Who has the costliest commute in the US?
Atlanta has the distinction of having the costliest commute in the US.
A family with two commuters here can expect to pay more than $4,500 at the gas pump this year, according to an Oregon demographic research firm that studied gas prices and commuting patterns.
The study was conducted in late April when gas prices averaged about $2.20 a gallon in Atlanta. Although prices have dropped slightly since then, Atlanta still holds the distinction of being the most expensive.
We aren’t paying the most for gas  that distinction belongs to San Francisco, where commuters paid an average of $2.69 a gallon for gas in mid-April  but we do have one of the worst commutes and burn up plenty of gas crawling in rush-hour traffic, said demographer Bert Sperling…(more-may need to register)
This is something that I had believed for years when I lived in Atlanta, but my friend from Southern California (an area also known for its traffic) did not agree with me (I should have made it into a bet 
).
The wacky layout of the highways is what greatly contributes to this bad commute. Take I-285. Here you have a highway that forms a big circle around the city (Think of trying to get on a packed merry-go-round if you are driving into Atlanta from one of the surrounding cities). Next you have I-75 which cuts through I-285 from north to south (another highway that is constantly backed up from all the traffic coming from north of the area [Cobb, Bartow, Woodstock, etc.]). And finally there is I-85 which cuts through east and west through the city (also backed up with commuters that live east and west of the city). What makes this so bad is that there are very few alternative highways to take unlike many metropolitan cities.
One more thing, the train system (MARTA) is only assessable withing the perimeter (or I-285). That is like only being able to catch commuter trains in Manhattan and not New Jersey. From what I read some time ago, the reason why the train system in Atlanta is so limited is because the surrounding counties did not want “undesirables” having easy access to the surrounding mostly white suburbs at that time.
Today these same suburban areas are now mostly black and the whole area is now paying for this past negligence.
