Highways do back up in Cleveland and Columbus in the cities during rush hour though, as well as when there is any construction or accidents or inclimate weather.
One thing I noticed is that the freeways in, say, Cleveland, are all 5 lanes wide or so in each direction, serving a population of 400k in the city and 1.2m in the county. You go to LA and what do you see? The same size freeways as Cleveland, 5 lanes wide or so, only its serving a city of 4 million and a county of 15 million. It's like, of course there is no congestion in Cleveland and tons of congestion in LA, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see an issue with capacity. There's literally an order of magnitude more people using the same capacity of infrastructure.
One thing I noticed is that the freeways in, say, Cleveland, are all 5 lanes wide or so in each direction, serving a population of 400k in the city and 1.2m in the county. You go to LA and what do you see? The same size freeways as Cleveland, 5 lanes wide or so, only its serving a city of 4 million and a county of 15 million. It's like, of course there is no congestion in Cleveland and tons of congestion in LA, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see an issue with capacity. There's literally an order of magnitude more people using the same capacity of infrastructure.