Four of the 100 most jammed-up traffic bottlenecks in the country are right here in Nashville

Four locations along Nashville’s interstates rank among the most backed-up bottlenecks for trucks – and other traffic – in the United States.

A list of the country’s 100 most-congested bottlenecks is released annually by the American Transportation Research Institute, and in the 2021 list, Nashville’s three interstates – I-24, I-40 and I-65 – appeared four times.

These locations come as no surprise to Middle Tennessee motorists, particularly during morning and evening commute times when traffic speeds usually slow to a crawl:

Rank: No. 13

I-24/I-40 at I-440 (East)

Peak Average Speed – 39.9 mph

Rank: No. 35

I-40 at I-65 (East)

Peak average speed – 41.4 mph

Rank: No. 77

I-65 at I-24

Peak average speed – 47.9 mph

Rank: No. 88

I-65 at SR 386 (Vietnam Veterans Parkway)

Peak average speed – 48.6 mph

Chattanooga took the top spot in Tennessee, where the convergence of interstates 75 and 24 scored as the nation’s seventh most-congested bottleneck. Peak average speed where the interstates meet is 46.8 mph, according to the list.

Neither of Tennessee’s other largest cities – Memphis and Knoxville – ranked in the top 100 bottlenecks.

By comparison, the No. 1 bottleneck in America, according to the institute, is in Fort Lee, N.J., where Interstate 95 converges with State Route 4. Peak average speed is 31.1 mph.

The American Transportation Research Institute creates the annual list using GPS data from more than 1 million freight trucks. Other surveys may identify congested corridors, but the institute’s data is unique in identifying chokepoints in the nation’s truck freight transportation system.

The institute has collected and processed truck GPS data since 2002 for purposes of freight mobility initiatives.