The Texas A&M Transportation Institute released its annual urban mobility report earlier this summer. The study, which analyzes data from 2022, shows how traffic delays affected commuters in four Oklahoma communities.
That year, the average Oklahoma City commuter lost 52 hours to traffic congestion. That doesn’t mean they spent 52 hours in their car — it means they spent 52 extra hours in their car compared to the time they would have spent if they didn’t get stuck in unexpected traffic.
Altogether, OKC residents spent nearly 43 million extra hours in traffic — twice as many as they did just 20 years ago.
Up the turnpike, Tulsans spent 41 extra hours in their cars in 2022. In both OKC and Tulsa, most delays happened on freeways and outside of rush hours.
The study also looked at Norman, where commuters spent 42 extra hours in traffic that year, and Lawton, where they lost just 6.
As they say, time is money — in OKC, traffic caused more than $1 billion in lost productivity. All OKC commuters combined consumed nearly 400,000 extra gallons of fuel, leading to a whopping 162,000 tons of extra carbon dioxide emissions.
This report was produced by the Oklahoma Public Media Exchange, a collaboration of public media organizations. Help support collaborative journalism by donating at the link at the top of this webpage.
