Study: Stop complaining about traffic, it's not that bad

When you see this scene, just know that it could be worse.

​If you've ever slapped your steering wheel, cursed at other drivers and wished for a meteor to wipe out all the cars in front of you during rush hour traffic... relax. It could be worse.

That's according to a new study by the Business Journal, which claims that traffic in Minneapolis-St. Paul actually isn't as bad as you might think. The metro area ranked 166th out of 200 cities studied, which doesn't sound so great.

But the Twin Cities were way ahead of other big cities, which unsurprisingly dominate the very bottom of the list.

As you inch back home along I-35 and I-94 this afternoon , say a little prayer for the poor schmucks trying to drive in the nation's capitol.

Minneapolis-St. Paul has about 1.6 million people who work outside their home, according to the Business Journal study, and almost a quarter of them can get to work in less than 15 minutes.

Mayor RT Rybak congratulates Minneapolis on its traffic numbers.

​About 65 percent of drivers in the Twin Cities can commute in less than a half-hour, and only 12 percent need more than 45 minutes each day. That compares pretty favorably to places like Baltimore, where -- with more than 300,000 commuters on the road -- about 21 percent of people need more than 45 minutes just to get to their awful jobs, and then get back to their awful homes.

If it's not so bad around the Twin Cities, Duluth is basically a cake walk: The city by the lake came in fifth overall, with 43 percent making it to work in less than 15 minutes, and 78 percent in less than a half-hour.

Duluth finished behind towns in the gigantic, wide-open states of California and Texas. Chico, California came in first, with an astonishing 51 percent making it to work in less time then you need to listen "Stairway to Heaven" on repeat.

The most miserable cities are Atlanta, New York City, and Washington, D.C., in that order. The capitol is particularly daunting, with numbers nearly identical to New York, despite having about one-third as many drivers on the road.