Read about my travel adventures in the business section of today’s New York Times.

It’s that time of the year again: More than 40 million Americans are expected to be traveling on the roads this Wednesday before Thanksgiving, according to AAA – the busiest travel day of the year.

Hope you’re not traveling on one of the roads listed below, from a ranking of the roads with the “slowest typical rush hour” in the United States and Canada. It’s based on data from NAVTEQ, the digital traffic and location data company (via TechCrunch/GreenTech). New York City tops the list, but Montreal is a close second. Philly, L.A., Boston, Dallas, and Toronto make the list.

Freeways with the Slowest Typical Rush Hour

1. New York City – Brooklyn Battery Tunnel (northbound)

2. New York City – Washington Bridge (eastbound)

3. Montreal – AUT-15 (eastbound)

4. Philadelphia – US-202 (southbound)

5. Montreal – RTE-138 (westbound)

6. New York City – Washington Bridge (westbound)

7. Los Angeles – 1-10 (eastbound)

8. Boston – US-1 (northbound)

9. Dallas – TX-366 (eastbound)

10. Toronto – Don Valley Parkway (northbound)

While we’re at it, here’s another list of the cities with the worst rush hour traffic overall:

Cities with the Worst Rush Hours

1. New York

2. Washington, D.C.

3. San Francisco

4. Los Angeles

5. Philadelphia

6. Chicago

7. Dallas – Ft. Worth

8. Atlanta

9. Houston

10. Denver

Being stuck in traffic ranks as one of life’s most miserable experiences, according to researchers who study happiness, and unfortunately too many Americans find themselves spending more time stuck. A new report by urbanist Joe Cortright for CEOs for Cities provides a new ranking of the the nation’s 51 largest metro areas, based on the length of peak-hour commutes and the time commuters spend in peak-hour traffic. Americans living in large metro areas spend an average of 200 hours in peak-hour traffic. But peak-hour travel time varies from more than 250 hours to less than 150 hours across these metros.

The new ranking generates some surprises, especially when compared with other measures of commuting and congestion. Large metros do much better than expected. Even though their roads are notoriously congested, Chicagoans have the least onerous peak hour commute, according to this new metric, and New Yorkers fare well too because their average commutes are shorter. Residents in smaller, more sprawling Sunbelt metros like Nashville, Oklahoma City, Birmingham, Richmond, and Raleigh spend more time in peak-hour traffic because their average commutes are much longer. D.C. ranks 14th and L.A., with its always-clogged freeways, ranks 17th.

To illustrate this point, the report compares the components of the travel time of typical commuter in Chicago and Charlotte. The average Charlotte commuter spends an average of 48 minutes on the road – 38.4 minutes in free-flowing traffic and another 9.6 minutes in traffic delays. The average Chicago commuter spends just 32.6 minutes in total travel time – 22.8 minutes in free-flowing traffic and 9.8 minutes in delays. The reason for the difference boils down to a simple factor: Chicagoans live closer to where they work, with an average commute of 13.5 miles, compared to an average commute of 19 miles for residents in Charlotte.

The key lies in urban form, the report concludes. Denser metros enable more commuters to live closer to where they work, while more sprawling regions cause residents to endure longer trips. The report estimates that if “the top 50 metros followed suit with Chicago” residents would drive “about 40 billion fewer miles per year and use two billion fewer gallons of fuel,” and generate a total costs savings of $31 billion per year.

So, what are America’s busiest airports? Depends on what you measure, it turns out. The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics compiles detailed statistics on America’s airports (via the NYT’s Catherine Rampell).

For domestic flights, Atlanta is the busiest airport, followed by Chicago O’Hare, Dallas-Fort Worth, Denver, and LAX.

Miami takes the top spot for international flights, followed by JFK, Newark, Atlanta, and Houston.

What’s your favorite – and least favorite – airport?

Over at The Transport Politic, Yonah Freemark accuses me of making too much of a case for high-speed rail:

Setting aside the positives and negatives of fast trains for now, my biggest qualm with Florida’s argument is his sense that the megaregion will produce the “Concentration and clustering [that] are the underlying motor forces of real economic development.” He cites the Boston-Washington and Char-lanta regions as examples of these megaregions, which he says “Will do more than anything to wean us from our dependency on cars…”

Though there was been an increase in the number of residents living in the dense cities along the corridor (those that Florida implies need to be reinforced to meet the demands of the next century), that expansion is minor compared to the increase in the number of residents living in not-so-dense areas. It is true that the interconnections between cities in the Northeast have led to strong intercity rail ridership compared to the rest of the country, but the true success, especially of the New York metropolitan area, has been in maintaining urban and commuter rail ridership, which represents a far larger quantity of users and which has nothing at all to do with the presence of the greater Boston-Washington megaregion. The megaregion in itself, in other words, cannot be directly correlated with the notions of higher density…

Without a comprehensive change in the way the entire transportation apparatus is funded in the U.S., high-speed rail will result in few of the “spatial fixes” Florida highlights as his future goal. Indeed, there is no immediate connection between intercity rail use and giving up private cars; I have argued before that fast trains do not automatically mean an increase in public transportation use to and from stations, in the same way as different airports have different percentages of commuters using cars to get to them depending on the travel offerings available.

While there will be increasing dense development around stops, the fact of the matter is that fast train systems by definition have few stations, certainly not enough to encourage the brunt of overall nationwide development, even if implemented at a vast scale. That’s because, unlike the auto and single-family home model of the previous century, high-speed rail assumes dense, walkable development that falls off after a mile at most. One high-speed rail line cannot produce the same amount of geographic development as one highway.

Yet most problematic about Florida’s argument is his inability to identify improved fixed-route urban transit as the more efficient promoter of the anti-sprawl. While they are not as sexy as fast trains, rapid transit in the form of buses, subways, and light rail more directly allows for the creation of dense urban zones that do challenge the hegemony of the automobile and single-family home. If Florida’s intention were to do the most with a limited amount of funds to increase the number of livable, walkable neighborhoods, for instance, he would do best by encouraging the construction of these inner-city lines, combined with a focus on dense construction around their stations. From that perspective, high-speed rail is of secondary importance.

I’m in general agreement with the main thrust of Freemark’s argument. The point I am making about mega-regions today and spatial fixes is that to work they must simultaneously expand and intensify the use of space. Mega-regions and high-speed rail help bring about the expanded development corridor. Freemark is right, though we need much more and much better inner-city and intra-metro transit in the firm of, as he says, buses, subways, and light rail to create denser urban and suburban zones that intensify our use of space. And I would add more flexible living and working arrangements so folks can live closer to where they work, and walk and bike more. All of these changes go together to produce a new spatial fix which can undergird prosperity and lead to a better, more sustainable way of life.

Update: Had a nice e-mail back and forth earlier with Freemark. Robert Cruickshank weighs in here.

Commuting is among life’s least enjoyable activities, according to research by Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman and others. The graph below shows the cities with the worst commutes in the world, according to IBM’s Commuter Pain Index (via Wired).

The city with the world’s worst commute, according to the IBM study, is Beijing, followed by Mexico City, Johannesburg, Moscow, and New Delhi. London, New York, L.A., and my adopted hometown of Toronto also rank in the top 20. Stockholm has the world’s best commute among the 20 cities in the IBM survey.

Commuting is a waste of energy and time, and carries with it enormous economic costs. Commuting costs America an estimated $90 billion dollars per year in terms of lost productivity and wasted energy, according to the annual Urban Mobility Report. Our own detailed calculations by Martin Prosperity Institute (MPI) research director Kevin Stolarick find that every minute shaved off America’s commuting time is worth an estimated $19.5 billion dollars.  That translates into $97.7 billion for five minutes, $195 billion for 10 minutes, and $292 billion for every 15 minutes saved nationally.

The chart below from the IBM study shows the percentage of drivers in each of the 20 surveyed cities who would work more if their commuting time was significantly reduced.

The index is based on IBM surveys of 8,192 motorists in 20 cities across six continents:

The index is comprised of 10 issues: 1) commuting time, 2) time stuck in traffic, agreement that: 3) price of gas is already too high, 4) traffic has gotten worse, 5) start-stop traffic is a problem, 6) driving causes stress, 7) driving causes anger, 8 ) traffic affects work, 9) traffic so bad driving stopped, and 10) decided not to make trip due to traffic.

That’s the question I asked earlier today at Twitter.  You answered a combination of new tech, like broadband and the internet; high-speed rail; and greater concentration, density, and walkability. Here with a sampling of responses from the twitterverse.  I’ll add more as they come in:

carlos9900: the equivalent of the highways today are the broadband internet, public transportation, electric & energy system

jamesschwartz: We can learn a lot from China (I’m in China now). High speed electric trains and segregated cycle tracks

civicanalytics: Career pathway system with portable accounts for workers.

KilovDanilov: Internet Infrastructure such as increased FiberOptic networks and more communication/GPS satellite

garrygolden: Reset? Vision of Connected Cars… Driver situational awareness and ‘grow with flow’ can address many mobility issues t

jamesschwartz: Bike infrastructure and electric trains!

JaceDeloney:  Walkable Cities are the 21st Century Interstate Highway System. In a Post-Peak Oil world, urban concentration = innovation.

RobWebster:  First reset – subways, second reset – highways, third reset – high speed rail.

jspad: @Richard_Florida The 21st century highway system is the internet; need open high speed access everywhere.

ccatalini: @Richard_Florida google…

jimmyrocks: What is the equivalent of the interstate highway system for today’s Reset? (via @Richard_Florida) I hope it involves bicycles & trains!

wendy_waters: @Richard_Florida interstate equiv for today’s reset: anything that makes urban density liveable: parks, bike paths; variety of dense housing

1bobcohn: Broadband.

sdbeck: @Richard_Florida The answer is: the Internet is today’s interstate hwy sys.

BlandaNace: High Speed Wi-Fi and 4G cell networks.

backtothecity: @Richard_Florida a national broadband system?

Last week President Obama announced that he would provide $8 billion of funds to study and plan high-speed rail systems in the U.S. My state of California received $2 billion to study a high-speed train link between San Francisco and Los Angeles. This is to go with a $10 billion bond issue that state voters approved for feasibility studies and right-of-way acquisition. As an aside, California voters have been approving bond issues for anything and everything for the last two decades, but never considering how the bonds will be paid. Now the state is bankrupt and we are studying and planning a high-speed rail system, while squeezing our universities, releasing criminals (not such a bad idea for those convicted of victimless crimes), chopping existing mass transit, and firing teachers. Go figure.

But this is not what worries me the most. We are studying a high-speed intercity rail system, when all over California and the nation, while dramatically increasing fares and cutting back mass transit service. The Bay Area BART is laying off workers, increasing fares, and will probably have to cut services. The Sacramento area transit system is laying off workers, cutting service, and raising fares. Atlanta’s MARTA is raising fares, curtailing service, and laying off workers. The New York MTA is increasing commuter fares and cutting service. You get the picture.

The bullet trains in Japan are so convenient because of the excellent mass transit when you get to your destination. Mass transit is what makes the northeast corridor trains work.

Does it make sense to pay to plan and study high-speed train lines while the existing energy saver and public amenity that makes cities more livable — mass transit — is being dismantled? Why not support and improve existing mass transit first? How are we going to have great cities without a functional mass transit system?

I recently had the opportunity to visit Milwaukee, WI, for the first time (thank you FUEL Milwaukee!). And visiting cities for the first time, to me, is particularly exciting. Arriving for the first time is a pure and unadulterated experience. First impressions matter and how a city presents itself to a first-time visitor is very important. I learned this from my friend Charles Landry.

Milwaukee Art Museum

I arrived via the airport with the typical location outside of city. My host takes the highway toward the city. As we approach the Hoan Bridge, we pass amid the Port of Milwaukee. On both sides, there are mountains of bulk materials and cranes. While not beautiful, there is the appearance of activity and a muscularity that says “we work here.” As we crest the bridge (with its own very strange design element) I am startled because the city presents itself there in panorama. The city in the hills to the left, the waters of Lake Michigan to the right. And to the right, near the lake, your eye is drawn to the white sails of the Santiago Calatrava masterpiece at the Milwaukee Art Museum.  It looks so different and unexpected in the tableau that one cannot help but to stare. Unexpected because this is the Midwest where modern iconic design is not the norm and that is not a shot; I am originally  from the Midwest!  More photos click here.

While many question the value of “starchitects” and iconic design, I have to say that my impression of Milwaukee was and is shaped in no small part because of that building. It is different and it says something about Milwaukee that no amount of advertising and marketing could equal. It says in a profound way “we are not what you expect” and that Milwaukee is looking to the future and beyond the beer brewery image of its past. The building says it in a visible and demonstrable way that one cannot deny.

Cities that are arguing over the cost/benefits of such iconic architecture should consider the context in which the new building will occur. In starchitect-rich Singapore, one more Calatrava or Libeskind is just keeping up with the crowd. In cities with a dearth of quality architecture (lots of those) or cities that need to redefine themselves in the 21st century, a new building can be a catalyst for new design and a whole host of other values.

In her September 3 blog post, “Creative Florida”, Rana Florida asked for thoughts about Florida tourism. As a resident of St. Petersburg, Florida, I thought I should respond.

Tourism has long been the golden goose in Florida but it is also a double-edged sword. We have no state income tax in large part due to the sales tax revenue that tourism provides. When the tourists come, the coffers fill and all is well. When we have downturns in the economy or other disruptions (such as hurricanes or 9/11) our budgets shrink. This volatility prevents us from having a predictable revenue stream which in turn means less long-term planning.

For better or worse, tourism also defines Florida. For many it is great to have that identity but I know a lot of creative class entrepreneurs in high-tech who lament that they can’t attract talent or VC interest because no one takes Florida seriously as a business environment.

But to me the largest impact of tourism is that it has made us lazy (I say this with love, Florida!). Tourism is easy money and we have coasted on that for too long. When the tourists just arrive with bags of money, why innovate? Why invest in our schools or our infrastructure? Why make the hard tax choices when we can raise the bed tax on hotel rooms or local tax on car rentals? We need to rethink tourism and make it a higher value experience, one that leverages the service economy and makes it more creative and innovative.

Florida had a wake-up call last year when, for the first time since WW2, we had a net outflow of population. That is a seismic shift in the underpinnings of Florida’s economy and I hope that it forces us to look at diversifying our economy and making the harder choices of developing industries beyond the beach and theme park.