Los Angeles Traffic Congestion is Number One in U.S. (Again): 405, 5, 10 Freeways Are National Contenders

We're number one.

But here it is folks, the news: Yet another study ranks L.A.'s traffic congestion as the worst in the nation among major cities.

Yeah, a traffic data company called INRIX released its fourth-annual National Traffic Scorecard today and found that L.A. is tops because ...

... "On Thursday at 5:30 p.m., the average trip takes 71 percent longer than normal."

(The last time we ranked number one was only last summer).

But the pleasantry doesn't stop there. INRIX says it's getting worse, with congestion on the increase for 11 consecutive months in 2010. The worst traffic day of the week is Thursday.

The L.A. region had the second worst traffic corridor (next to one New York): A 20-mile stretch of the Riverside (91) Freeway from Costa Mesa eastward, said to take a whopping 57 minutes on average to traverse.

We also had the third (the 405 from near LAX to Sepulveda Pass), fifth (10 from downtown to Santa Monica), seventh (5 from downtown to the Orange County line), and tenth (the 10 through the San Gabriel Valley) worst corridors in the country. (Yay).

The good news is that the worsening conditions mean the economy is healing (yay again):

" ... Rebounds in the technology, healthcare, manufacturing, freight movement and services sectors" are good things for the economy, bad for traffic, according to the report.

INRIX's CEO, Bryan Mistele:

America is back on the road to gridlock Population growth combined with increases in interstate commerce spurred by economic recovery are fueling these increases. With only 150,000 new jobs created in our nation's urban centers last year, we can expect even worse gridlock when the 6 million jobs lost in the recession return to the nation's cities.

Can't wait.