It was fitting that I pulled up the story — “Does Orlando have the ‘worst roads in America’?” — while stuck in traffic.

My wife was driving. But even if I’d been behind the wheel, the congestion was so thick, I probably could’ve read the entire article during all the standstills and still had time to do the Sudoku.

Even more annoying: We were on a toll road. Yes, in Florida, you pay for the privilege of getting in gridlock. The region’s Expressway system seems anything but “express” to any weekday driver who’s ever braved the 408 around downtown Orlando at 7:30 am or tried to get on the Western Beltway around 5 p.m.

Really, though, congestion is just the start of the long list of Orlando’s driving annoyances. If I were staging a Frank Costanza-styled airing of grievances, I’d also note that we have a shortage of smart and smartly timed traffic lights.

How many times have you been on the road at 2 a.m. — not another car in sight — and still been stopped by every other stoplight? Most of our traffic lights aren’t just not-smart, they’re downright dumb.

Then there’s our road-repair projects. Some take longer than it took to construct the Empire State Building. Literally. When the city decided to redo one-mile, two-lane stretch of Bumby Avenue, it took 20 months — longer than it took to construct the 102-story building back in 19-freakin’-29.

And that’s not a one-off. Just ask the poor businesses that suffered more than a year’s worth of disruptions in Ivanhoe Village. Orlando seems to do road repairs like a contractor during hurricane season who’s in no hurry because he knows you don’t have other options.

Not all of our problems are homegrown. Webster’s actually defines “frustration” as “Being stuck behind a tourist from Toledo who slows to gawk at every man-made volcano and Mickey Mouse-shaped power pylon Orlando has to offer.”

Admittedly, “Orlando” gets blamed for collective traffic frustrations from Kissimmee to Longwood. But the region is all part of one big pot of transportation stew. And congestion here keeps getting worse with delays hitting a record high in 2024 when drivers wasted an average of 68 hours in traffic.

Days’ worth of gridlock: Orlando’s traffic delays break new record

I don’t believe for a moment Orlando is really “the worst.” Try driving around New York or Silicon Valley. There’s a reason many folks there don’t even have cars.

And frankly, if you want to talk about nutty drivers, Orlando isn’t even the nuttiest city in Florida. That honor goes to Miami where, virtually any time you pull onto Interstate 95, it feels like you’ve entered a “Fast and the Furious” simulation with souped-up, neon purple Supras zipping in and out of lanes at 110 mph.

Still, the list of traffic annoyances in Orlando doesn’t end with congestion, stupid stoplights and molasses-slow repair work.

We also have more miles of tolled roads than any other region in America and generally anemic transit options.

Despite all that, the story in Monday’s Sentinel suggested Orlando had the “worst roads” for yet another reason — potholes and general disrepair.

According to Pep Boys, a higher percentage of its customers in Central Florida come in for wheel alignments, suspension work and single-tire replacement than anywhere else, suggesting our roads are rough on cars.

Does Orlando have the ‘worst roads in America’? Pep Boys says yes

Honestly, I don’t think I’ve encountered more poorly maintained roads in these parts than I have elsewhere. But there is one intentionally suspension-rattling aspect to driving in Central Florida — brick streets.

Some people find them quaint. Others are convinced that they’re a cruel joke cooked up by traffic engineers who threw in a side order of potential ankle-spraining for good measure. Personally, I’m a brick basher. I understand they’re often meant to be a traffic calming device. But give me a hump, bump or roundabout any day of the week.

Plus, some brick streets are worse than others. I won’t call out any city by name, but one local town that rhymes with “Finter Fark” has brick streets are so particularly teeth-rattling that they feel like they were designed by a dental-implant shop.

Grievance-airing aside, there are some things we can do. We need roads that meet existing demand vs. roads that just encourage more development — and, consequently, more congestion. (For Exhibit A, google “Split Oak,” “development,” and “Osceola Parkway.”)

We need to invest more in transit, including this region’s pathetically under-funded bus system. (If leaders cared half as much about Lynx for locals as they do the convention center for visitors, this problem would be solved.)

And we need urgency in our construction projects, for the sake of both the residents and businesses.

Visit Orlando gets $96 million. Lynx gets $54 million. That’s messed up | Commentary

I also hope some of this region’s more progressive transportation thinkers look more into smart traffic lights that can adjust to traffic patterns in real time. I mean, if A.I. is going to take all our jobs and generate deep fakes that make people think Taylor Swift is hawking cookware, the least it could do is also save you from wasting time at a red light when no one else is around.

We can do more than just gripe. In the meantime, though, watch out for the potholes and tourists from Toledo.