SAO
PAULO, BRAZIL
June 10, 2009
181 miles (combined)
Sao Paulo is widely considered the worst traffic city in the world, with jams in and around the urban center stretching, on average, 112 miles during rush hour each day. In June 2009, the city set a world record for combined traffic jams when the total bumper-to-bumper volume reached 181 miles, covering over a third of all roads in the city.
It's no surprise that residents have learned to make the most of their time stuck in traffic: they shave, read, and sometimes pick up dates. One Sao Paulo resident, whose 11-mile commute to work can take up to two hours each way, met her husband in a traffic jam. "I was with a friend in my car and he was in his car also with a friend," she told the BBC. "In the stop and go of the traffic jam we started driving side by side and then he started looking at me." Apparently, after some window-flirting, a phone number was exchanged, and before long it was happily ever after.
With the Brazilian middle class booming, roughly 1,000 new cars take to the Sao Paulo streets each day. "It's like a war," one resident told the BBC, "Because everybody seems to become very selfish once they are behind the wheel of a car."
Sao Paulo's "sea of cars," as one resident described the traffic situation to the BBC, has had a negative impact on the economy (delivery prices are especially high) -- but the helicopter business is another story. With business executives increasingly choosing to spend a few minutes in the air rather than a few hours on the road, Sao Paulo's helicopter fleet has become one of the largest in the world.
YASUYOSHI CHIBA/AFP/Getty Images
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