No one has it worse than I-4 commuters, a respected analytics company has concluded, citing data that delays there stretch longer than in New York, Los Angeles or — you name it.

The nearly 12-mile stretch of I-4 in Orange and Osceola Counties between State Road 528 and State Road 429 jumped to first place among the most clogged roadways in the nation in 2023 after ranking tenth the previous year, according to INRIX’s newly released global traffic scorecard. At 5:30 Thursday afternoon, that punishing piece of interstate took 40 minutes to drive, according to Google Maps.

I-4’s congestion surpassed even the infamous delays along I-5 in Los Angeles, surprising INRIX’s Bob Pishue, who attributed Central Florida’s misery to the variable impact of remote work. Traffic experts believed the post-pandemic return to the office would boost traffic in the country’s largest cities and lower I-4’s ranking, but the opposite occurred.

“Before COVID-19 the corridors didn’t really change that much,” Pishue said of the rankings. Now “we’re seeing patterns where traffic is building up in the middle of the day…and now it’s just a gradual increase and so it’s building up at even higher volumes…so it’s just stacking on top of each other.”

I-4 fares poorly in that scenario because tourist traffic lasts throughout the day, and because it has seen so much construction in recent years, squeezing traffic flow, he said.

With billion-dollar projects in the works like I-4 Beyond The Ultimate and Moving Florida Forward, Pishue now figures I-4 could stay in the top ten for some time.

Officials across Central Florida are attempting to take pressure off I-4 with travel alternatives like extending SunRail to the airport and Orange County Convention Center and building Brightline to Tampa.

“We must continue to expand mobility options in our region and across our state so that our residents and visitors are not solely reliant on roadways,” Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer said in a statement. “Not everyone will use every transit option, but our transportation network should ensure equitable access for all by expanding multimodal choices for residents and visitors.”

INRIX develops its rankings by estimating the average driver’s time lost to delays on individual stretches of road. I-4 drivers spent an additional 124 hours across 2023 and 31 minutes daily sitting in traffic on top of typical travel time, the company’s data shows.

Those drivers are often service workers who live in Osceola County and rely on I-4 to work at the theme parks that also sit off the now infamous road.

Tawny Olore, Osceola’s deputy county manager, said it’s a brutal situation.

“Things are a little bit less expensive in Osceola so you’ve got a tremendous amount of workforce coming here and they all got to get on I-4,” Olore said.

But relief is coming, and faster than initially expected.

Last year the Legislature dedicated $4 billion to the state’s Moving Florida Forward project — with one section from Champions Gate to Osceola Parkway on I-4 set to start construction in late 2024.

On Thursday Gov. Ron DeSantis announced that a project to add additional lanes to I-4 between State Road 417 and U.S. 27 would finish in 2025, faster than the 2030 date once expected.

“This is going to end up saving huge amounts of hours waiting in traffic over the next 10 to 15 years compared to what would have happened if we didn’t put our foot on the gas,” DeSantis said. “It’s one thing to have rush hour traffic…but I mean you could go at any time of day and you could have a backup… and part of that is there’s a lot of visitors and the attractions.”

In the meantime Osceola is focused on widening county roads that connect to I-4. One key project: widening Old Lake Wilson Road with construction beginning in 2027.

“So when I-4 opens and we remove that bottleneck they don’t get on another bottleneck,” Olore said.