Wednesday, September 5, 2012

World's 20 Most Painful Cities To Drive

From commute times and stress levels to price of gas and anger outrages, here are the world's worst cities for driving.
So, your commute is pretty bad, huh? It takes you three minutes to get out of your office parking lot, eight minutes to reach the highway and another 45 to snake along to your exit. As you sit and listen to another damned FM play of the Black Eyed Peas' "I Gotta Feeling," it dawns on you: it gets no worse than this. Of course, such exaggeration is a business Canadians excel in. Almost always, traffic-jammed commutes are rough, yes, but they often pale in comparison to the workaday travels of bigger, more gruelling cities. To set the record straight, IBM recently issued its annual Computer Pain Survey, which uses a variety of measures* to determine the world's most maddening commutes. Click through to find the world's 20 worst cities to drive, and take a guess at which Canadian towns make the cut.
*Consumer Pain score accounts for ten issues: 1) commuting time, 2) time stuck in traffic, agreement that 3) price of gas is already too high, 4) traffic has gotten worse, 5) start-stop traffic is a problem, 6) driving causes stress, 7) driving causes anger, 8) traffic affects work, 9) traffic so bad driving stopped, and 10) decided not to make trip due to traffic.


20. Montreal, Canada
Consumer Pain Score: 21
One of two Canadian cities to appear on this list, this year Montreal motorists have had to endure the one variable a traffic-jammed town can ill afford: major road closures. As if congestion wasn't bad enough, a massive slab of falling concrete famously shuttered part of an east-end highway last month, and late summer construction on Montreal's Turcot interchange will cause lane closures and significant delays until December.

19. London, England
Consumer Pain Score: 23
As per IBM's survey, 41 per cent of commuters said that improved public transportation in their city would help reduce stress. Ironically, though, in London - where the transit system is often considered among the world's most comprehensive - British drivers still can't help but feel the pain. In 2010, 19 per cent of London respondents said traffic had increased their stress levels, but that figure spiked to 33 per cent in this year's poll.

18. Chicago, USA
Consumer Pain Score: 25
Three American cities appear on IBM's Commuter Pain Survey, but Chicago motorists are ones that'd rather scratch and claw than blindly follow the masses. Of the cities polled by IBM, Chicago drivers displayed the highest desire for more accurate and timely information about road conditions as a means to avoid traffic.

17. Stockholm, Sweden
Consumer Pain Score: 26
Follow this logic: 42 per cent of Stockholm drivers in 2011, as opposed to just 18 per cent in 2010, said traffic in the city had improved over the past three years. Yet, in spite of congestion in the Swedish capital appearing to ease, more Stockholm motorists (25 per cent in 2011, as opposed to just 14 per cent in 2010) said traffic has been negatively affecting their performance at work or school.

16. Toronto, Canada
Consumer Pain Score: 27
Toronto motorists think their commutes are becoming more tolerable but, somehow, stress levels for Big Smoke drivers continue to soar. In 2010, just eight per cent of Toronto drivers said traffic had been getting better over the past three years, while 14 per cent said congestion was stressing them out. In 2011, 23 per cent said they thought traffic was improving, but a whopping 40 per cent said traffic was increasing their stress level.

14. New York, USA (tie)
Consumer Pain Score: 28
New York traffic is bad, but at least Big Apple drivers are adapting. In 2010, 90 per cent of New York motorists reported that they drove to work or school alone. In 2011, cue the carpool. According to IBM's survey, only 59 per cent of New Yorkers drove to work or school alone this year.

14. Madrid, Spain (tie)
Consumer Pain Score: 28
When compared to other cities on this list, motorists in Madrid may have it easy. According to IBM's survey results, about half of drivers in the Spanish capital reported spending no more than 30 minutes stuck in traffic over the past three years, a number that might cause extreme jealousy to the cities yet to appear in this feature. Still, more Madrid drivers (30 per cent in 2011, compared to 21 per cent in 2010) admitted that traffic this year was negatively affecting their performance at work or school.

13. Paris, France
Consumer Pain Score: 31
When considering traffic, it's important to remember that congestion affects different drivers in different ways. To wit: despite no significant reported increase in traffic year-over-year, Parisian drivers reported a substantial jump in how traffic affected them. In 2010, 26 per cent of Parisian motorists said traffic affected their performance at work or school; that number jumped, for no apparent reason, to 35 per cent in 2011.

12. Los Angeles, USA
Consumer Pain Score: 34
The worst American city for traffic, by IBM's estimation, is Los Angeles, where slow-moving freeways and interchanges coil through the entire metropolis. And, in the same year the word "Carmageddon" joined the popular lexicon, L.A. drivers reported a major increase in traffic-related stress. According to IBM, 44 per cent of L.A. motorists said traffic has increased their stress level this year, more than double the amount that admitted the same in 2010.

11. Buenos Aires, Argentina
Consumer Pain Score: 42
Still-emerging cities like Buenos Aires might be forgiven for its bad traffic. By IBM's estimation, the Argentinean capital is still working to develop its public transit system, suggesting traffic could decrease heavily once proper infrastructure is in place. In fact, of the 20 cities on this list, no town is currently shifting its municipal priorities to maximizing public transit more than Buenos Aires.

10. Singapore city, Singapore
Consumer Pain Score: 44
Really, what do motorists in Singapore expect? The island city/state is one of the world's densest regions - third, in terms of people per square kilometre, behind only Monaco and Macau - so high congestion should come as no surprise. Remarkably, however, when asked if they'd been stuck in traffic for longer than 30 minutes over the past three years, about half of Singapore drivers answered no.

9. Milan, Italy
Consumer Pain Score: 53
Milan is another city backwards in its gauge of traffic-related stress. From 2010 to 2011, IBM's survey noted an increase in drivers in the Italian city reporting a perceived improvement in congestion, yet those same motorists also said their stress levels had spiked during that same period. According to the Commuter Pain Survey, 61 per cent of Milan drivers said traffic increased their stress level in 2011, compared to just 38 per cent who admitted the same last year.

8. Moscow, Russia
Consumer Pain Score: 65
Moscow, like Chicago, is one of the cities that feature proactive motorists; more drivers in the Russian metropolis than anywhere besides the Windy City told IBM they desire more up-to-date traffic info as a way to avoid congestion. And, with good reason. In 2010, only 25 per cent of Moscow drivers said bad traffic affected them at work or school. This year, that figure jumped to 34 per cent.

7. New Delhi, India
Consumer Pain Score: 72
Drivers in India have it doubly bad. While motorists in New Delhi have to slug through traffic nightmares like everybody else - in fact, a whopping 63 per cent of drivers in the Indian capital told IBM they'd avoided making a trip in the last month due to anticipated traffic, the second-highest such figure in the world - the Commuter Pain Survey notes that no region gave its drivers respiratory problems due to traffic congestion more than India.

6. Bangalore, India
Consumer Pain Score: 75
The Garden City is India's worst town for traffic, edging New Delhi by just one spot for the dubious distinction, as per IBM's Commuter Pain Survey. Still, even in the congestion-jammed Bangalore, traffic appears to be getting better. According to IBM, more commuters in Bangalore reported improvement in traffic in 2011 compared to the previous three years.

5. Johannesburg, South Africa
Consumer Pain Score: 83
How do you explain traffic pain? That's tough, considering what makes Motorist X irate may not faze Motorist Y, who's used to inching home from work. So it goes, then, that while commuters in Johannesburg reported an ease in traffic from 2010 to 2011, their stress levels skyrocketed, from 30 per cent saying congestion stressed them out last year to 52 per cent admitting as much this year.

4. Nairobi, Kenya
Consumer Pain Score: 88
Somehow, traffic doesn't seem to bother Nairobi commuters much. In 2011, nearly half (48 per cent) of those surveyed reported that roadway traffic has not negatively affected their health, a low sum given that it's the world's fourth-worst city to drive. But maybe that's because Nairobi commuters are adapting. In the wording of IBM, an "astonishing" 70 per cent of Nairobi residents reported taking public transit on their daily commute more often in the past year.

2. Beijing, China (tie)
Consumer Pain Score: 95
Now we get to the really, really bad towns. Despite spending about 80 billion Yuan ($12.4 billion) to improve its transportation infrastructure last year, Beijing is still a nightmare to drive in, with a stunning 86 per cent of commuters in the Chinese capital reporting congestion being a key inhibitor to work or school performance. Add to that a figure of 61 per cent of Beijing drivers telling IBM they'd decided not to take a trip because of traffic in the past month.

2. Shenzen, China (tie)
Consumer Pain Score: 95
Commuters in Shenzhen have their traffic problems even before you consider pollution. According to IBM, drivers in India and China suffer the worst respiratory problems due to traffic congestion, so it's with good merit motorists in the Southern Chinese city try to stay off the road. Nearly two-thirds (63 per cent) of Shenzhen drivers also told IBM they'd avoided a trip in the past month due to anticipated traffic, the second-highest total of all surveyed cities.

1. Mexico City, Mexico
Consumer Pain Score: 108
Now that we've reached the number one spot on this list, perhaps it's best to put things in a new light. A Commuter Pain Score of 108 sounds bad, but it's infinitely worse when compared against other notoriously bad traffic towns. For instance, according to IBM, driving in Mexico City, which is investing some US$2.5 billion over the next few years to support its traffic infrastructure, is so bad it's exactly four times as painful as commuting in Toronto, by far Canada's most maddening city for drivers.

Source : http://autos.ca.msn.com

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