Honolulu now has the nation’s worst traffic congestion, according to a new study. Los Angeles used to be numero uno.

From Bloomberg:

Drivers in the city, the state of Hawaii’s largest, wasted an average of 58 hours stuck in traffic last year, compared with 56 hours in Los Angeles, according the Inrix National Traffic Scorecard, released today. Honolulu jumped to No. 1, from No. 37 a year earlier, because of a change in the way Inrix counted congestion, said Jim Bak, co-author.

“We’ve shifted to focus on travel time for individual drivers, rather than overall congestion,” Bak said in a telephone interview. “L.A. has 15 times more people and 20 times the roadways of Honolulu, so at the system level, it obviously has much greater overall congestion.”

In September, Civil Beat talked to Bak for our Fact Check of a claim by rail proponents that Honolulu had the second-worst traffic in the nation — a claim we determined to be Mostly True. Read more here: FACT CHECK — Rail Proponents: Honolulu 2nd-Most Congested City in U.S.

(Photo by Flickr user wyscan)