Well, if you live in the Nashville/Davidson County area, you spend an average of 40 hours a year sitting in traffic.  That’s a lot.  For the mathematically-challenged, it’s almost two entire days.  I don’t know about you, but I can think of a lot of things I could accomplish in 40 hours that would be far more rewarding than bonding with my fellow travelers in bumper-to-bumper traffic.  During those 40 hours of not going anywhere, we Nashvillians waste 25 gallons of gas.  Ouch.

But it could be worse.  A new study ranks Nashville as the 28th-worst American city, in terms of traffic and congestion, which means there are exactly 27 places where traffic is worse than it is here.  Atlanta, for instance, tied for 2nd worst (no surprise there), with its drivers wasting upwards of 60 hours a year in gridlock.  Los Angeles won the top spot, with it’s commuters spending 70 hours a year in traffic clogs. 

Officially named the 2007 Annual Urban Mobility Report, the study ranks cities from worst to best, and contains a lot of interesting data besides just the “wasted hours” column. 

You can see the Nashville-specific report (in PDF format) here. 

You can view the full report, including the cities by rank, here.