and my travels would rarely put me on the section of 94 between Milwaukee and Madison since I would always take 90 to get to Madison.
And yes, I-75 in Cincinnati is a mess. There have been many years when it was rated as the most congested section of highway in the country. Even if they ever get the Brent Spence bridge replaced (amazing that never got done even though it belongs to Kentucky and one would think Mitch would have secured money for that), it can't really be widened since it is wedged through the oldest sections of the city in a narrow stream valley with lots of 150 year old buildings on either side.
Many years ago I was in Raleigh, NC in a office building with a window overlooking I-40. One of the people who worked there and I were looking out the window around 5pm and he said "people here complain about the traffic but I bet you have more traffic than this at 5 in Chicago." I replied, "not sure whether you meant 5 am or 5 pm but the answer is yes either way."
Yes, your delays on the south side of Indy is indeed something both residents and passers-through have likely experienced. And it’s not just the last leg of I-69 being hooked onto the beltway of I-465. I-DoT is using the disruption to also re-do the I-65 junction a few mile to the east (which sadly still will contain a merge into the left lanes if of I-465 for those heading west) and the junction with IND-37, which is being in some ways repurposed to handle more local traffic flow now that I-69 is being poised for the longer haul traffic to Bloomington and points southwest. And all this follows the re-build of the spaghetti bowl downtown, which had I-65 closed to through traffic for much of two years. Mike, re-assess Indy in two years, and all of this should be paying off in a ranking closer to that of Cleveland-without having to be Cleveland.
i94 in Woodbury and Oakdale get's pretty bad i used to commit to Hudson Wisconsin from white bear lake and i would leave at 6:30 am to try and beat it and the clover leaves and construction are killers for good flow of traffic
The I 75 bridge crossing the ohio river will be getting converted to local hwy traffic as a thru traffic bridge is starting construction soon. Plus a lot of the ramps and flyovers are getting reconfigured
I've lived all my life south of Indy, and I have to use that I-69/465 interchange to get anywhere, often to time-sensitive theatre gigs. It's not the congestion but the unpredictability that's a nightmare. There's a crash between 69 and 74 like every afternoon, and it causes gridlock every time, and you don't know if it'll add 5 or 15 mins. It's even the place where I had my only crash. It's just so dangerously overloaded with semis.
the eastside of the i-465 beltway is the worst i have ever seen at 55/60 mph
I’ve been on I-270 in Columbus and I even have pics of the signs and it was a honor to be on the mighty I-70 and I-270 had alot of trucks on my run but at night I-270 is a cool freeway at night
i used to drive by that intersection daily. thank god ODOT is fixing it.
I go through the Chicago area a lot on the way back to Michigan from North Dakota. Coming in from Wisconsion I take the following route. I39/I90 to I90, I90 to I290, I290 to I355, I355 to I80, and finally I80 towards Indiana.
It is a slightly longer route, but the time saved is huge with only 2 bottlenecks, I80/I294, and I80/I294 with I94, and those are not super terrible.
Isn't it a little frightening that you have to go all the way out to 355 to avoid the worst of Chicago? That used to be 294's job. I wonder how long it will be until you have to stay on 39 all the way to 80 to avoid it?
@piesciuk wouldn't call it frightening, more frustrating. Just too much traffic anymore on 294.
I've been sticking to 355 because I only got an 11 hr drive clock as a truck driver so I can't afford to be sitting in traffic for 2 hours.
Even coming back from Denver I take I-70 all the way to Indianapolis, and then I-69 north to US-24.
I take the same route for Detroit to Minneapolis trips. Extra distance saves time AND sanity!
@@piesciuk I live 3 minutes from the I-80/I-355 interchange. I often work in Rockford. I will take I-39 to I-80 when coming home during rush hour.
Another major area of congestion in Chicagoland is the bottleneck of I-90, 80, 94 and their spurs between Joliet, IL and Gary, IN. It's a pain so much so, that many a times, I took a route through Indianapolis towards Detroit and reached faster despite being ~70 miles extra. To let your car flow through the only reasonable time range is between 2:00 AM and 4:30 AM. 😢
I had a nice chuckle about the reason for Cincinnati being so high was "I-75, I-75, I-75". I grew up in this city and even when I'm driving to familiar places I check my GPS to see what's going on with I-75 before I choose my route.
I live near Dayton and sometimes travel to Lexington so I naturally use 75. But I get off 75 and take 275 west around the city and pick it up again in Kentucky to avoid the downtown.
I-465 on the north side of Indy can get to be a parking lot at times. I try to avoid it when possible and I live north of Indy.
Spot on with 290. I had to drive it every day going into a job in Oak Park (about 9 miles outside downtown Chicago) and hated every minute of it. I think one of the biggest issues with it is the fact that entrances and exits can be on either side of the road, and if you don't know where you're going, it can lead to some aggressive and risky lane changes to get to the right exit.
Another road worth mentioning is 294 - my Dad calls it the 8th Wonder of the World and compares it to the Great Wall of China, because in his 30~ish years of living in this area, he's never seen that road NOT under construction.
7:52 is on Van Dyke M-53 passed by the house where I grew up. Or at least the street.
It is kind of funny how it is all relative because for example people living in the Grand Rapids metro area were complaining about how awful the traffic is in the Detroit metro area. I wanted to asked them if they've ever been to Chicago or Atlanta?
Been to Atlanta more than once thanks to my mom’s brother living in Douglas County, GA. Back in 2021, I ran into near gridlock traffic in Henry County, GA around McDonough on I-75 Saturday afternoon on my way to visit my uncle. The shock on my face when my uncle told me that’s normal traffic for that area.
-Lifelong Cocoa, FL resident
It's funny, I would dare say traffic is worse in Grand Rapids than Metro Detroit, not only is the Grand Rapids area growing fast, you also get a lot of people passing through to get up north. And pair that geographic limitations and an increasingly inadequate freeway system and I think that equals out to a traffic mess (for the Midwest)
I learned to drive in Boston. I've driven in NY City, LA, San Francisco, Detroit, and Chicago. Nothing prepared me for Paris, France. Zut alor!!!
Former Cinci resident - worst part about I-75 traffic is trucks trying to crawl up the steep hill on the SB side from downtown into KY during all times of day. It's so bad.
Roads on the Illinois side of the Mississippi were just resurfaced last month. All GREAT now
I leave near the intersection talked about @8:20, I expect that construction to last a long while because it started a around January-February and has shown no signs of being anywhere near done.
We only have two seasons in Michigan; Winter, and Construction.
the good news outta columbus is they’re fixing the 70/270 interchange. it’s a clusterfuck on 70 with the lane reduction and 270 with all that on the cloverleaf heading east
Fortunately I generally enter Columbus from the west (from Dayton area) so not as bad.
In Minneapolis hopefully we can remove Interstate 94 between both downtowns. We’ve hopefully seen the last of any highway building/expansion in the Twin Cities.
WisDOT has done a decent job in the last 20 years rebuilding the Marquette, Zoo and Airport interchanges at great expense. With that said, what plagues Milwaukee's freeway system is that in-between the impressive interchanges, most of the mainlines are still in their original 1950s design except on the south side where I-94 is now 8 lanes. Also, there is no northern freeway bypass to get from I-41 over to I-43 so all of the people from Chicagoland who vacation up in say Door County are forced to go through Milwaukee and that can clog things up sometimes. I-94 near American Family Field has been a problem spot for years; even when there is no Brewers traffic. The state's plan for is to tear the stadium interchange down and rebuild it as a DDI interchange so, no more left hand entrances/exits. I know compared with Minneapolis or Chicago, Milwaukee is a smaller metro but because of its relative proximity to Chicago, it has enough traffic where if there is any type of unexpected closure due to an accident or some other type of incident, traffic conditions can break down pretty quickly. What I like about Milwaukee is that the surface streets compliment the freeways so it is possible to get around most of the metro without even using the freeway.
I-94 expansion is going to be one hell of a job. Barely any room to add another lane and it’s almost at a 2 billion dollar price tag. Crazy.
Living in the DMV and dealing with this traffic, I miss my home city of Indianapolis and the free flowing traffic through downtown.
Minneapolis also has a TON of left hand exits which is insane with the heavy traffic and 5 lanes wide
Detroit FTW!!! The Michigan state bird is the orange construction barrel. Every single year, there is at least 3 major road projects that are all in the same area......