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The U.S. Metros With the Best—and Most Miserable—Commutes

What was the most epic, death-defying commute of all time? Lewis and Clark traversing the western United States? Moses and his people crossing the Red Sea? Noah and the Ark? Or was it you last Thursday—sucking down highway fumes in a soul-crushing, bumper-to-bumper expedition to arrive at work on time?

Yeah, that’s the one.

As Harvard psychologist Daniel Todd Gilbert has noted: “Driving in traffic is a different kind of hell every day.” No wonder the hellishness of a daily commute—or lack of it—is one of the primary factors determining where you should live. And how happy and sane you’ll be there.

The realtor.com® data team jumped into the driver’s seat to separate the best metros for commuting from the ones that make you fantasize about telecommuting—or moving. Some metros have clear roadways and transit options that whisk caffeine-fueled and sleep-deprived commuters to work. Others are all about punishing traffic, buses that never show up, and trains that arrive about as often as presidential apologies.

So what makes a metro a great place for commuters? Consistent travel times, mostly, says Joseph L. Schofer, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Northwestern University. “That comes from well-managed road networks, limited congestion, quick incident-clearance times, and [bus and rail] transit [options],” he says.

The realtor.com data team looked at a variety of criteria in the 150 largest metros, to find the best and worst places for commuters. We analyzed:*

• Average commute time for drivers, carpoolers, and public transportation riders
• Average number of hours spent in traffic congestion
• Percentage of roads in “good” or “fair” condition
• Percentage of bridges that are “structurally deficient”

So grab your morning joe and hop in! First, let’s head over to the places where commuters are at peace.

Best metros for commuters

1. Eugene, OR

Median home price: $333,000
Average commute time: 19.9 minutes
Average time spent in congestion per year: 7.6 hours

An aversion to transit delays and gridlock can make you do crazy things—like riding your bike to work in 25-degree winter temps. But a surprising number of Eugene commuters do it for the pure love of the sport—and the ease of getting around this place on two wheels.

A fondness for human-powered transport is just one of the things that helps make Eugene America’s best city for commuting. Out of the country’s 150 largest metros, only three have shorter daily travel times. It has little to no congestion. (Only 10 American metros have less.) And it has the 19th highest public transportation use per capita, beating out cities like Denver and Salt Lake City, according to a 2014 study from FiveThirtyEight.

And yes, Eugene has one of the country’s highest rates of bike commuting, at 7%—nearly double the national rate, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

The city has spent years investing in bike lanes and pedestrian bridges, and now has nearly 200 miles of on-street bike lanes and seven pedestrian bridges. And this spring, it will launch its own bike-share system—with the state kicking in $900,000 to complete it.

Jay Loew has owned Hutch’s bicycle store in Eugene for 20 years. He’s seen the city’s population mushroom, adding more than 50,000 residents since 1990. But the metro has managed to keep commute times down, partly due to the Lane Transit District, Eugene’s excellent bus system.

That hasn’t stopped water-cooler complaints, of course.

“Eugene residents might spend 10 more minutes in rush hour to get where they are going,” Loew says. “Drivers in L.A. and New York would laugh at the complaints people have about rush-hour traffic here.”

2. Corpus Christi, TX

Median home price: $234,000
Average commute time: 20.4 minutes
Average time spent in congestion per year: 6.4 hours

Texas is experiencing rapid growth, as more folks move in to take advantage of its low taxes and cost of living. But to big cities like Dallas, Houston, and Austin, that’s brought way longer commute times. Not in the coastal city of Corpus Christi, with its population of about 326,000, however.

3. Wichita, KS

Median home price: $170,000
Average commute time: 19.4 minutes
Average time spent in congestion per year: 5.8 hours

Around a year ago, Chris Duryee was transferred from Colorado Springs to Wichita. As a district manager for a national pizza chain, he travels to stores all over the region every day. He finds the lack of traffic in Wichita refreshing.

“I drive 6,000 miles per month, so [less time in traffic] adds to my productivity, and it means more time spent in each store,” says Duryee. “I’ve lived in Philadelphia, and compared to that, this is a paradise.”

Wichita has the third-lowest levels of traffic congestion in the nation. And the average commute time here clocks in at 19 minutes, second-lowest among the top metros. Lookin’ good, Wichita!

Through the years, the city has made major improvements to its highways. In 2015, the city unveiled its $345 million project to expand Kellogg Avenue, a major roadway that cuts across downtown.

When you aren’t behind the wheel, you can dust off your bike and burn some calories. The city has added around 40 miles of dedicated bikeways over the past four years.

4. Reno, NV

Median home price: $430,000
Average commute time: 21.4 minutes
Roads in “good” or “fair” condition: 69%

When it comes to traffic, Reno has really earned its nickname, “The Biggest Little City in the World.” Drivers here spend an average of 11 hours in congestion per year, compared with Las Vegas and its average of 22 hours. Hey, being a little city isn’t such a bad thing!

“You can just about get anywhere in Reno in about 25 minutes,” says Paul Enos, CEO of the Nevada Trucking Association.

And then there is the scenery. Enos recently pulled over and took a photo of wild horses along the roadside near Reno. That’s what kids these days call social media gold.

“In New York, you have rats. In Reno, we have wild horses,” Enos says.

The Regional Transportation Commission of Washoe County, where Reno is situated, manages the region’s bus system, which has an annual ridership of almost 8 million. The RTC RAPID line pulls off more than 100,000 rides per month.

5. Brownsville, TX

Median home price: $200,000
Average commute time: 20.1 minutes
Roads in “good” or “fair” condition: 56%

Brownsville sits on the southern tip of Texas, on the U.S-Mexico border, in a state where things are known to be big. But commutes here are nothing of the sort. Indeed, only four of the 150 largest metros have shorter ones.

To improve its roadway system, taxpayers in Brownsville have anted up. From 2006 to 2012, the city was shelling out between $8 million to $10 million per year to build new roads and traffic corridors.

“We try to give people more than one way to arrive at their destination,” says Doroteo Garcia, assistant city engineer for the City of Brownsville. That’s left drivers with few complaints.

But the real feather in the city’s cap is the area’s low number of traffic accidents. Indeed, in 2017, Allstate named Brownsville second on its “America’s Best Drivers Report,” which ranks cities for safety in driving. According to Allstate, the average driver in Brownsville goes 14.5 years between car insurance claims, compared to 7.2 years in Houston.

The rest of the top 10 metros with the best commutes are Provo, UT, in sixth place, followed by Fort Wayne, IN; Huntsville, AL; Tallahassee, FL; and Augusta, GA.

Now that you know the best places, let’s run you through the worst. There are three staples in these cities: death, taxes, and traffic jams.

Worst metros for commuters

1. New York, NY

Median home price: $475,000
Average commute time: 35.9 minutes
Average time spent in congestion per year: 89.4 hours

The governor of New York dubbed it the “summer of hell” for commuters last year. And Andrew Cuomo wasn’t kidding. Crumbling, century-old infrastructure snarled the subway system, which the city’s 8.5 million residents rely on to get to and from work. And track work on the Long Island Rail Road system has inconvenienced thousands.

But those transit complaints may pale in comparison with what commuters on the region’s highways deal with every day. In fact, at an average of 35.9 minutes per commute, New York City has the longest commute time in the country. Grrr.

“Commuting [by car] into New York is incredibly difficult,” says Nick Sifuentes, executive director of the New York-based Tri-State Transportation Campaign, a nonprofit group dedicated to reducing car dependency. “And so what you end up with is congestion costing millions per year.”

It can be mind-boggling for people outside New York to learn that the average speed driving through midtown is less than 5 mph. In the worst traffic, it can take 15 minutes to cross a single avenue.

Commutes play a major role in New York real estate, since just about everyone wants to live near a train stop—and will pay more to do so. Look no further than the Upper East Side, which finally opened up the much-delayed Second Avenue Subway line last January, connecting parts of the neighborhood to the subway system for the first time. The result? Median home prices jumped 92% year over year in neighborhood. Ouch.

The subways carried nearly 5.7 million riders daily in 2016, according to the Metropolitan Transit Authority, which oversees the system. But it has the worst on-time performance of any big system in the world, according to The New York Times. Subway delays alone cost the region as much as $389 million annually in lost wages and productivity, according to an analysis released in October by the New York City Comptroller.

Let’s not even talk about the derailments, OK?

2. Los Angeles, CA

Median home price: $700,000
Average commute time: 29.6 minutes
Average time spent in congestion per year: 104.1 hours

Southern California is famous for its freeways. Too bad that fame is all about their grueling bottlenecks.

The typical L.A. driver spends more than 104 hours per year in congestion, the highest in the nation.

And while this is America’s second-biggest city, it doesn’t have the transit options of most major metros—so commuting by car is almost a given. Only 8% of L.A. households are sans automobiles. Heck, right now, there are more than 1,700 homes listed in the L.A. market on realtor.com that have a three-door garage or larger.

And did we mention that only 30 percent of the roads in California are in good or fair shape? But don’t sweat it: You’ll have plenty of time to spot those potholes while you’re sitting in standstill traffic.

But there is hope! Los Angeles is embarking on a plan to reduce congestion and expand its rail and bus systems. In 2016, Los Angeles voters approved a sales tax increase that would pump $120 billion into Metropolitan Transportation Authority bus and rail upgrades over the next 40 years.

And then there’s the fact that the Boring Company, founded by Elon Musk, plans to build a tunnel under L.A. to test a hyperloop: a technology that in theory would transport people in pods at supersonic speeds.

3. Washington, DC

Median home price: $415,000
Average commute time: 34.4 minutes
Roads in “good” or “fair” condition: 1%

The District of Columbia revolves around federal government and defense jobs. And when all those government employees hit the road at the same time, it creates epic bottlenecks.

“Most of my clients in DC have strict schedules: They come in 8:30 and leave at 4:30,” says Jeff Miller, co-founder of Baltimore-based real estate firm AE Home Group. “A lot of companies in other parts of the country are more flexible. Not here.”

Among the places to avoid during rush hour is infamous Interstate 495, aka the Capital Beltway. Bobby Laurie, a traffic anchor for iHeartMedia in D.C. and co-host of the nationally syndicated travel and lifestyle show called “The Jet Set,” says he’s lucky, because he’s on the road before peak hours.

“I live in Alexandria and commute to Rockville, MA. It takes me 35 minutes to commute on the Beltway. During peak times, it would take more than an hour,” Laurie says. “My suggestion to improve your commute is to become a traffic reporter.”

4. San Francisco, CA

Median home price: $888,000
Average commute time: 32.1 minutes
Average time spent in congestion per year: 82.6 hours

For a city that’s home to the iconic Golden Gate Bridge and a cable-car system, you might think it has commuting down pat. Ha!

“Highways can be jammed for miles coming into the city,” says Patrick Carlisle, chief market analyst at the Paragon Real Estate Group, based in San Francisco. “On-ramps are also horrible. You can sit on a block while a traffic light changes two or three times before one can get to the next block.”

San Francisco drivers spend on average about 83 hours per year in standstill traffic. That’s four times more than drivers in Reno, NV. And it doesn’t take an Apple engineer to understand what’s going on: The Bay Area’s population has surged, jumping by 8% since 2010. That’s added undue stress to the region’s infrastructure.

It’s become such an issue that companies like Google have created their own shuttle buses for employees. And sky-high prices have pressured residents to look across the bay to Oakland—something that’s been weighing down Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), the region’s subway system.

“[BART] has been neglected for years, as ridership has rapidly grown, making it more and more problematic,” Carlisle says.

5. Boston, MA

Median home price: $490,000
Average commute time: 30.6 minutes
Roads in “good” or “fair” condition: 19%

The cherry on top of an already miserably long commute is having to deal with Boston drivers. You could say they have something of reputation.

“Massholes, that’s what they call the drivers here,” says Amber Fallon, a 34-year-old sales engineer who commutes 90 minutes into Somerville, MA, close to downtown Boston, every morning. She owns a home in Maynard, MA, a suburban town 25 miles from downtown.

“You tend to get cut off a lot and flipped off a lot. It is par for the course,” Fallon says. A major pain point for her is that there aren’t many possible routes that will take commuters into downtown.

Why doesn’t she live closer? She says it would cost her more than double to buy a home near her workplace. The median home price on realtor.com in Maynard, where Fallon lives, is $275,000. In Somerville, where she works, the median home is $845,000.

And then there are the accidents. Boston drivers are more likely than in any other American city to file a car insurance claim, according to Allstate’s “America’s Best Drivers Report” in 2017. The average Boston driver makes a claim once every 3.9 years, compared to 13.3 years in top-ranked Kansas City.

“I come from New York, where no one follows any rules,” says Dr. Christopher Quigley, a Boston-based doctor who specializes in treating injuries that are related to automobile accidents. “But in Boston, some people follow the rules and some people don’t, so it’s all a little more dicey.”

The rest of the top 10 metros with the worst commutes are Chicago, in sixth place, followed by Philadelphia, PA; Atlanta, GA; Seattle; and Providence, RI.

*Data sources: Census Bureau, the Department of Transportation/Federal Highway Administration, INRIX, and TRIP 

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