ATRI lists most congested truck bottlenecks

For the second straight year, the infamous "Spaghetti Junction," where Interstates 285 and 85 North converge outside of Atlanta, GA, is the top freight highway bottleneck in the U.S., according to an annual study by the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI).

The group’s 2017 Top Truck Bottleneck List assesses the level of truck-oriented congestion at 250 locations on the national highway system; an analysis based on GPS data from 600,000-plus heavy duty trucks, several customized software applications, and what’s described as “terabytes of data” to effectively rank each freight congestion point.

The top 10 freight congestion bottlenecks in the U.S., according to ATRI’s data, are:

1. The intersection of Interstates 285 and 85 North outside Atlanta
2. I-95 at State Route 4 in Fort Lee, NJ 
3. I-290 at I-90/94 in Chicago, IL
4. I-65 at I-64/71 in Louisville, KY
5. I-71 at I-75 in Cincinnati, OH
6. SR 60 at SR 57 in Los Angeles, CA
7. SR 18 at SR 167 in Auburn, WA
8. I-45 at US 59 in Houston, TX
9. I-75 at I-285 North in Atlanta
10. I-5 at I-90 in Seattle, WA

"With President Trump expected to press for significant long-term infrastructure spending, this ATRI analysis should be a key guide for deciding what projects are worthy of funding," said Chris Spear, president of the American Trucking Associations (ATA) trade group, which is ATRI’s parent organization.

"Ensuring the safe and efficient movement of goods should be a national priority and this report draws attention to the places where our highway network needs improvement in order to meet that goal," he said in a statement.