The emptier roads and cleaner air at the start of the pandemic have given way to traffic congestion slowly returning in many global cities, but US and UK city centers are still few and far between. busier as office workers continue to work from home, according to a study published in Tuesday.
Trips to U.S. metros are 22% below pre-pandemic levels and down as much as 49% in San Francisco, where many tech workers continue to work remotely, according to a transportation study. 2021 over 1,000 cities by transportation analysis firm INRIX Inc.
Bob Pishue, INRIX transport analyst and author of the study, said trips into the UK city center are still 19% below pre-pandemic levels, but have returned strongly to pre-COVID in Germany, possibly as a result of fewer Germans working from home.
“In the US, we don’t expect congestion to return to where it was before, at least through 2022,” he said.
Research shows that traffic, an indicator closely tied to economic activity and recovery, has returned unevenly around the world.
While the average London motorists have lost 148 hours in traffic this year – the most of any resident in the city and roughly the same as before the pandemic – the average US city driver takes 36 hours when participating in traffic, down nearly 43% compared to pre-pandemic levels.
The stark differences are the result of different approaches by governments to pandemic restrictions, the city structure of downtown malls, and the remote accessibility of workers, Pishue said.
“There’s really no one answer to everything, it’s very complicated,” says Pishue.
Vaccination rates also don’t seem to affect traffic levels, with telecommuting being a bigger driver, Pishue said. For example, in Washington DC, often one of the top US congested cities, nearly 80% of residents are vaccinated, but hours lost to traffic are still down by 65%.
