MapQuest announced that it has expanded its live traffic coverage. It now includes over a quarter-million miles of roads in major North American cities.

MapQuest is now including "key" arterials and city streets. The goal of this is to provide users with more information to make better decisions about alternate cross-town routes.

"This is all made possible by the new SpeedWaves technology developed by our traffic partner INRIX, which factors in the impact of stoplights and stop signs on traffic flow to provide a more realistic and reliable view of traffic conditions along secondary roads," explains MapQuest's Scott Steinke. "This approach provides higher accuracy than competitors who may interpret vehicles starting and stopping for traffic lights and stop signs on these roads as traffic jams instead of the normal flow of traffic through these intersections."

Users who wish to view live traffic on MapQuest can do so by simply clicking "live traffic" along the top of any map where it's available. If you zoom in, you'll see the expanded coverage. If you zoom out, you'll be able to see cities that are included in the coverage.

Traffic reports are updated every 5 minutes.