How Bad Is Nashville Traffic?

February 19, 2026

Bad enough that the numbers have started making national news. According to the 2024 INRIX Global Traffic Scorecard, Nashville ranked 11th worst for traffic congestion in the United States and 27th worst in the world. The city is the 21st most populous in the country. That mismatch tells you everything. Nashville has traffic problems that punch significantly above its weight class.

In 2024, the average Nashville driver lost 63 hours to congestion, a 13 percent increase from 2023, at a cost of $1,128 per driver. During peak commute windows, speeds on major interstates dropped to 29 mph. Off-peak, those same roads ran at 48 mph. The spread is not enormous, but the consistency of the congestion is the real problem. Nashville does not have distinct rush hour spikes that clear quickly. It has broad, sustained slow periods that bleed into the middle of the day.

What Makes Nashville’s Traffic Uniquely Frustrating

Most cities with bad traffic are also very large. Nashville’s burden is structural. Three major interstates converge at one point near the Cumberland River downtown: I-40, I-65, and I-24. Nashville is one of only six U.S. cities where three major interstates share a single interchange. That is not a feature. It is a bottleneck.

On top of that, the city has no subway, no light rail in the core, and a bus system that about 2 percent of Nashville-area residents use to commute. Every person who moves to the city almost certainly buys a car. The metro area has grown at over 1.25 percent annually since 2022, adding close to 60,000 new residents. Those residents buy cars. Those cars go on highways that were not designed to absorb this volume.

Nashville’s entertainment economy compounds the problem. The downtown core draws tourists, concertgoers, and diners throughout the day and into the night. Unlike cities where traffic problems are primarily a 7-to-9, 4-to-6 phenomenon, Nashville sees consistent congestion spread across a longer daily window. INRIX analyst Mark Burfeind specifically noted Nashville’s unusual traffic distribution pattern: congestion that does not peak sharply but instead persists across hours.

The Specific Highways You Need to Know

I-24 is the worst. Three of Tennessee’s five most congested interstate bottlenecks statewide occur on I-24 within Nashville, according to TDOT. The stretch between Bell Road and I-440 backs up badly during both commute windows, and the downtown interchange where I-24 meets I-65 is a known chokepoint. Murfreesboro commuters on I-24 inbound during morning rush is, by most accounts, the hardest regular commute in the region.

I-65 is the main north-south artery and carries enormous traffic from Brentwood and Franklin to the south and Hendersonville and Goodlettsville to the north. The interchange with I-440 is one of the busiest daily segments. Rush hour can extend a Franklin-to-downtown commute from 25 minutes to 45 minutes or more.

I-40 runs east-west through the city and serves as the main route from Nashville International Airport to downtown. Near the I-40/I-440 interchange, construction has added additional friction. East Nashville commuters using I-40 deal with backup near Exit 211 when downtown events are running.

I-440, the southern bypass loop, is short but perpetually overloaded because it connects all three main interstates and serves as a bypass route for people trying to avoid the downtown core interchange. The westbound stretch during afternoon hours backs up regularly.

Rush Hour Times and How to Avoid Them

Morning rush runs from approximately 7:00 AM to 9:00 AM. Evening rush runs from approximately 4:00 PM to 6:30 PM. Both are heavily felt on all major interstates. The HOV lanes are enforced during these windows and require two or more people in the vehicle to use. Outside those enforcement hours, anyone can access them.

The best time to drive in Nashville is either before 7:00 AM or between 10:00 AM and 2:00 PM. After 7:00 PM on weekdays, traffic usually clears to manageable levels, with the exception of nights when Bridgestone Arena or Nissan Stadium has events, in which case Broadway and adjacent streets slow significantly until well after 10:00 PM.

Friday afternoons are the worst single weekday window. The combination of regular commuters and weekend visitors arriving from out of town compounds normal congestion. A rainy Friday afternoon is a specific category of misery that Nashville locals know well.

What Is and Is Not Getting Fixed

TDOT has announced toll lanes on I-24 with a projected construction start date of 2027. The mayor’s office has pointed to smart traffic signal upgrades along corridors like Murfreesboro Pike as near-term improvements. These are incremental. Nashville’s fundamental problem is that it built a car-dependent metro area without the road capacity, transit infrastructure, or land use patterns that would allow any of it to scale.

The city’s traffic congestion grew 13 percent in a single year. No signal upgrade program or toll lane addition is going to meaningfully offset population growth that adds tens of thousands of new drivers annually. The honest answer is that Nashville traffic will continue to get worse for the foreseeable future before any systemic solution is possible.

Waze and Google Maps are both functional in Nashville. Waze is marginally more useful for real-time incident routing. Neither will make I-24 at 8:15 AM pleasant. They will just help you be slightly less late.

Sources

  • INRIX 2024 Global Traffic Scorecard, via WSMV Nashville (January 2025): wsmv.com
  • WKRN Nashville, “Nashville drivers spent more than two days sitting in traffic in 2024” (January 2025): wkrn.com
  • Hughes & Coleman, “Report: Nashville Traffic is Among Worst in the Country” (February 2025): hughesandcoleman.com
  • TDOT comments on I-24 bottlenecks, via WKRN (January 2025): wkrn.com
  • NashToday/6AM City, “Nashville ranks among highest for traffic congestion” (January 2025): nashtoday.6amcity.com
  • ItsInNashville.com, “Best Times to Drive in Nashville” (November 2025): itsinnashville.com
  • NashvillesSMLS.com, Nashville commute times and rush hour guide: nashvillesmls.com/drive-time-map.php
  • Nashville Property Search, “The Busiest Roads and Highways in Nashville” (February 2025): nashvillespropertysearch.com

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