That's according to the Texas Transportation Institute's annual Urban Mobility Report released today. The institute, part of Texas A&M University, looked at data from 1982 to 2002.

The latest report shows that Honolulu drivers lost about 18 hours during 2002 stuck in rush-hour traffic, compared with the national average in urban areas of 46 hours.

Annual peak-hour delays on O'ahu ranged from 18 in 2002, to 30 hours a decade ago and 10 hours in 1982.

Perhaps not surprisingly, drivers in Los Angeles had it the worst, with commuters frittering away an average of 93 hours in 2002 due to rush-hour slowdowns.

San Francisco-Oakland area drivers each lost 73 hours to rush-hour traffic congestion while in the Washington, D.C. metro area, drivers spent 67 hours stuck in rush-hour traffic delays.

The institute put the total cost of traffic congestion on O'ahu at $123 million for 2002, which breaks down to about $330 for each peak hour traveler or $175 for every man, woman and child on the island.

The delay cost includes 12 million gallons of additional fuel that were consumed, the study said. With each gallon of fuel being assigned a value of $1.72, that means approximately $21 million went up in smoke during traffic traffic delays on O'ahu two years ago.

The report is based on information supplied by the various states and the federal Department of Transportation.

Report author Tim Lomax said some cities are realizing they can help reduce traffic congestion with operational solutions, not just by building new highways or expanding existing ones.

The report cited public transit as the biggest time saver, a solution that appears to be out of reach on O'ahu where proposed light rail systems have been shot down twice in the past 30 years.

Lomax said transit systems emerge as the answer to traffic congestion in cities where surface streets can't handle any more traffic.