the.com/rush hour
the daily ritual where millions hurry frantically to sit perfectly still
means The period at the start and end of the workday when traffic and public transport are most crowded as commuters travel to and from their jobs.
from A transparent compound of 'rush' and 'hour,' built from plain English parts. 'Rush'—to move with violent speed—came into Middle English from Anglo-French 'russher,' a variant of 'rouser,' meaning to drive back or repel. The phrase itself is an American coinage of the later 19th century, born with the rise of streetcars and commuter railways, when whole cities first learned to surge in and out together. Note the cheroic understatement: 'hour' has long since become a polite fiction, the rush rarely confining itself to sixty minutes.
- misnomer
- Average speeds can drop below walking pace
- cost
- Americans lose over 50 hours yearly to congestion
- physics
- One braking driver creates miles-long phantom traffic waves
- timing
- Lasts hours, not the hour it claims
- toll
- Idle engines pump millions of tons of CO2
los angeles rush hour — peak traffic 7-10am and 4-7pm on i-405 and i-10, worst in us
hong kong rush hour — 8-9am and 5-7pm on mtr lines, 3+ million daily commuters
tokyo rush hour — 7-9am peak on yamanote line, up to 200% capacity during morning commute