Three of the five worst roads in Australia for traffic congestion are in Melbourne, a new report by the country's peak roads and traffic agency has found, with the worst of them a road that rarely features in reports or political debates about the city's biggest bottlenecks.

Burke Road is a north-south arterial and tram corridor that extends for 12 kilometres through some of Melbourne's most liveable suburbs, such as Kew, Camberwell and Malvern East.

It is also the worst road in the country for traffic delays, according to a report by AustRoads.

Traffic on Burke Road moves 79 per cent slower on average than it would if there were no congestion, the report found, a rating that eclipses all of Melbourne's, and Australia's, other notorious bottlenecks.