Britain’s most gridlocked roads revealed: London tops list

Britain’s most congested roads have been revealed, with Londoners having the worst traffic in the world.

Traffic delays peaked in 2022 following the recovery from the pandemic, driving commuting costs back up and the average UK driver losing 80 hours in congestion.

The roads in London, Birmingham, Leeds, Belfast and Bristol are among the busiest in the UK and cause long delays.

The average London driver lost £1,377 on congestion in 2022, while drivers across the country lost £707.

London topped the world’s list of cities for the second year in a row, with the average driver in the capital spending 156 hours – almost a week – in traffic.

Five of the busiest routes in the UK were found in London and include Mordern Hall Road, Peckham Hill Street and Falloden Way (file image)

Delays increased in 72 percent of the UK’s urban areas compared to 2021, according to transport analyst Bob Pishue’s report in the INRIX Global Traffic Scorecard.

The report said hybrid work rose from 13 percent to 24 percent over the year, while full-home work fell from 22 percent to 14 percent.

This meant more people were commuting to city centers than during the pandemic.

Commuting to work in London cost an average driver £1,377 in lost time, while a comparable driver in Bristol lost £805.

Drivers in Manchester lost an average of £742.

While the average British commuter pays £707 in lost time, they also paid £122 more for fuel due to rising oil prices.

The average British driver lost 80 hours to traffic congestion last year – 7 hours more than last year but 35 hours less than in 2019.

There was good news for commuters in some cities.

Exeter, Cambridge and Cheltenham fell out of the UK’s ten busiest cities.

The five most congested roads in the UK can all be found in the capital.

Morden Hall Road is the busiest and peaks at 5pm, causing an average delay of 12 minutes.

Peckham Hill Street and Falloden Way also cause delays of more than 10 minutes for each use and are also busiest during the afternoon rush hour.

Merton High Street and Ravensbourne Road come fourth and fifth on the list of busiest roads.

Drivers in London faced the worst traffic congestion in the world, losing 156 hours or six and a half days in traffic delays by 2022 (file image)

Outside of London, the busiest road is in Birmingham on the A45 East.

England’s second city takes four of the ten spots on the list of busiest roads, including the A435 from Haden Circus to Wynfield Gardens and the A45 West.

Leeds comes second with the A6177 from Bolton Road or Great Horton Road causing delays averaging 8 minutes.

Other roads on the list can be found in Edinburgh on the A902 West, Sheffield on the A61 from the Moore Street roundabout,

Moore Street in Sheffield is where former BBC presenter Dan Walker was knocked off his bicycle last month.

While London tops the list of the most congested cities in the world, no other UK city makes the top ten.

Chicago (155 hours) and Paris (138 hours) make up the rest of the top three most congested cities, followed by Boston (134 hours) and New York (117 hours).

The report’s author, transportation expert Bob Pishue, said: ‘It’s great to see public and commercial life returning to normal, but unfortunately we’re seeing congestion getting closer to pre-pandemic levels, if not higher.

“We need to manage congestion while improving mobility and accessibility in cities to prevent this from harming economic recovery and affecting the quality of life of commuters and residents.”