Miami's Soul-Crushing Daily Commute Has Gotten Worse, Study Finds

Miami residents are familiar with spending two hours in bumper-to-bumper traffic on I-95 in the morning commute thanks to the constant highway construction, road closures, and the never-ending influx of visitors. And unfortunately, it’s only grown worse in recent years. 

According to a new study, a typical commuter in Miami is spending an additional 17 hours in traffic each year as compared to a decade ago.

The study, completed by business-resource website LLC.org, analyzed commute times for full-time workers 16 years and older in more than 500 jobs across the 170 most populated cities in the nation. According to the website, the study used 2012-2022 data pulled from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey, Public Use Microdata Sample, National Institutes of Health, and National Library of Medicine.

The Magic City falls within the top 25 for cities with the largest ten-year increase in commute times while St. Petersburg is the only Florida city to sit in the top ten, ranking seventh. Fort Lauderdale has the 11th highest ten-year increase at 25 additional hours spent in traffic each year.

The findings indicate that the typical daily commute in Miami was 58 minutes — the fourth worst in Florida.

"Among full-time workers, Miami commuters spend 236.86 hours or approximately 10 full days in traffic," the study reports.

The study found that Hollywood, Pembroke Pines, and Cape Coral on the west coast were the three worst cities in the Sunshine State for commute time with a daily average of 64.6, 59.6, and 59.4 minutes, respectively.

Palmdale, California had the longest commute in the country at 91 minutes, while New York City came in second with its roughly 81-minute commute.

Hialeah's average daily commute time of 57.4 minutes ranked 35th on the national list — just three spots below Miami.

Miami's worsening commute time checks out given the lack of viable public transportation options for many commuters and the influx of people including the 13,000 new City of Miami residents since the pandemic.