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Image by @kaid via Twenty20
It may not make you feel much better, but no matter how bad you think it is to drive a car in your city, it could be worse: You could be in Detroit. The irony-challenged Motor City once again took the top spot for 2019 in WalletHub’s annual ranking of the nation’s 100 largest cities for how much — or how little — they suck to own a car. Detroit had ranked worst in 2018, as well.
Related: Baltimore: Your Drivers Are the Worst, Hon
We’re not just talking about gridlock, though annual hours spent in commuter congestion is a big part. The personal-finance website rates driver friendliness across 30 factors that include the condition of the roads, average annual insurance premiums, weather, accident rates and likelihood of coming out to find an empty space where your car once sat. WalletHub even accounted for the parking spaces and repair shops per capita.
It’s no surprise if you live there or visit, but Detroit — “The D” for those in the know, and now in the midst of a nascent Renaissance — still checks a lot of the wrong boxes.
The survey groups 30 potential pain points into four categories and calculates an overall score. Categories are cost of ownership and maintenance (including buying, insurance, fuel costs and repair prices), traffic and infrastructure (including congestion, road conditions and weather), safety (including crashes, fatalities, theft), and access to vehicles and maintenance (such as repair shops, gas stations and parking lots per capita).
In those categories, The D ranked the nation’s worst city for safety, ranked No. 94 (again, out of 100) for traffic and infrastructure — unsurprisingly, New York took that title — and finished at No. 81 for cost of ownership and maintenance (the most expensive city was San Diego, but at least its weather is great).
The one brighter spot for Detroiters? Relatively plentiful access to take care of a car, rating in the top half at No. 45 for maintenance facilities (Miami was No. 1). I’m not just picking on the Motor City — except for the irony, of course — as my home in the nation’s capital was the sixth worst.
The 10 worst cities for driving a car:
1. Detroit
2. Oakland, Calif.
3. Philadelphia
4. San Francisco
5. Newark, N.J.
6. Washington, D.C.
7. Seattle
8. Los Angeles
9. New York
10. Honolulu
The 10 best cities:
If Detroit and Oakland conjure up the most distress, those looking to de-stress might consider North Carolina. The Tar Heel State dominated the list of car-friendliest cities with four of the top 10:
1. Raleigh, N.C.
2. Orlando, Fla.
3. Lincoln, Neb.
4. Tampa, Fla.
5. Winston-Salem, N.C.
6. Birmingham, Ala.
7. Corpus Christi, Texas
8. Boise, Idaho
9. Charlotte, N.C.
10. Greensboro, N.C.
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