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Study Ranks Philadelphia as the Worst American City to Drive in
By Matt Schultz
Published:
A new study from WalletHub has found that out of the 100 largest American cities, Philadelphia is the worst city to drive in:
This sounds right to me. Can’t imagine anyone in the area being surprised by this. Driving here is extremely bad. If anything, it feels kind of good to have WalletHub say this. Feels validating.
The study compared the 100 cities across 30 measures, which all fell under four main umbrellas: 1) Cost of Ownership & Maintenance, 2) Traffic & Infrastructure, 3) Safety and 4) Access to Vehicles & Maintenance. WalletHub crunched all the available numbers and came out with a weighted score for each of the cities — the lower the number, the worse the ranking.
Philly got a 36.35 out of 100, which is bad. More than bad, actually. It is the worst. It is the number one worst score:
Here’s where Philly landed in the nitty-gritty, in-depth rankings — and remember, this is where we are out of 100 cities:
- 97th for traffic and infrastructure
- 96th for safety
- 85th for the cost of owning and maintaining a vehicle
- 65th for annual hours spent in congestion per auto commuter
- 95th for accident likelihood compared with the national average
- 91st for car-theft rate
- 93rd for auto-repair shops per capita
- 73rd for auto-maintenance costs
- 78th for average parking rates
The more I think about this study while writing this blog, the better I feel about it. This is good. It’s good WalletHub did this ranking and it’s good we got the worst score. It’s nice to have your beliefs confirmed. It’s like going to the doctor and telling them you feel all fucked up and sick and that you need antibiotics. If the doctor looks you over and says you’re fine, that feels terrible. But if the doctor looks you over and says they can’t believe how right you are, how spot on your gut instinct was, how miraculous it is that you’ve even been able to survive this long, etc. etc., that feels way better. Your hardship is seen and acknowledged. That’s nice. That’s what WalletHub is doing for us here.
Truth be told, I would’ve been a little annoyed if any of the nearby cities that ranked close to us actually got the top spot. Washington D.C. ranked 99th, New York City ranked 97th, Baltimore ranked 92nd, Newark, NJ got 87th, and Boston got 73rd. Those guys don’t even know how good they have it… I went to a wedding a few weeks ago in Malvern and I live in Oaklyn, NJ, which meant I had to get to the complete opposite side of the city… Look at this hell I went through to do it (this is the current traffic, just Googled it and took a screenshot; it was even worse in the middle of the afternoon on a Saturday):
Those 99 other cities don’t know shit about this… But WalletHub does… Thank you for understanding, WalletHub.
Kinkead: top 3 worst traffic cities I’ve ever experienced are Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Warshington
Matt Schultz is a comedy and sports writer from Philadelphia. He’s written extensively for ClickHole, The Onion, and Conan O’Brien’s Team Coco. His work has been featured in Vulture, Deadspin, The A.V. Club, Paste Magazine, and other publications. Much of his sports journalism can be found on college basketball websites that don’t exist anymore (PhilaHoops Heads rise up…) email: M.Schultz@sportradar.com