Named after a former commissioner Georgia DOT commissioner, the Tom Moreland Interchange has 14 bridges and carries 300,000 vehicles daily. To the right is the ramp that leads from southbound I-85 to northbound I-285, which goes around Atlanta counterclockwise.
Wikimedia: Richardelainechambers Named after a former commissioner Georgia DOT commissioner, the Tom Moreland Interchange has 14 bridges and carries 300,000 vehicles daily. To the right is the ramp that leads from southbound I-85 to northbound I-285, which goes around Atlanta counterclockwise.

For the third consecutive year, Atlanta’s “Spaghetti Junction” takes top honors as the nation's most congested intersection. Built in 1958 to connect Interstates 285 and 85 North, the cloverleaf Tom Moreland Interchange was made into a five-level stack interchange in the 1980s under the Georgia DOT's "Free the Freeways" congestion-mitigation program. Evidently, the adage about more roads leading to more congestion applies here. It takes about 4% longer to navigate the interchange than it did a year ago at speeds averaging 25 mph during rush hour.

Spaghetti Junction is one of 300 National Highway System locations tracked this year by the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI). Since 2002, the organization has crunched GPS data from 800,000 heavy-duty trucks to produce a congestion impact ranking.

Here's the rest of the Top 10:

  • Fort Lee, New Jersey: I-95 at SR 4;
  • Chicago: I-290 at I-90/I-94;
  • Atlanta: I-75 at I-285 (North);
  • Los Angeles: SR 60 at SR 57;
  • Boston: I-95 at I-90;
  • Baltimore: I-695 at I-70;
  • Queens, New York: I-495;
  • Cincinnati: I-71 at I-75 and
  • Louisville, Kentucky: I-65 at I-64/I-71

“'When your trucks are moving, America is growing,’ is what President Trump told the trucking industry last October,” says Kenan Advantage Group CEO Dennis Nash. "Unfortunately, increasingly our trucks are not moving."

For access to the full report, click here.