Plano has been named one of the best places to drive in the United States.
Personal finance website WalletHub ranked Plano the 10th best major city to drive for 2024. The report assessed 100 of the largest cities in the country, ranking locations based on 30 individual metrics.
Each year, drivers in the U.S. spend an average of 370 hours on the road. That equates to over 15 days sitting behind the wheel. According to Wallet Hub, the time wasted in traffic and the additional fuel expense associated with it cost American drivers an average of $733 annually.
It may surprise some Dallasites that a city in the metroplex ranked so high. After all, the City of Dallas does not enjoy the best reputation regarding car congestion.
As covered earlier this year by The Dallas Express, a report from transportation analytics firm Inrix ranked Dallas at No. 17 on their list of the U.S. cities with the worst congestion in 2023.
Dallas netted 52.21 points on the WalletHub list, ranking it 60th. For comparison, Plano’s 10th-place position was achieved with 60.52 points.
In total, 13 Texas cities were ranked, with Corpus Christi securing the top spot in the state at No. 3. Houston took the title as the worst in the Lone Star State at No. 64.
The 30 metrics used by WalletHub for the latest report fell into one of four buckets.
While traffic was considered, the ranking also considered other factors impacting driving quality in each city, such as costs and safety.
- Cost of Ownership & Maintenance (i.e., cost of a new car, average gas prices, average insurance premiums, average maintenance)
- Traffic & Infrastructure (i.e., hours spent in congestion)
- Safety (i.e., likelihood of an accident, traffic fatality rate, rate of car thefts)
- Access to Vehicles & Maintenance (i.e., auto-repair shops per capita, gas stations per capita, parking availability)
In 2022, the Dallas City Council adopted Vision Zero, a plan to eliminate all traffic-related deaths and reduce severe injury crashes by half by the decade’s end. Despite the initiative, certain areas of the city remain hotspots for crashes. Most (62%) of the severe accidents in Dallas occur on just 7% of the city’s total roadways.