The US' Fastest, Slowest Cities

TomTom's Traffic Index shows which US cities it takes the longest to drive in
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 18, 2025 1:15 PM CST
The US' Fastest, Slowest Cities
Stock photo.   (Getty Images/monstArrr_)

There are few things more soul-crushing than bumper-to-bumper traffic, which means that Manhattan drivers must be dead in the eyes. Per the annual TomTom Traffic Index, the Big Apple hosts the nation's slowest drive times, taking an average of 30 minutes to move six miles in the heart of the city—a 2.3% increase over 2023. Figure that if a commuter made two of those six-mile trips within the city per day, that means that every year NYC drivers are experiencing "nearly four days of bumper-to-bumper misery," per Axios. That's not even counting the even longer commutes experienced by drivers entering the city from Long Island, Connecticut, and Jersey. The five slowest and fastest cities, along with how long it takes to drive those torturous half-dozen miles:

Slowest cities

  1. New York; 30 minutes, 1 second
  2. San Francisco; 25 minutes, 37 seconds
  3. Honolulu; 19 minutes, 56 seconds
  4. Chicago; 19 minutes, 10 seconds
  5. Philadelphia; 18 minutes, 54 seconds

Fastest cities

  1. Thousand Oaks, California; 8 minutes, 18 seconds
  2. Little Rock, Arkansas; 9 minutes flat
  3. Mesa, Arizona; 9 minutes, 19 seconds
  4. Newark, Delaware; 9 minutes, 28 seconds
  5. Richmond, Virginia; 9 minutes, 33 seconds
More analysis from Axios here. (NYC's new congestion pricing may help ease that drive.)

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