I’ve driven up the east coast a few times heading to eastern Connecticut and south of DC I’d cut west and take 81 to 84. It a lot more relaxing and scenic.
I agree with you 100% on Richmond to DC. My little sib lives in Woodbridge and I've actually taken to picking them up late at night just to avoid most of the nonsense between Hampton Roads and the DC suburbs.
As an over-the-road truck driver, I choose to go through many of these cities late at night. I make my drive enjoyable by not stressing about the traffic on the road but enjoying the views. I enjoy going through cities at night when everything is lit up.
I do the same but drive in the early AM. I like to tell myself that the other people on the road at the same time are also purposeful drivers and not going to affect my drive. So far I have been right, but its only been a few months.
Thank you for this comment. I think Atl should allow 18 wheelers to go straight through downtown during those hours (12-6am) to incentivise more truckers to do that (time their trip that way)
I drove through i75 on my four wheeler about a year ago around maybe 10pm, and the sheer volume of traffic combined with aggressive behavior makes me wonder how there hasn't been a pileup that would make Louisiana superfog blush.
South Carolina seemingly has the same problem as Belgium in Europe. Situated on a massive transport corridor but no money to keep the roads in order for the volume of traffic using them.
I was recently dishearten as to how difficult it was to get through DC. I found 95 south of DC very backed up all the down to Fredericksburg for no apparent reason.
Boston has got to make this list. With I-90 and I-93, I-95 and 495 acting as beltways, routes 9 and 20, it still has wait times of around 4 miles an hour on most weekdays
Especially getting into the southeast expressway with no breakdown lanes and Route 1 north of Boston. Both are the worst highways in Boston (from revere to peabody)
The best way to avoid driving through NYC is to get off I-95 at the Garden State Parkway and take that straight up to the New York Thruway. Much quicker than the I-287 loop, but you’re going to have to pay tolls.
@@stuartaaron613 You can, but I prefer to avoid that whole pre-GW convergence of I-80, I-95, Route 4, & Route 46. It’s always backed up. Besides, the GSP is generally a much more pleasant highway than the NJTPK. Especially once you get north of Paramus.
not like crossing the Geo Wash bridge isnt 10 dollars anyways. And taking cross bronx... 21 to enter SI, 10 to cross the Verrazzano, 10 more for the Triboro.
Mike’s not exaggerating when he says the BQE is backed up 24/7. I used to get off of work between 11PM-midnight, and sometimes it would take me 45 minutes to go the 6 miles back to my apartment.
@@leechjim8023 Unfortunately, I needed the car. Part of my job was delivering food and supplies to some of our outposts, and possibly doing some delivery service if the orders were too big for our bicycle delivery guy.
One major thing they did in Baltimore was getting rid of the toll plaza after the tunnel on 95, it’s just ezpass cameras now and it helped with the awful backups that would happen there ALOT
I quickly learned to take the I-895 Harbor Tunnel Thruway. Heading towards the tunnel from either direction, I-895 didn't have exits only on ramps. You had exits once you went through the tunnel. And the trip was only about a mile longer than I-95. Limited exits had the effect of reducing traffic. I haven't been through there in a while though.
@@CarlSmith-p2c When I commuted (34 years) I always took the Key bridge instead of the harbor tunnel. My issue was the 14 years it took to redo the interchange of I95 and 695 on the northeast side with the express toll lanes. A 20 mile trip would often stretch into a 3 hour drive.
I absolutely agree with DC. Even in 2015 when I was just 11 years old I remember driving to Florida on i95 from Philly and still can feel the agony sitting on the beltway for hours.
It was like that even when I was a kid in the ‘80s. One of my most enduring memories of visiting or traveling through DC is being stuck in traffic on the beltway.
Even when it's not busy, it's dangerous. I was coming home one night around midnight on the Baltimore inner loop, 695, the road was desolate, nobody but me and there in the middle, against the barrier, was a van upside down. There was debris littering the entire 4 lanes of the hiway. It was relatively straight so I have no idea what happened.
Washington should've been higher up honestly, 95 is ALWAYS jammed from Dumfries up to the Springfield interchange, and 495 (excluding 95 concurrence) and 395 are not much better alternatives.
I live in the DC Area but thankfully rarely have to take I95, a few months back I was heading down south for vacation and left early in the morning (6AM), as soon as I got on to 95 from FC Parkway I just saw cars on the northbound end for miles and miles, even uptil Fredericksburg. One day I was heading home from Arlington and missed my turn to 66, Map told me to take 395 to Springfield Interchange to 495 to 66, good god it was fucking terrible.
I used to do the drive from PHL to Boston on a regular basis and PHL to eastern Long Island, too . The thing that can be said about getting through New York is that least there are a few different options if you know them. Sure, there are times when it's just going to suck, but if you plan around those times and otherwise know the road map, you can survive. Fun video, thanks for doing it!
I just did the I95 drive from Miami to Portland ME - northbound through NYC and southbound using the i84/81 route around the megalopolis. I always try to avoid the DC and NY metro areas for their traffic woes and have learned that sometimes going right through a city instead of using the ring road can save time - if you time it right. A new subscriber here and what I see I really like. Drive safe. E
Some trucker perspective: - Most of the time I've had decent luck with I285 Atlanta. Aside from all the 50mph traffic in the right two lanes anyway. - NYC...unless near max weight (due to the grades), regardless of time of day, I try to take i81 to i84 when headed to New England if it can make a lick of sense. If not, I'll end my day around Vince Lombardi and go through at night. (but I'm graveyard shift anyway so...) - Surprised you didn't mention i495 for DC. About the same distance, it's usually only clogged during rush hour. Dishonorable mention goes to the area between NYC and New Haven, CT. I try to avoid day driving here, and it's another reason why I love i84.
I'm surprised that Hartford, Connecticut wasn't on the list! The running gag is around the Interstate 84/Interstate 91/Connecticut Route 2 is that you might take the wrong exit. Connecticut is now going to fix the area around the area.
84 is good, but it is still a bit flawed, especially around Hartford, when the Hartford Beltway (the Interstate 291/Interstate 484/Interstate 86) was planned to help avoid Hartford. Unfortunately NIMBYs fought it and most of the beltway was not built, only the 291 between Windsor to South Windsor. Connecticut is now trying to fix it.
The list makes sense to me as a NoVA resident with family in New England that I visit quite often. As for going around NYC, it's either the Garden State Parkway, Major Deegan to Cross County, or the Palisades up to the bridge crossing at Nyack/Tarrytown. It's just easier, these days, to travel at night if possible.
Wild that Boston isn’t on here, especially with South Carolina included. That state barely has more people than just the metro area of Boston, it couldn’t possibly be worse. Consistently top 3 worst traffic in the country, the roads are famously confusing, and traffic usually lasts from 6am to 9 pm. Northbound the pike is usually backed up from the CT line, 95 is backed up from Providence. Southbound is often backed up a few miles into Maine (in the summer up to Kennebunk). 93 isn’t even worth considering if you’re passing through.
Rhode Islander here. My family and I used to go through Boston to get to New Hampshire for vacations. I still remember getting up at 3:30, and getting into Boston as the sun rose. Four years ago, we started taking I-495, found a Cumberland Farms as a pitstop, and it’s been a more enjoyable drive.
I was born, raised and went to school in Boston and lived there until I was 40 years old. I've driven around the U.S. (the entire country ) 10 times. Boston has the worst most aggressive drivers I have seen anywhere. Boston should be #1 worst city to drive in.
Great video. We drive from Philadelphia to Florida every winter pulling a trailer. I prefer Route 1 to the Baltimore beltway to avoid tolls and the 95 traffic along this stretch. The Washington beltway area is terrible. Last year, it was raining when we went around Washington. There was 4 accidents on our route and our average speed was around 10 mph. On the way home the GPS put us on 395, not fun when pulling a trailer driving through downtown Washington. I’m thinking of taking 81 next time. 95 through South Carolina is exactly how you described it. You can tell when you cross the boarder from North Carolina. This section of 95 is like a war zone. Poorly patch pot holes and a bump at every expansion joint. The inside of the trailer looks like it was in a earth quake after driving on that road. Thanks for the video.
It took my wife and I 10 hours to drive from Myrtle Beach to Washington, D.C. over the summer. Over half of those 10 hours were spent in Virginia, along the stretch of 95 between Richmond and the Capital Beltway. Come to think of it, there isn't a single city on the East Coast that I DO like driving in or through. Except maybe for Winston-Salem. I've never had any problems or issues down there.
In the times in the past when I needed to go from New England and drive south of New York, I either used I-287 to cross the Hudson, or stayed further north and take I-84 to cross the Hudson at Newburgh, then get onto 87 and 287.
I live in NJ just outside of NYC, and I've travelled down to south Florida for family vacations for years, and oh god do I feel so much of this. A couple things I want to add, but I want to start with a hopefully positive idea: Driving down to Florida, a number of years ago we started using an alternate route that avoids a LOT of I-95, bypassing Baltimore, D.C. and Richmond and it's been a huge help. It starts at US-13 in Delaware, but then shifts over to US-50, like you see in the DC section of the video. But instead of hitting the Beltway, we turn onto US-301 at Bowie, MD and take that down to I-295 outside of Richmond, which we take around and down past Petersburg. Granted, some of the roads are a bit slower as far as maximum speed, and there's a lot of 1-lane-each-way on that road but... we manage to go from up here down to South Carolina in about 10-10.5 hours and can stop there for dinner and a night's rest. I suggest this path to all my friends who drive down and they've rather liked it. As far as NYC goes... it's a nightmare. If you haven't driven in NYC, the best description of things I can give is this: I have a friend who lived in Queens near LaGuardia Airport. To get there from my house by transit, I would walk 1/2 mile, take a light rail to get to the PATH over to World Trade Center, then take the E train to Queens and then the 7 Train to 90th, then walk about 3/4 mile to her place. This would usually take around 90 minutes. I once drove her home from a friend's place which was only a couple minutes from my house to her place in Queens. The round-trip was between 3.5 and 4 hours. The most direct route is about 20 miles, and even at mid-day is expected to take around 70-75 minutes. (Spoiler: If never goes that fast). Oh, and in addition to the BQE, NYC has the Long Island Expressway, the most ironically and accurately named road. How? Because it's never any kind of express while you're on it, so its nickname is also self-descriptive, because it certainly is a L.I.E.
I used to drive from Raleigh to the Eastern Shore of MD and back when I was in college and I'd always take 301 instead of I95. I'll deal with a dozen stoplights along the way than the insanity that is I95 through northern virginia.
And seriously a reason no joke, the Commonwealth of Virginia and even Amtrak needs to upgrade the tracks to create higher speeds for Rail Service. No reason why there is not a hourly train service between Richmond and Washington, DC 7 days a week.
I've heard the reason South Carolina puts no money into I-95 is because it goes through such a sparsely populated area. Apparently when 95 was built, SC wanted it to go through Charleston and the feds said no because the point of 95 was to get through SC as quickly as possible and building it through Charleston would have added many hours to travel time between Florida and the Northeast.
Well as a Floridian I’m happy they told them they couldn’t do that bc it already takes long enough to get out of Florida but I feel like that led to South Carolinas state troopers being on bs. I swear they’ll pull you over if you have a Florida license plate, no matter how good youre driving. They tryna meet that quota (and a sprinkle of racism, don’t take this the wrong way tho I love South Carolina lol).
Would alternative routes not have made sense? I-95 is by far one of the worst ways to get between New York and Boston because of its route along the shore, so a more inland route via Hartford and Springfield tends to be preferred. Could this not have been how it worked in SC?
@@pokemonred2005I think they've been very niggardly in how this was planned. If you don't want to use 95 then your only other choice is to work your way to 81. I think there should be more choices to relieve traffic on those two.
5:57 SCDOT has already started upgrades to I-26. 26 in the Charleston merto is 3 to 4 lanes in each direction, expansion has started on both the nothern and southern ends of the Columbia Metro including "Malfunction Junction interchange" which is being rebuilt from a cloverleaf into a turbine interchange
I'm a native New Yorker, and I was surprised to see NYC at #1, it's laid out fairly straightforwardly (I think) but that's probably a result of it being what I've always known as city driving. As a fellow traveler who loves seeing this country behind the wheel, I would say Boston is by far the most difficult city to drive in. Anymore, whenever I visit, I just park wherever I can and walk or catch an uber.
Also native New Yorker, he nailed it the BQE was and still the reason why I don’t like driving into BK at all. But if NYC is listed #1 here, that gives me confidence and strength to endure the roads anywhere.
My parents drive from Maine to Florida and back every year and NYC is by far the part they complain about the most. They’ve been doing it for 16 years and their answer about the worst part has never changed.
The one redeeming thing about NYC is that there are a healthy number of alternate routes in many cases. For example, coming into NYC from the northeast (Ct.), you've got I-95, the Merrit/Hutchison River Parkway, the Bronx River Parkway, I-287 (as covered) to the Saw Mill Pwy, and in a pinch, US-1.
I live in CT and on i-95 from Milford to New York City the traffic is horrible it's always horrible sometimes it should only take you maybe an hour to get there but you're definitely going to probably take you an hour hour and a half maybe even longer depending how bad the traffic is at what time you go down there
I always take I-295 around Petersburg and Richmond. It’s a good wide highway that’s lightly traveled. Been taking the trip from Florida to Boston for many years and there are alternate routes around NYC that aren’t bad. CT can be a nightmare on I-84. I-95 is always full of crumbled pavement on the right edge probably because it floods a lot and freezes.
Atlanta resident here. I'm glad someone recognizes the one thing our city has that very few other cities in the US can boast: the worst traffic in the southern US. All the things you pointed out are true. Bad public transport, a horrible lack of alternative roads, and intersections that clog up the highways. I was at an event with people from multiple US cities, and nearly every one of them was surprised at how bad the traffic was. The Dunwoody area, right at the north of the perimeter, is currently undergoing one of the largest traffic reconstruction efforts I've ever seen in my life. Every intersection is being completely reworked with a ton of bypass roads, giant exchange bridges, and practically every intersection is changing to a diverging diamond intersection. I'm not sure how much it'll help, since reducing capacity on the highway will only encourage more people to start using it, which will just put traffic right back where it was before all the construction. The last few weeks traffic on 285 between Dunwoody at GA 400 and i-75 has been absolutely horrible, even at times of the day that shouldn't have bad traffic. The reason? They're building a replacement bridge for one of the smaller roads going over 285. The act of closing down that single small bridge is causing substantial diversions to the interstate exit, which has two interlocked roundabout that backs up the traffic trying to exit the interstate. I've never seen such a giant traffic mess caused by shutting down a single minor bridge when there are four other bridges to cross the same section of 285 within a mile. It's currently graveyard shift hours, and Atlanta and New York are the only eastern cities with any traffic congestion. We need help.
The greater ATL metro road system is so overtaxed, so taut and so reliant on just a few corridors that just one problem that seems like it should be localized and minor can have an effect miles and miles away. It's entirely possible for a problem on 400 to ripple effect and screw up going east to Augusta on I-20. It's crazy.
Just north of his I-95 starting point, there is a stretch through Florence SC with 6 lanes but other than that, I-95 from Jacksonville Fl to Richmond VA is a nightmare. I drive through Baltimore and Philadelphia and you nailed it. Atlanta is like driving in LA or San Francisco (pre- Newsom apocalypse). I used to drive from SC to MS and I’d plan my trip based on the time of day I hit Atlanta. I drive through New York metro several times a year and it is a nightmare. Not only is the traffic horrible, the scenery is disgusting, especially in the Newark NJ are which looks like the highways are also garbage receptacles.
I absolutely hate passing though Atlanta and wish there was an alternative interstate that went from 75 south of Macon that went through Columbus and to Birmingham. That would reduce some of the traffic going through ATL and could provide an alternative route for north-south travelers.
On I-95 in SC you have a critical bridge over Lake Marion. It is well obsolete with no shoulders and is prone to accidents, especially coming over the high crown of the bridge. There are plans to build a replacement bridge within the next few years. If the current bridge ever has to be closed for repairs you’d be faced with a 70 mile detour.
For years we drove from Boston to the west coast of Florida mostly on I-95, though we did deviate and go over the old Tappan Zee Bridge and down the New Jersey Turnpike. My first exposure to the Washington, DC Beltway was on a Friday afternoon at 5:00 during a snowstorm. While some sections of I-95 were easy and boring, some of the northern sections were stressful. After too many close calls, we eventually elected to fly to Sarasota.
I've driven through all these cities and highways you mentioned and can agree with the order of difficulty. I could feel the stress of driving through Atlanta and New York especially. Atlanta seems more stressful because I like the New York City scenery much better. Driving in the U.S. seems like a dream compared to other places I've seen like Lagos, Nigeria or Bogota, Colombia.
Be difficult to look at anything in Atlanta with every person doing nearly 100mph, it's rediculous, traffic up ahead almost slamming back of other cars, because of everybody doing top speed
Sorry Danation. Beautiful weather in those regions from about May 1 until Mid November. However with the endless winters and 🥶 ❄️ from around Thanksgiving until Mid April almost every year, no thanks on living those locations year round. 😭
I often drive from Charlotte to Pensacola, and I have to plan my trip around avoiding Atlanta at peak hours. I find it easier to drive thru the downtown connector rather than I-285. Also, I have driven Charlotte to Orlando twice and I’m glad I’m not the only one who dreads that awful section of I-95
It's nice to hear an explanation as to why traffic in Atlanta is so bad. I love visiting, but driving around and through the sprawl is a nightmare, to the point that I arrive to everything an hour or two early because I can't be sure there won't be a traffic standstill when I arrive.
@@cad5000 agreed. people treat the freeways in boston like a battle royale and the surface roads have one of if not the most bizarre layout ive ever seen. not to mention since theyre old, theyre also extremely narrow.
I tried to avoid the ATL beltway by concocting my own bypass out of two lane highways that appeared on the map to be sufficiently far from the perimeter. It was a fool's errand 😮
Got very familiar with the 287 bypass around NYC for 6 weeks back in 2004. I was stationed in MA (just outside of Boston) and had to go to what was Joint Base McGuire-Dix-whatever for NCO Academy; I drove back/forth every weekend to be home with my wife and young kids and 287 was my route of choice to avoid NYC proper. Didn't mind paying the $6.00 toll on the Tappan Zee bridge, as it was called back then, and I had a 2001 VW Jetta VR6 that I loved to drive. Also, to piggyback on being stationed near Boston, MA, I would have put Boston at the #5 spot over Baltimore. Logan Int'l was only 13 miles from where I was stationed, but it would take longer to drive there than it would to the airport in Manchester, NH, even though it was 55 miles away. On one occasion, it took nearly 3 hours to get to Logan...UGH! And the Ted Williams tunnel collapse happened while I was in MA. And MA just sucks all around, especially the MASSholes on the road...lol. Atlanta should share #1 with NYC. NYC is bad mainly because of the dense population...if NYC's population was the same as ATL's, do you think traffic would be as bad? Charlotte, where I'm from and reside close to right now, would probably be #7 on a top ten list and will most likely crack the top 5 by 2030... Darkhorse top 5 by 2035: Asheville, NC.
@JimAllen-Persona I agree totally on the names of the Triboro and Interboro. They're just such classy names that go with the NYC geography. Where else in the U.S. can you have a Triborough Bridge? Nowhere
@JimAllen-PersonaI’m with you 100% on the Tappan Zee and Triboro. I just can’t get used to calling them by their changed names. I never drive on the Interboro so it doesn’t carry the same kind of personal weight for me as the others do. Funny how it all works.
I wish I was only paying 6 dollars to go through NYC. Whenever I visit my friend in Staten Island I have to pay 10 for the Triboro, 10 for the Verrazano (10 more for the battery tunnel if I don't want to wait 3 years on the Brooklyn Bridge. And if I ever want to go to NJ and come back its 21 bucks to enter!!
Agree with you on Atlanta being number one with NYC, the horrible traffic and Atlanta's driving reckless and to fast when there's traffic up ahead almost nearly slamming into cars stuck in traffic!
Yeah, I figured it would be there...#2 even...lol. I had to drive home from dropping my parents at the airport a couple of weeks ago on a Sunday and there was a huge wreck on 75/85 Northbound which would be my way back home, so I took 285 around the east side and it was bumper to bumper as well on a Sunday afternoon. They have found some kinda room on the top end perimeter because they are building extra express toll lanes. That seems to be the states answer to Atlanta traffic...build express toll lanes on everything.
Really the only thing they CAN do is build up and tolls make 💵 If you’re traveling up I-85 there is almost a 100% gurantee for traffic on the Downtown Connector & I-85 from the Spaghetti Junction to Jimmy Carter Blvd; sometimes even as far as I-985.
Coming from the south (trips from Virginia to Rhode Island), a combination of the Garden State Parkway and the Tappan Zee Bridge was supposed to add an hour of time. The Cross Brox was so backed up as usual that it only cost a few minutes. Surprised? Not really.
I totally agree with your NY rank. As a Long Islander who needed to get to PA when the City got that recent torrential rain/flood, it took me three hours just to get past the GW. You got a 👍 from me.
During my 70 odd years of life (most in the SE Pa and Long Island w/ the last 12 years in FL), I've had the pain / pleasure of traversing each and every one of these cities either as a destination or passing through to somewhere else and agree for the most part. Would have liked to see your choice of (dis)honorable mentions - mine would be Boston and Miami. Living on Long Island for 29 years had me adapt to trading distance for congestion more often than not and when we had to go to PA to visit family / friends we almost always had to leave early enough to get through NYC before 6:30 AM or after 10 PM; fortunately all non driving family could sleep well in the car. Would often trade the cost of taking either of the two ferry's to CT when we could as both the wife and kids enjoyed it (weather permitting). Agree with gannon3816's comment about Philly to VA and Richmond to DC.
I fully expected Miami to be on this list. 95/75/dolphin, etc are basically parking lots of most of the day. (75 was not as bad when I lived there, but have heard it's gotten so much worse). Though admittedly, I'd take Miami rush hour over driving 95 through SC so I get it. Last time I was in Boston they were still finishing the big dig, so... It's been a while. lol
#3 makes me feel validated in my feelings about that lol I’ve ran my fair share of freight (trucker) north on 95 and I despise that section of 95 going right into South Carolina more than any other section of it (except maybe DC because I have never not been stuck in traffic up there)
Glad to see that stretch of SC I-95 listed. That is awful. It has the accordion effect going on. You're in stop in go traffic, then it opens up, only to return to stop and go. It's so bad we now plan around it and try to stop somewhere just before the bad stretch for the night so that we can get down to GA as early as we can.
This is the video I pull up right after getting in after being stuck on the Beltway at 8:00 due to a traffic accident. DC is horrible. I go to Baltimore often but I usually go Rte 50 to I-97 which makes it easier. But the worst one on this list for me is SC. I expect Atlanta and NYC to be bad but South Carolina! I drove back and forth between DC and Orlando last December and the drive through SC was absolutely draining. I even goggled “why is I-95 traffic so bad in South Carolina” while I was stopped and not moving on the highway. Thank God for Google Maps helping me to avoid some of it.
Made the drive from the northeast to costal Georgia a few times now, and I-95 from I-26 to the Savannah area is always a PAIN. Not only does traffic seem to spawn out of nowhere, the road is quite literally falling apart. Doesnt feel like it so much as been paved over in 50 years.
I'd love to hear your take on traveling through the Hampton Roads metro area in Virginia. We have three ways to cross the James River, yet two of them are so inundated with traffic that they often just result in people staying on the Peninsula or in Southside. Then there's the James River Bridge, which is probably the longest route to get between the Peninsula and Southside. And then, in Southside, if you make one wrong turn or miss your exit, you end up going through a toll area that has no toll plaza, getting hit with a $14 (last I checked) toll if you don't have an EZPass. On top of that, going from one part of Southside to another can be as short as a 15 minute drive (toll route) or an hour (no tolls). It's almost like they're punishing you for not having an EZPass. And for those who don't go through areas where one would be useful too often, it just doesn't pay to have one.
Remember the good people of Hampton roads have repeatedly voted NO for a train that would ease traffic significantly through some of the major hotspots
Mike, I totally agree with list and order. Just drove from FL to VT and back this year. Went thru all those cities. I95 thru Ft Lee was horribly depressing! My trip thru DC went surprisingly smooth. Gods were smiling on us.
The history of I-70 and I-83 in Baltimore explains the weird terminus of the former and the incomplete feeling of the latter. They were originally designed to meet in the downtown area, with I-70 following US-40 into the city (see also: Road to Nowhere), meeting with I-83 near the Shot Tower, then continuing on through Canton to meet I-95. This would have dramatically changed the look of several portions of Baltimore: West Baltimore would have lost its residential identity, Canton would never have gained its, and the Inner Harbor wouldn't have developed into the jewel of the city that it was through the 90's and 00's. Granted, that jewel needs a bit of polishing now...
Correct. The residents of Fells Point and Federal Hill apparently actively opposed any highway linkage to I-83 through their neighborhoods. It would have annihilated these historic neighborhoods without really improving through traffic in the Northeast corridor, IMHO.
Spot on about Atlanta. Just a lot of short-sighted planning years ago that did not anticipate the population growth in the 90's and today. By the time they wanted to actually do something to alleviate some of the problems (Northern Arc), it was too late. Now we're just stuck with what we've got. Your comment about the interchanges was a great insight to the whole thing. They just cannot handle the traffic, so everything gets bottlenecked wherever you go.
Unfortunately, other than a 10 mile section of I 95 near Hilton Head and the state line, and the I 26 interchange, SC will probably not do anything about 95 for a long time. The area just doesn't bring as much economic value to the state compared to I 85 which has been in a state of construction for over 5 years due to economic importance. It is important to consider that the Backroads can bypass that highway until the Savannah river where there are not alot of options to cross other than I 95 or the city of Savannah.
Yeah the lack of economic value may also be another factor to why I-73 most likely won’t ever get built to Myrtle Beach (which is much needed) yet if it does get done, it may actually boost the economic value of I-95 possibly
Living in Greenville, SC I have been through Atlanta more times than I can count and have gotten to know a few ways through and around the main traffic patterns if there is a problem. The dumbest part of their interstate is definitely the convergence of two major interstates in the middle of down town. Go just after 10 if you can and leave before three and you'll usually be fine though. The thing about Atlanta is the more lanes you put in the more lanes people have to move through to make their exit and that's where the problems come in. When you know where you're going and pay attention it's actually fairly easy to get around Atlanta. If you think you're going to get across eight lanes of traffic going 80 MPH because you were looking at your phone and didn't see the exit signs starting five miles in advance then you're S.O.L and will have to back track. If I need to get somewhere west of Atlanta then I go very early, like before 6 AM or just wait until about 10 AM and have rarely had an issue. I've used 120 and 400 on numerous occasions and not had a problem with those either. And the far east perimeter of 285 is rarely as bad as the north and west sides where all the people go and the southern side going towards the airport.
In my experience, southern Florida, West Palm Beach to Miami, had the worst traffic I ever had to negotiate. And while New York traffic is tough, I've always passed through or around it in reasonable time, due to the various options available, usually via GW Bridge or even Westside drive and one of the tunnels. The video misses the X-County Expressway, and Hudson PKWY option and mischaracterizes the I 287, option, which, coming from the north, feeds nicely onto the Garden State PKWY, and eventually the Jersey Turnpike... no need to loop back towards the the city in the south.
Provided you're not in a truck or pulling a trailer, the best route through Connecticut and New York is the Merritt Parkway-Hutchinson Parkway route. Either to 287 or down the Henry Hudson Parkway to the GWB. I-95 is a no-go.
@@cisium1184 When I moved to Florida, I asked Triple A to avoid NYC, so they got me 84 to 81 to the Blue Ridge. Beautiful area if you want to avoid NYC to DC traffic.
@@cisium1184 Or for those of you going to & from Boston/Northern New England to bypass NYC Proper is this other alternative. I admit it still gets busy sometimes but not as bad as the “parking lot” of I-95 aka the CT Turnpike. That is to use I-84 to I-684 to 287 to the Tappan Zee/Cuomo Bridge and follow The Garden State Parkway or even Interstate 287 to drive to say Central/Southern New Jersey and the Philly/Delaware region as well. Especially those of you wanting the NJ Turnpike or I-95.
Grew up in New England and went to grad school at Rutgers, so I've done a lot of drives through the NYC area. It would never have occurred to me to take the BQE. For me, the main two options are GW Bridge/Cross-Bronx or Tappan Zee Bridge/287/84. If for some reason you're driving at a low traffic time of day (early morning or late at night) the Cross-Bronx can be faster. But almost always I would take the Tappan Zee. Mike downplays the speed of this route by tying it to the 287 loop in New Jersey. But you can easily get to the Tappan Zee by taking the NJ Turnpike to the GS Parkway in North Jersey.
I have never had a problem with Atlanta. However, when I drive through Atlanta I usually get there late at night. If I am going South I get a hotel just south of Atlanta. When going North I get one to the North. That way I pass through Atlanta late at night when the roads are not too bad and then in the morning I have already passed through the town so don't have to worry about it.
Boston to Florida: 90 to 84 to the end in Scranton. South on 81 (there has been construction between here and Harrisburg for 30 years) as far as possible, moving back over to 95 past at least Baltimore. Beltway around DC and then it's free flow to Orlando.
Loved your intro scene of I-95 in Wilmington! Brought back memories. A million ramps at 60 mph and if you're getting onto 202 to King of Prussia (with 5 major highways all converging at once) you quietly lose your mind.
I recently drove on the Jersey Pike to go through NYC going to Rhode Island. I left the last service plaza on the Pike at 10am or so and it took me 1 hour and 40 minutes to get across the GW. That is the worst experience I have had in the last 25 years of driving through NYC. Choices coming from coastal Virginia - Not many!
For NYC, you forgot the Belt Parkway, that routes along the South Shore of Queens and Brooklyn and the Staten Island Expressway that connects the Verrazano Narrows Bridge to the NJ Turnpike
Mileage Mike, you probably need to reshuffle your worst areas in the New York region. Take a closer look at I-95 in southwest Connecticut (Fairfield County).
The good thing about living in the NYC metro area is mass transit. LIRR, NJ Transit, PATH, Metro North RR (I call them the Connecticut Cattle Cars) and the regular MTA Subway make getting to and moving about Manhattan and some areas of the outer boroughs as stress free as possible.
US 301. 4-laned for basically its entire route between Richmond amd Wilmington except the Potomac River bridge, which is getting replaced with a wider bridge as we speak!
Great video sir!, of these picks and from what I’ve personally experienced I would say Atlanta is definitely a trip. One thing that plagues the East coast is just the fact that the population in most of the states and the metros that they bear have significant population, sprawl, and people from other states traveling or commuting for work. FL alone with over 22 million people, various metro areas, and tourist is a prime example. The 2 lanes for I95 in SC will more then likely cause you to worry about one thing an accident happening, if said accident happens well then it’s time to wait. Most of the counties that I95 goes through in the Carolinas and Georgia are relatively sparsely populated. There are stretches of I95 that I really enjoy and ones that I don’t but going from Emporia, VA to Port Saint Lucie, FL. most times it isn’t to bad.
I’ve driven I95 from Maine to Florida many times and it was always nerve wracking to say the least. I would call it the most dangerous road in the country and it would still be even if you doubled the width for the entire distance where possible. The Connecticut section from New Haven to the New York line averages an exit/entrance less than every mile.
Always exit I-95 and get on I-287 (first exit in NY) to I-287 to the Tappen Zee to the GSP Exit 14A to the New Jersey Turnpike, best route. That's what I use coming from NH.
If I were going to go through the NYC area coming from New England, I would never take I95 in Southern Connecticut. I would always take 84 to NYS and then head south to the Tappan Zee Bridge.
@@rickdesper I should add that I always stopped at my nieces house in RI for a day,with easy access to I95. Coming straight from my home in ME I would probably have gone through Hartford.
You neglected to mention the abhorent toll prices in crossing the state line from jersey to new york. if you need to drive that daily you might as well put your car on pontoons and paddle it around manhattan
While I'd be hard-pressed to disagree with this list, I will also mention that the worst traffic jam I ever encountered was in the relatively modestly-sized area of Scranton and Wilkes-barre PA. It ended up taking us approximately 4 hours averaging around 12 mph.
Yes from Petersburg, VA to the Georgia state line on 95 is hell with two lanes i see in the Fayetteville area they're making three lanes but its to much thru traffic nowadays for two lanes this is not the 60's
About your #3, at least there are plenty of back roads you can take to avoid the traffic, since you’re driving through the wide open South. Yes it might take longer, since the speed limits are lower, and you might go through some crummy old towns, but scenery is subjective. Besides, it’s not like having to get past a major city next to a large body of water, which plays a critical factor in limiting your route options.
Sounds nice but a family with kids from Ohio driving to Disney isn't trying to drive through random back roads in middle of nowhere through a state they know nothing about.
The thing about that section is it's not that there is bumper to bumper traffic, it's more that section gets congested with slower moving vehicles like trucks and moves much slower than the speed limit. So you're still going faster than the backroads but slow for the interstate. However if there is an accident, yes the backroads may be more viable but there are not a lot of options.
I do think it would be a more scenic drive, though I am from MD so who am I to judge. I guess it's just that I'm a conservative man who is so damn sick of the liberal drama going on in the cities, so seeing some southern rural scenery is a breath of fresh air for me personally.
Living in Philly but growing up in the Jacksonville area, I make the trip up and down I-95 quite often. Absolutely hate the corridor from the big Alexandria flyover down to about Richmond. It is rarely quick and you'll go from 70-75 to dead stop quite often, for no apparent reason. Runner up is the SC corridor you mentioned. We call it "2 lane land".
I was a little startled that Boston wasn’t on the list! Anyone who has to cross Boston to go to Cape Cod (as in anyone from ME or NH) knows that that trip needs careful timing as MA-3 gets backed up pretty easy. Coming from the northwest or west of Boston the trip to the Cape won’t be so bad. I still remember driving up Route 3 on a Saturday, we were going from Cohasset to Cambridge. It was packed and some poor women was stuck, I guess maybe her clutch failed, in the left lane, he head was on her steering wheel like “I’m stuck dead in the middle of RT 3 and I’m the traffic jam” (she wasn’t, it was heavy anyway) I live in far northern NYS and would like to point out that if avoiding Boswash is important there are numerous ways to do that. We used to drive to Florida a little less than once a year, usually at Christmas, and generally in the winter. Our choice was I-81 or connecting to the NJ turnpike and 95 from there. We only did that once, knowing there was a snowstorm in the mountains, it was rather…rough. No snow but we didn’t get as far south the first day as we might have wished. Another time we went down 81 in spite of a storm, except for a stretch in Northern VA it wasn’t that bad. 81 was backed up, and we went on US11 for a few miles, the only disagreeable surprise is that as Winter hardy people we expected a stretch of road designated Truck 11 would be much better cleared than it was. Should’ve gone through town! We were also once caught in that stretch of I-95 in SC, northbound and I was thinking “There’s no “Here” here, where tf are all these cars coming from?”
I guess one explanation could be that Boston is the northern end of the NE travel corridor, meaning that a lot of people coming up to Boston probably aren't passing through on their way to somewhere else up to NH or Maine. So although you do have a lot of traffic issues like anywhere else, you may not have the overall volume of other places - such as Atlanta, where we get so many people passing through on their way to/from Disney.
I've driven thru each of these places multiple times and completely agree with this list. The best big city in the east to pass thru is Pittsburgh because none of the thru routes pass into the central city. I wonder why more highway designers in the 50s didn't use this strategy. Long distance freeways should have been built to pass by on the outskirts with spur routes into the city.
Lexington Kentucky is like that too, Eisenhower never intended for the interstate highway system to go through the big cities but the mayors of certain cities begged for the highways to pass through, turned out to be a big mistake as it divided many cities.
I've been to Pittsburgh, and yes the highway set up is a joke. I merge right onto one interstate, then the GPS says "in 500 ft, exit right". Now I gotta cross over 4 lanes
Well sounds like you haven't lived there so pittsburgh might of seemed fine but I lived there in 2009 and the reality is with th construction at the time it was a hour plus to get across the city on the interstate. I would sit in non moving traffic bumper to bumper on the interstate 30 mins plus and that was only a mile or two into the trip. Now it might not be so bad but for that year It worse than NYC. I drove in NYC the same year and it was cake compared to the Burgh.
Because traffic engineers don't use logic in planning these things, their goal is to create the utmost congestion possible. As to why they didn't use that strategy in the 50's of bypass roads with spurs, it's because you didn't have the amount of commuters going in/out of the city like we do now. People tended to work where they lived, and job hopping wasn't as common either, so you could guarantee that you'd be at one job your entire career. Also a lot less population back then with a lot fewer cars - most households only had 1 car. Now every household has 3 or 4.
Lived in the burgh all my life, and it is split up into four areas (north, east, south, and west) Only the north goes to the city without a tunnel, where every other direction you have to drive through a tunnel. If one only stays on there own side of the city, traffic is not bad, but going to any other area takes you through a tunnel and right in the middle of downtown Pittsburgh (not including the turnpike from east to north). If you have to drive from the Airport (west) to the east side of the city during anytime around rush hour, expect 2 hours of your life to be in traffic.
I drove through Atlanta once. Never again! It was 5 lanes of chaos. I remember I had to get 2 lanes over, which I found out late. I didn't know how I was going to be able to get over in time. Luckily, after I put my left turn signal on, the cars let me switch lanes. I'll give them credit for that. Maybe it was southern hospitality, or maybe it was the fact that they knew how it could get a bit dangerous if someone desperately tries to make sure they don't miss their exit, so being courteous is the safe way to go.
DC, Atlanta, and New York are by far the worst cities that I've driven through on the east coast. Miami is an honorable mention just because it has the dumbest and most reckless drivers in the country. I agree about that section in South Carolina. I used to drive from Fayetteville, NC to Jacksonville often and it was always congested and slow.
As someone who lives in the DC area, driving to any city from DC is a nightmare. 495 might be the worst highway in America. No matter what time of day or day of the week, it is always stop and go traffic
When Washington DC was founded in 1790, it was considered a "central" location for the new capital.... though it took 3 days to get there from Philadelphia, 130 miles away. Nowadays we can fly to California in 4-5 hours... but it can still take a day to get here from Philly. ;)
Baltimore really ain't that bad traffic-wise as long as you stay off 695. Now for the Suburbanites that depend on 695, that's a different story. But if you're driving thru, never get off I-95.
I knew this was going to be a good one. It's like asking "Which gas station in town has the worst sushi bar?" (The worst one in my town is run by a Chinese lady who has a bait shop and buffet inside the gas station. Sometimes you see the distressed bait shop inventory on the sushi bar). My brother-in-law used to deliver cars to Jacksonville and Miami. He asked me which city had the worst drivers. I said Miami because their drivers flip you off after nearly running you off the road tail gaiting and swerving across lanes, whereas in Jacksonville they are just aggressive drivers without personal malice. Also agree with your takes on Baltimore, D.C., and that awful stretch of two-lane I-95 in South Carolina. I sometimes take the secondary routes that cut diagonal across S.C. to avoid I-95. I likewise by-pass Atlanta on secondary roads 40 miles east or west of the center of town. I expected this video to be a good one, and it was, confirming my worst experiences of difficult East Coast urban areas to transit. Due to increasing congestion, the Interstates are not always the best routes any more.
I travel several times a year from NH to Phili area ALL mapping software takes me over the GW. No way no how. I always use I-287 over the Tappen Zee (it's still the Tappen Zee) to the GSP to either US-1 or the New Jersey Turnpike.
Really surprised DC isn't higher on the list. The beltway and the feeder highways are bumper to bumper pretty much all day and are slow even on the weekends and at night. It is difficult to get into the heart of the city BY DESIGN (they wanted to make it hard to mount any direct land attack on the capital) so it forces most traffic to the beltway and then jams the surface streets. I can't speak to Atlanta, but DC has frequently been listed as one of the very worst traffic cities in the nation. Plus the issues really extend far into Virginia (on 95) and Maryland (270). A weekend drive from the DC area to Richmond (~100 miles) can easily take 4+ hours some days.
I like your content, but I would love it even more if you added chapters! I watch the whole videos, but would like a quick reference link to share with friends that might find a segment interesting.
As a native of Delaware, I cannot express to you the sheer excitement I felt when you showed my commute on 95 at the beginning of the video. We never get highlights for anything, so thank you for that 😂❤
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As a life long east coast resident, the drive from Philly to VA is soul sucking. Richmond to DC too.
That or anywhere around Elizabeth NJ thru Stanford, CT on i95 is brutal.
I’ve driven up the east coast a few times heading to eastern Connecticut and south of DC I’d cut west and take 81 to 84. It a lot more relaxing and scenic.
Agreed the section specifically around Fredericksburg makes me want to claw my eyes out.
I agree with you 100% on Richmond to DC. My little sib lives in Woodbridge and I've actually taken to picking them up late at night just to avoid most of the nonsense between Hampton Roads and the DC suburbs.
I like that drive because I like to see parts of Kings Dominion.
As an over-the-road truck driver, I choose to go through many of these cities late at night. I make my drive enjoyable by not stressing about the traffic on the road but enjoying the views. I enjoy going through cities at night when everything is lit up.
I do the same but drive in the early AM. I like to tell myself that the other people on the road at the same time are also purposeful drivers and not going to affect my drive. So far I have been right, but its only been a few months.
Thank you for this comment. I think Atl should allow 18 wheelers to go straight through downtown during those hours (12-6am) to incentivise more truckers to do that (time their trip that way)
Smart
The problem with Atlanta is the constant lane switching in an environment that is actively hostile to lane switching.
Aye man, are you gonna let someone inside for someone to cut you off? No. Keep Atlanta dangerous 😈😭
I drove through i75 on my four wheeler about a year ago around maybe 10pm, and the sheer volume of traffic combined with aggressive behavior makes me wonder how there hasn't been a pileup that would make Louisiana superfog blush.
They do this in Cincinnati too, if people would just pick a lane and stay in it the traffic would move a lot faster
@@sarysaI think Atlanta is designed in such a niggardly manner.
And the nearly 100mph is to much on a car
South Carolina seemingly has the same problem as Belgium in Europe. Situated on a massive transport corridor but no money to keep the roads in order for the volume of traffic using them.
THANK YOU for including I 95 in South Carolina...not only overcrowded but potholes...semis...crazy drivers...yikes.
I was recently dishearten as to how difficult it was to get through DC. I found 95 south of DC very backed up all the down to Fredericksburg for no apparent reason.
I-95 is probably one of the worst interstates as far as traffic goes.
Northern Virginia is the worst, that and Connecticut.
Boston has got to make this list. With I-90 and I-93, I-95 and 495 acting as beltways, routes 9 and 20, it still has wait times of around 4 miles an hour on most weekdays
thats what i expected
Boston’s really not that bad once you experience the Greater Toronto area 😂
@@shadow6543 worse than 4 miles an hour? Because I’ve been to Toronto and it didn’t seem as slow to me
This is the one that I was most surprised didn't make the list
Especially getting into the southeast expressway with no breakdown lanes and Route 1 north of Boston. Both are the worst highways in Boston (from revere to peabody)
The best way to avoid driving through NYC is to get off I-95 at the Garden State Parkway and take that straight up to the New York Thruway. Much quicker than the I-287 loop, but you’re going to have to pay tolls.
You can also take the Jersey Turnpike up to the Palisades Parkway, and then take that up to the New York Thruway.
@@stuartaaron613when we’ve gone to massachusetts to visit family this is what we’ve always done! So much easier AND it’s prettier too
@@stuartaaron613 You can, but I prefer to avoid that whole pre-GW convergence of I-80, I-95, Route 4, & Route 46. It’s always backed up. Besides, the GSP is generally a much more pleasant highway than the NJTPK. Especially once you get north of Paramus.
not like crossing the Geo Wash bridge isnt 10 dollars anyways. And taking cross bronx... 21 to enter SI, 10 to cross the Verrazzano, 10 more for the Triboro.
@@Marquipuchitriboro is 7
Mike’s not exaggerating when he says the BQE is backed up 24/7. I used to get off of work between 11PM-midnight, and sometimes it would take me 45 minutes to go the 6 miles back to my apartment.
I live in Atlanta and 45 for 6 is INSANE. That's how many miles my house is to l-20🤦🏾♂️
Probably would pay to ride a bike!
@@leechjim8023 Unfortunately, I needed the car. Part of my job was delivering food and supplies to some of our outposts, and possibly doing some delivery service if the orders were too big for our bicycle delivery guy.
Not quite an expressway then huh?
That's crazy I can go 45 miles in 1 hour in Seattle
One major thing they did in Baltimore was getting rid of the toll plaza after the tunnel on 95, it’s just ezpass cameras now and it helped with the awful backups that would happen there ALOT
I quickly learned to take the I-895 Harbor Tunnel Thruway. Heading towards the tunnel from either direction, I-895 didn't have exits only on ramps. You had exits once you went through the tunnel. And the trip was only about a mile longer than I-95. Limited exits had the effect of reducing traffic. I haven't been through there in a while though.
@@CarlSmith-p2cI was there last summer (2022) and it was pretty smooth for midday on a summer weekend!
@@CarlSmith-p2c When I commuted (34 years) I always took the Key bridge instead of the harbor tunnel. My issue was the 14 years it took to redo the interchange of I95 and 695 on the northeast side with the express toll lanes. A 20 mile trip would often stretch into a 3 hour drive.
Unfortunately the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge has probably re-congested the highway.
I'm glad you put South Carolina on here, 95 in SC is horrendous.
I absolutely agree with DC. Even in 2015 when I was just 11 years old I remember driving to Florida on i95 from Philly and still can feel the agony sitting on the beltway for hours.
It was like that even when I was a kid in the ‘80s. One of my most enduring memories of visiting or traveling through DC is being stuck in traffic on the beltway.
Even when it's not busy, it's dangerous. I was coming home one night around midnight on the Baltimore inner loop, 695, the road was desolate, nobody but me and there in the middle, against the barrier, was a van upside down. There was debris littering the entire 4 lanes of the hiway. It was relatively straight so I have no idea what happened.
Washington should've been higher up honestly, 95 is ALWAYS jammed from Dumfries up to the Springfield interchange, and 495 (excluding 95 concurrence) and 395 are not much better alternatives.
I live in the DC Area but thankfully rarely have to take I95, a few months back I was heading down south for vacation and left early in the morning (6AM), as soon as I got on to 95 from FC Parkway I just saw cars on the northbound end for miles and miles, even uptil Fredericksburg.
One day I was heading home from Arlington and missed my turn to 66, Map told me to take 395 to Springfield Interchange to 495 to 66, good god it was fucking terrible.
DC area on a weekend can be as soul sucking as rush hour. To me this isn’t even close. 95 near Savannah can be really bad
I used to do the drive from PHL to Boston on a regular basis and PHL to eastern Long Island, too . The thing that can be said about getting through New York is that least there are a few different options if you know them. Sure, there are times when it's just going to suck, but if you plan around those times and otherwise know the road map, you can survive.
Fun video, thanks for doing it!
I just did the I95 drive from Miami to Portland ME - northbound through NYC and southbound using the i84/81 route around the megalopolis. I always try to avoid the DC and NY metro areas for their traffic woes and have learned that sometimes going right through a city instead of using the ring road can save time - if you time it right. A new subscriber here and what I see I really like. Drive safe. E
Some trucker perspective:
- Most of the time I've had decent luck with I285 Atlanta. Aside from all the 50mph traffic in the right two lanes anyway.
- NYC...unless near max weight (due to the grades), regardless of time of day, I try to take i81 to i84 when headed to New England if it can make a lick of sense. If not, I'll end my day around Vince Lombardi and go through at night. (but I'm graveyard shift anyway so...)
- Surprised you didn't mention i495 for DC. About the same distance, it's usually only clogged during rush hour.
Dishonorable mention goes to the area between NYC and New Haven, CT. I try to avoid day driving here, and it's another reason why I love i84.
I'm surprised that Hartford, Connecticut wasn't on the list! The running gag is around the Interstate 84/Interstate 91/Connecticut Route 2 is that you might take the wrong exit. Connecticut is now going to fix the area around the area.
84 is good, but it is still a bit flawed, especially around Hartford, when the Hartford Beltway (the Interstate 291/Interstate 484/Interstate 86) was planned to help avoid Hartford. Unfortunately NIMBYs fought it and most of the beltway was not built, only the 291 between Windsor to South Windsor. Connecticut is now trying to fix it.
@@arthurpasseri4590 I made this exact mistake the first time I went up 91. It's less confusing on the 84 eb side.
Besides traffic, you probably avoid a ton of tolls doing 81 and 84.
It's 75/85 in Atlanta that's horrific. 20 and 285 aren't as bad.
The list makes sense to me as a NoVA resident with family in New England that I visit quite often. As for going around NYC, it's either the Garden State Parkway, Major Deegan to Cross County, or the Palisades up to the bridge crossing at Nyack/Tarrytown. It's just easier, these days, to travel at night if possible.
Wild that Boston isn’t on here, especially with South Carolina included. That state barely has more people than just the metro area of Boston, it couldn’t possibly be worse. Consistently top 3 worst traffic in the country, the roads are famously confusing, and traffic usually lasts from 6am to 9 pm. Northbound the pike is usually backed up from the CT line, 95 is backed up from Providence. Southbound is often backed up a few miles into Maine (in the summer up to Kennebunk). 93 isn’t even worth considering if you’re passing through.
Yeah even out into the suburbs you are gonna hit slow traffic anytime the sun is out.
Nobody really goes through Boston just to pass through it
Rhode Islander here. My family and I used to go through Boston to get to New Hampshire for vacations. I still remember getting up at 3:30, and getting into Boston as the sun rose.
Four years ago, we started taking I-495, found a Cumberland Farms as a pitstop, and it’s been a more enjoyable drive.
Boston has some of the worst traffic in the Western World -- super wild it got spared from this list.
I was born, raised and went to school in Boston and lived there until I was 40 years old. I've driven around the U.S. (the entire country ) 10 times. Boston has the worst most aggressive drivers I have seen anywhere. Boston should be #1 worst city to drive in.
Great video. We drive from Philadelphia to Florida every winter pulling a trailer. I prefer Route 1 to the Baltimore beltway to avoid tolls and the 95 traffic along this stretch. The Washington beltway area is terrible. Last year, it was raining when we went around Washington. There was 4 accidents on our route and our average speed was around 10 mph. On the way home the GPS put us on 395, not fun when pulling a trailer driving through downtown Washington. I’m thinking of taking 81 next time. 95 through South Carolina is exactly how you described it. You can tell when you cross the boarder from North Carolina. This section of 95 is like a war zone. Poorly patch pot holes and a bump at every expansion joint. The inside of the trailer looks like it was in a earth quake after driving on that road. Thanks for the video.
It took my wife and I 10 hours to drive from Myrtle Beach to Washington, D.C. over the summer. Over half of those 10 hours were spent in Virginia, along the stretch of 95 between Richmond and the Capital Beltway.
Come to think of it, there isn't a single city on the East Coast that I DO like driving in or through. Except maybe for Winston-Salem. I've never had any problems or issues down there.
The amount of potholes I encountered going northbound on i-95 through SC from FL to NC was abysmal. Never have I drive through such a bad interstate.
A lot have been patched up from the previous bumps but its still not a solution…
The right lane is particularly bad. Then you have to deal with the ragers if you occupy the left lane doing anything less than 90.
Republicans don’t like to fund infrastructure fyi
I assumed they were caused by cannonballs from all the Civil War Reenactments.
@@robtk3I live in SC near Savannah.
Yes, cannonballs can be an issue, but there's also tons of logging trucks - at least in my area.
In the times in the past when I needed to go from New England and drive south of New York, I either used I-287 to cross the Hudson, or stayed further north and take I-84 to cross the Hudson at Newburgh, then get onto 87 and 287.
I live in NJ just outside of NYC, and I've travelled down to south Florida for family vacations for years, and oh god do I feel so much of this. A couple things I want to add, but I want to start with a hopefully positive idea:
Driving down to Florida, a number of years ago we started using an alternate route that avoids a LOT of I-95, bypassing Baltimore, D.C. and Richmond and it's been a huge help. It starts at US-13 in Delaware, but then shifts over to US-50, like you see in the DC section of the video. But instead of hitting the Beltway, we turn onto US-301 at Bowie, MD and take that down to I-295 outside of Richmond, which we take around and down past Petersburg. Granted, some of the roads are a bit slower as far as maximum speed, and there's a lot of 1-lane-each-way on that road but... we manage to go from up here down to South Carolina in about 10-10.5 hours and can stop there for dinner and a night's rest. I suggest this path to all my friends who drive down and they've rather liked it.
As far as NYC goes... it's a nightmare. If you haven't driven in NYC, the best description of things I can give is this: I have a friend who lived in Queens near LaGuardia Airport. To get there from my house by transit, I would walk 1/2 mile, take a light rail to get to the PATH over to World Trade Center, then take the E train to Queens and then the 7 Train to 90th, then walk about 3/4 mile to her place. This would usually take around 90 minutes. I once drove her home from a friend's place which was only a couple minutes from my house to her place in Queens. The round-trip was between 3.5 and 4 hours. The most direct route is about 20 miles, and even at mid-day is expected to take around 70-75 minutes. (Spoiler: If never goes that fast).
Oh, and in addition to the BQE, NYC has the Long Island Expressway, the most ironically and accurately named road. How? Because it's never any kind of express while you're on it, so its nickname is also self-descriptive, because it certainly is a L.I.E.
I used to drive from Raleigh to the Eastern Shore of MD and back when I was in college and I'd always take 301 instead of I95. I'll deal with a dozen stoplights along the way than the insanity that is I95 through northern virginia.
Agreed, The Long Island Expressway is more aptly called a parking lot. 3 lanes each way creeping along, bumper to bumper at 3mph for 15 miles, UGH.
I lived just north of Baltimore. I could drive to or from Richmond in 3 hours if I did it late at night. It took 6 hours if I did it during the day.
I wish to add I-95 between Richmond and Washington, DC. Traffic is near standstill.
And seriously a reason no joke, the Commonwealth of Virginia and even Amtrak needs to upgrade the tracks to create higher speeds for Rail Service. No reason why there is not a hourly train service between Richmond and Washington, DC 7 days a week.
I've heard the reason South Carolina puts no money into I-95 is because it goes through such a sparsely populated area. Apparently when 95 was built, SC wanted it to go through Charleston and the feds said no because the point of 95 was to get through SC as quickly as possible and building it through Charleston would have added many hours to travel time between Florida and the Northeast.
Well as a Floridian I’m happy they told them they couldn’t do that bc it already takes long enough to get out of Florida but I feel like that led to South Carolinas state troopers being on bs. I swear they’ll pull you over if you have a Florida license plate, no matter how good youre driving. They tryna meet that quota (and a sprinkle of racism, don’t take this the wrong way tho I love South Carolina lol).
Would alternative routes not have made sense? I-95 is by far one of the worst ways to get between New York and Boston because of its route along the shore, so a more inland route via Hartford and Springfield tends to be preferred. Could this not have been how it worked in SC?
@@pokemonred2005I think they've been very niggardly in how this was planned. If you don't want to use 95 then your only other choice is to work your way to 81. I think there should be more choices to relieve traffic on those two.
Y'all seem to be forgetting about this thing called "geography"
@@chill1224. Stop with the racism, they write all the outsiders passing through.
I'm surprised you didn't include Philadelphia. I-95 & I-76 get pretty bad and rough crisscrossing Center City and other parts of Philly.
Philly is easy to avoid: hop across the river and take the NJ Turnpike.
@@rickdesperthe way a bypass should work
5:57 SCDOT has already started upgrades to I-26.
26 in the Charleston merto is 3 to 4 lanes in each direction, expansion has started on both the nothern and southern ends of the Columbia Metro including "Malfunction Junction interchange" which is being rebuilt from a cloverleaf into a turbine interchange
95 in SC is either backed up or you're hitting potholes from Savannah to Florence
Republicans don’t like to fund infrastructure fyi
I'm a native New Yorker, and I was surprised to see NYC at #1, it's laid out fairly straightforwardly (I think) but that's probably a result of it being what I've always known as city driving. As a fellow traveler who loves seeing this country behind the wheel, I would say Boston is by far the most difficult city to drive in. Anymore, whenever I visit, I just park wherever I can and walk or catch an uber.
Also native New Yorker, he nailed it the BQE was and still the reason why I don’t like driving into BK at all. But if NYC is listed #1 here, that gives me confidence and strength to endure the roads anywhere.
I could not agree with you more about Boston. It also would have to rank as the east cost home of the rudest drivers in the land.
My parents drive from Maine to Florida and back every year and NYC is by far the part they complain about the most. They’ve been doing it for 16 years and their answer about the worst part has never changed.
The one redeeming thing about NYC is that there are a healthy number of alternate routes in many cases.
For example, coming into NYC from the northeast (Ct.), you've got I-95, the Merrit/Hutchison River Parkway, the Bronx River Parkway, I-287 (as covered) to the Saw Mill Pwy, and in a pinch, US-1.
I live in CT and on i-95 from Milford to New York City the traffic is horrible it's always horrible sometimes it should only take you maybe an hour to get there but you're definitely going to probably take you an hour hour and a half maybe even longer depending how bad the traffic is at what time you go down there
I always take I-295 around Petersburg and Richmond. It’s a good wide highway that’s lightly traveled. Been taking the trip from Florida to Boston for many years and there are alternate routes around NYC that aren’t bad. CT can be a nightmare on I-84. I-95 is always full of crumbled pavement on the right edge probably because it floods a lot and freezes.
I think an honorable mention should go to the Norfolk, VA Beach, and newport news area, absolute nightmare
That should get considerably better once the tunnel project is finished
Atlanta resident here. I'm glad someone recognizes the one thing our city has that very few other cities in the US can boast: the worst traffic in the southern US. All the things you pointed out are true. Bad public transport, a horrible lack of alternative roads, and intersections that clog up the highways. I was at an event with people from multiple US cities, and nearly every one of them was surprised at how bad the traffic was.
The Dunwoody area, right at the north of the perimeter, is currently undergoing one of the largest traffic reconstruction efforts I've ever seen in my life. Every intersection is being completely reworked with a ton of bypass roads, giant exchange bridges, and practically every intersection is changing to a diverging diamond intersection. I'm not sure how much it'll help, since reducing capacity on the highway will only encourage more people to start using it, which will just put traffic right back where it was before all the construction.
The last few weeks traffic on 285 between Dunwoody at GA 400 and i-75 has been absolutely horrible, even at times of the day that shouldn't have bad traffic. The reason? They're building a replacement bridge for one of the smaller roads going over 285. The act of closing down that single small bridge is causing substantial diversions to the interstate exit, which has two interlocked roundabout that backs up the traffic trying to exit the interstate. I've never seen such a giant traffic mess caused by shutting down a single minor bridge when there are four other bridges to cross the same section of 285 within a mile. It's currently graveyard shift hours, and Atlanta and New York are the only eastern cities with any traffic congestion. We need help.
The greater ATL metro road system is so overtaxed, so taut and so reliant on just a few corridors that just one problem that seems like it should be localized and minor can have an effect miles and miles away.
It's entirely possible for a problem on 400 to ripple effect and screw up going east to Augusta on I-20. It's crazy.
Just north of his I-95 starting point, there is a stretch through Florence SC with 6 lanes but other than that, I-95 from Jacksonville Fl to Richmond VA is a nightmare.
I drive through Baltimore and Philadelphia and you nailed it.
Atlanta is like driving in LA or San Francisco (pre- Newsom apocalypse). I used to drive from SC to MS and I’d plan my trip based on the time of day I hit Atlanta.
I drive through New York metro several times a year and it is a nightmare. Not only is the traffic horrible, the scenery is disgusting, especially in the Newark NJ are which looks like the highways are also garbage receptacles.
I absolutely hate passing though Atlanta and wish there was an alternative interstate that went from 75 south of Macon that went through Columbus and to Birmingham. That would reduce some of the traffic going through ATL and could provide an alternative route for north-south travelers.
Mike you have some very good points! From driving OTR every place you mentioned is best to go through at night.
On I-95 in SC you have a critical bridge over Lake Marion. It is well obsolete with no shoulders and is prone to accidents, especially coming over the high crown of the bridge. There are plans to build a replacement bridge within the next few years. If the current bridge ever has to be closed for repairs you’d be faced with a 70 mile detour.
For years we drove from Boston to the west coast of Florida mostly on I-95, though we did deviate and go over the old Tappan Zee Bridge and down the New Jersey Turnpike. My first exposure to the Washington, DC Beltway was on a Friday afternoon at 5:00 during a snowstorm. While some sections of I-95 were easy and boring, some of the northern sections were stressful. After too many close calls, we eventually elected to fly to Sarasota.
I love the tappan zee bridge. My family has used it many times to get from NJ to CT, and it never fails.
I've driven through all these cities and highways you mentioned and can agree with the order of difficulty. I could feel the stress of driving through Atlanta and New York especially. Atlanta seems more stressful because I like the New York City scenery much better. Driving in the U.S. seems like a dream compared to other places I've seen like Lagos, Nigeria or Bogota, Colombia.
Be difficult to look at anything in Atlanta with every person doing nearly 100mph, it's rediculous, traffic up ahead almost slamming back of other cars, because of everybody doing top speed
@@mtanyctrainatlantamartatra7164 get the fuck out the fast lane then. signed, ATL resident.
@@mtanyctrainatlantamartatra7164 I have to agree. The reason why the traffic in Atlanta is so slow is because everyone is going 100mph.
Give Buffalo, Rochester, and Burlington VT a visit when you get a chance, beautiful cities
Sorry Danation. Beautiful weather in those regions from about May 1 until Mid November. However with the endless winters and 🥶 ❄️ from around Thanksgiving until Mid April almost every year, no thanks on living those locations year round. 😭
I often drive from Charlotte to Pensacola, and I have to plan my trip around avoiding Atlanta at peak hours. I find it easier to drive thru the downtown connector rather than I-285. Also, I have driven Charlotte to Orlando twice and I’m glad I’m not the only one who dreads that awful section of I-95
It's nice to hear an explanation as to why traffic in Atlanta is so bad. I love visiting, but driving around and through the sprawl is a nightmare, to the point that I arrive to everything an hour or two early because I can't be sure there won't be a traffic standstill when I arrive.
I am surprised Boston wasn’t on this list over Baltimore.
@@cad5000 agreed. people treat the freeways in boston like a battle royale and the surface roads have one of if not the most bizarre layout ive ever seen. not to mention since theyre old, theyre also extremely narrow.
I tried to avoid the ATL beltway by concocting my own bypass out of two lane highways that appeared on the map to be sufficiently far from the perimeter. It was a fool's errand 😮
Got very familiar with the 287 bypass around NYC for 6 weeks back in 2004. I was stationed in MA (just outside of Boston) and had to go to what was Joint Base McGuire-Dix-whatever for NCO Academy; I drove back/forth every weekend to be home with my wife and young kids and 287 was my route of choice to avoid NYC proper. Didn't mind paying the $6.00 toll on the Tappan Zee bridge, as it was called back then, and I had a 2001 VW Jetta VR6 that I loved to drive.
Also, to piggyback on being stationed near Boston, MA, I would have put Boston at the #5 spot over Baltimore. Logan Int'l was only 13 miles from where I was stationed, but it would take longer to drive there than it would to the airport in Manchester, NH, even though it was 55 miles away. On one occasion, it took nearly 3 hours to get to Logan...UGH! And the Ted Williams tunnel collapse happened while I was in MA. And MA just sucks all around, especially the MASSholes on the road...lol.
Atlanta should share #1 with NYC. NYC is bad mainly because of the dense population...if NYC's population was the same as ATL's, do you think traffic would be as bad?
Charlotte, where I'm from and reside close to right now, would probably be #7 on a top ten list and will most likely crack the top 5 by 2030...
Darkhorse top 5 by 2035: Asheville, NC.
@JimAllen-Persona I agree totally on the names of the Triboro and Interboro. They're just such classy names that go with the NYC geography. Where else in the U.S. can you have a Triborough Bridge? Nowhere
@JimAllen-PersonaI’m with you 100% on the Tappan Zee and Triboro. I just can’t get used to calling them by their changed names. I never drive on the Interboro so it doesn’t carry the same kind of personal weight for me as the others do. Funny how it all works.
I wish I was only paying 6 dollars to go through NYC. Whenever I visit my friend in Staten Island I have to pay 10 for the Triboro, 10 for the Verrazano (10 more for the battery tunnel if I don't want to wait 3 years on the Brooklyn Bridge. And if I ever want to go to NJ and come back its 21 bucks to enter!!
Say JB-MDL
Agree with you on Atlanta being number one with NYC, the horrible traffic and Atlanta's driving reckless and to fast when there's traffic up ahead almost nearly slamming into cars stuck in traffic!
I haven't watched yet but guessing Atlanta is in this video
Yeah, I figured it would be there...#2 even...lol. I had to drive home from dropping my parents at the airport a couple of weeks ago on a Sunday and there was a huge wreck on 75/85 Northbound which would be my way back home, so I took 285 around the east side and it was bumper to bumper as well on a Sunday afternoon. They have found some kinda room on the top end perimeter because they are building extra express toll lanes. That seems to be the states answer to Atlanta traffic...build express toll lanes on everything.
Really the only thing they CAN do is build up and tolls make 💵
If you’re traveling up I-85 there is almost a 100% gurantee for traffic on the Downtown Connector & I-85 from the Spaghetti Junction to Jimmy Carter Blvd; sometimes even as far as I-985.
Oh but of course
Yep
Yeah
I often think up the worst scenarios as like driving threw a nyc tunnel and vehicle breakdown tying up tunnel system.
Coming from the south (trips from Virginia to Rhode Island), a combination of the Garden State Parkway and the Tappan Zee Bridge was supposed to add an hour of time. The Cross Brox was so backed up as usual that it only cost a few minutes. Surprised? Not really.
I totally agree with your NY rank. As a Long Islander who needed to get to PA when the City got that recent torrential rain/flood, it took me three hours just to get past the GW. You got a 👍 from me.
When bypassing NYC, I always take the Garden State Parkway to I-287 and the Tappan Zee.
During my 70 odd years of life (most in the SE Pa and Long Island w/ the last 12 years in FL), I've had the pain / pleasure of traversing each and every one of these cities either as a destination or passing through to somewhere else and agree for the most part. Would have liked to see your choice of (dis)honorable mentions - mine would be Boston and Miami. Living on Long Island for 29 years had me adapt to trading distance for congestion more often than not and when we had to go to PA to visit family / friends we almost always had to leave early enough to get through NYC before 6:30 AM or after 10 PM; fortunately all non driving family could sleep well in the car. Would often trade the cost of taking either of the two ferry's to CT when we could as both the wife and kids enjoyed it (weather permitting). Agree with gannon3816's comment about Philly to VA and Richmond to DC.
I fully expected Miami to be on this list. 95/75/dolphin, etc are basically parking lots of most of the day. (75 was not as bad when I lived there, but have heard it's gotten so much worse). Though admittedly, I'd take Miami rush hour over driving 95 through SC so I get it. Last time I was in Boston they were still finishing the big dig, so... It's been a while. lol
Good insights into Atlanta's car traffic nightmare. There were some specific planning mistakes, not just population growth. Thanks for the info.
#3 makes me feel validated in my feelings about that lol I’ve ran my fair share of freight (trucker) north on 95 and I despise that section of 95 going right into South Carolina more than any other section of it (except maybe DC because I have never not been stuck in traffic up there)
Glad to see that stretch of SC I-95 listed. That is awful. It has the accordion effect going on. You're in stop in go traffic, then it opens up, only to return to stop and go. It's so bad we now plan around it and try to stop somewhere just before the bad stretch for the night so that we can get down to GA as early as we can.
An alternate route is I26 to North Charleston to I-526 to Savannah Hwy. (Hwy 17) then on to Savannah. It's slower but has more rural scenery.
I think we've been on that road when we wanted to take a more scenic route from Charleston to Savannah. Thanks.@@alexmcintosh-fq2bp
This is the video I pull up right after getting in after being stuck on the Beltway at 8:00 due to a traffic accident. DC is horrible. I go to Baltimore often but I usually go Rte 50 to I-97 which makes it easier. But the worst one on this list for me is SC. I expect Atlanta and NYC to be bad but South Carolina! I drove back and forth between DC and Orlando last December and the drive through SC was absolutely draining. I even goggled “why is I-95 traffic so bad in South Carolina” while I was stopped and not moving on the highway. Thank God for Google Maps helping me to avoid some of it.
Made the drive from the northeast to costal Georgia a few times now, and I-95 from I-26 to the Savannah area is always a PAIN. Not only does traffic seem to spawn out of nowhere, the road is quite literally falling apart. Doesnt feel like it so much as been paved over in 50 years.
I'd love to hear your take on traveling through the Hampton Roads metro area in Virginia. We have three ways to cross the James River, yet two of them are so inundated with traffic that they often just result in people staying on the Peninsula or in Southside. Then there's the James River Bridge, which is probably the longest route to get between the Peninsula and Southside. And then, in Southside, if you make one wrong turn or miss your exit, you end up going through a toll area that has no toll plaza, getting hit with a $14 (last I checked) toll if you don't have an EZPass. On top of that, going from one part of Southside to another can be as short as a 15 minute drive (toll route) or an hour (no tolls). It's almost like they're punishing you for not having an EZPass. And for those who don't go through areas where one would be useful too often, it just doesn't pay to have one.
Hampton Roads sucks. They built the coliseum faster than they’ve expanded the 64 high rise.
@@kpauljohnson I wish I left 40 years ago. I envy you
I worked in Hampton Roads for a while and I have worked in Northern Virginia. Northern Virginia has longer backups.
Remember the good people of Hampton roads have repeatedly voted NO for a train that would ease traffic significantly through some of the major hotspots
Try leaving Tysons Corner(headed in either direction)at 5pm going to MD.....
Mike, I totally agree with list and order. Just drove from FL to VT and back this year. Went thru all those cities. I95 thru Ft Lee was horribly depressing! My trip thru DC went surprisingly smooth. Gods were smiling on us.
The history of I-70 and I-83 in Baltimore explains the weird terminus of the former and the incomplete feeling of the latter. They were originally designed to meet in the downtown area, with I-70 following US-40 into the city (see also: Road to Nowhere), meeting with I-83 near the Shot Tower, then continuing on through Canton to meet I-95. This would have dramatically changed the look of several portions of Baltimore: West Baltimore would have lost its residential identity, Canton would never have gained its, and the Inner Harbor wouldn't have developed into the jewel of the city that it was through the 90's and 00's. Granted, that jewel needs a bit of polishing now...
Correct. The residents of Fells Point and Federal Hill apparently actively opposed any highway linkage to I-83 through their neighborhoods. It would have annihilated these historic neighborhoods without really improving through traffic in the Northeast corridor, IMHO.
Spot on about Atlanta. Just a lot of short-sighted planning years ago that did not anticipate the population growth in the 90's and today. By the time they wanted to actually do something to alleviate some of the problems (Northern Arc), it was too late. Now we're just stuck with what we've got. Your comment about the interchanges was a great insight to the whole thing. They just cannot handle the traffic, so everything gets bottlenecked wherever you go.
Unfortunately, other than a 10 mile section of I 95 near Hilton Head and the state line, and the I 26 interchange, SC will probably not do anything about 95 for a long time.
The area just doesn't bring as much economic value to the state compared to I 85 which has been in a state of construction for over 5 years due to economic importance.
It is important to consider that the Backroads can bypass that highway until the Savannah river where there are not alot of options to cross other than I 95 or the city of Savannah.
Yeah the lack of economic value may also be another factor to why I-73 most likely won’t ever get built to Myrtle Beach (which is much needed) yet if it does get done, it may actually boost the economic value of I-95 possibly
Living in Greenville, SC I have been through Atlanta more times than I can count and have gotten to know a few ways through and around the main traffic patterns if there is a problem. The dumbest part of their interstate is definitely the convergence of two major interstates in the middle of down town. Go just after 10 if you can and leave before three and you'll usually be fine though. The thing about Atlanta is the more lanes you put in the more lanes people have to move through to make their exit and that's where the problems come in. When you know where you're going and pay attention it's actually fairly easy to get around Atlanta. If you think you're going to get across eight lanes of traffic going 80 MPH because you were looking at your phone and didn't see the exit signs starting five miles in advance then you're S.O.L and will have to back track. If I need to get somewhere west of Atlanta then I go very early, like before 6 AM or just wait until about 10 AM and have rarely had an issue. I've used 120 and 400 on numerous occasions and not had a problem with those either. And the far east perimeter of 285 is rarely as bad as the north and west sides where all the people go and the southern side going towards the airport.
In my experience, southern Florida, West Palm Beach to Miami, had the worst traffic I ever had to negotiate. And while New York traffic is tough, I've always passed through or around it in reasonable time, due to the various options available, usually via GW Bridge or even Westside drive and one of the tunnels. The video misses the X-County Expressway, and Hudson PKWY option and mischaracterizes the I 287, option, which, coming from the north, feeds nicely onto the Garden State PKWY, and eventually the Jersey Turnpike... no need to loop back towards the the city in the south.
I left the east coast 30 years ago. I don't miss the driving there at all. Iowa, cheap land, cheap food, easy commute.
Not sure if you consider it part of the NYC metro, but I-95 in Connecticut is often a traffic nightmare.
agreed, its neck and neck between South Carolina and Western CT for the worst traffic on the east coast. Both are way worse than New York Thruway.
Absolutely! I-95 from Stamford to Bridgeport is a nightmare.
Provided you're not in a truck or pulling a trailer, the best route through Connecticut and New York is the Merritt Parkway-Hutchinson Parkway route. Either to 287 or down the Henry Hudson Parkway to the GWB. I-95 is a no-go.
@@cisium1184 When I moved to Florida, I asked Triple A to avoid NYC, so they got me 84 to 81 to the Blue Ridge. Beautiful area if you want to avoid NYC to DC traffic.
@@cisium1184 Or for those of you going to & from Boston/Northern New England to bypass NYC Proper is this other alternative. I admit it still gets busy sometimes but not as bad as the “parking lot” of I-95 aka the CT Turnpike.
That is to use I-84 to I-684 to 287 to the Tappan Zee/Cuomo Bridge and follow The Garden State Parkway or even Interstate 287 to drive to say Central/Southern New Jersey and the Philly/Delaware region as well. Especially those of you wanting the NJ Turnpike or I-95.
Grew up in New England and went to grad school at Rutgers, so I've done a lot of drives through the NYC area. It would never have occurred to me to take the BQE. For me, the main two options are GW Bridge/Cross-Bronx or Tappan Zee Bridge/287/84. If for some reason you're driving at a low traffic time of day (early morning or late at night) the Cross-Bronx can be faster. But almost always I would take the Tappan Zee. Mike downplays the speed of this route by tying it to the 287 loop in New Jersey. But you can easily get to the Tappan Zee by taking the NJ Turnpike to the GS Parkway in North Jersey.
I have never had a problem with Atlanta. However, when I drive through Atlanta I usually get there late at night. If I am going South I get a hotel just south of Atlanta. When going North I get one to the North.
That way I pass through Atlanta late at night when the roads are not too bad and then in the morning I have already passed through the town so don't have to worry about it.
There is no comparison between Atlanta and DC. DC has major issues with limited river crossings. DC has longest commuting time.
Boston to Florida: 90 to 84 to the end in Scranton. South on 81 (there has been construction between here and Harrisburg for 30 years) as far as possible, moving back over to 95 past at least Baltimore. Beltway around DC and then it's free flow to Orlando.
I kind of consider Baltimore and dc to be the same metro area, they're so close and thier population centers effect eachothers traffic
Loved your intro scene of I-95 in Wilmington! Brought back memories. A million ramps at 60 mph and if you're getting onto 202 to King of Prussia (with 5 major highways all converging at once) you quietly lose your mind.
I recently drove on the Jersey Pike to go through NYC going to Rhode Island. I left the last service plaza on the Pike at 10am or so and it took me 1 hour and 40 minutes to get across the GW. That is the worst experience I have had in the last 25 years of driving through NYC. Choices coming from coastal Virginia - Not many!
Get off the New Jersey Turnpike to the Garden State Parkway take that to I-287 to I-95. Anything is better than the GW.
@@mrmuffer69 I'm going to try this in a couple weeks. I hear the GSP is pretty awful too though.
Pennsylvania Turnpike heading towards Jersey late at night/Earl morning especially when raining. An absolute nightmare for any driver.
Where is Boston? Have you really driven during rush hour here?
For NYC, you forgot the Belt Parkway, that routes along the South Shore of Queens and Brooklyn and the Staten Island Expressway that connects the Verrazano Narrows Bridge to the NJ Turnpike
Mileage Mike, you probably need to reshuffle your worst areas in the New York region. Take a closer look at I-95 in southwest Connecticut (Fairfield County).
The good thing about living in the NYC metro area is mass transit. LIRR, NJ Transit, PATH, Metro North RR (I call them the Connecticut Cattle Cars) and the regular MTA Subway make getting to and moving about Manhattan and some areas of the outer boroughs as stress free as possible.
The Washington DC Baltimore metropolitan area could use a super bypass around the entire area.
US 301. 4-laned for basically its entire route between Richmond amd Wilmington except the Potomac River bridge, which is getting replaced with a wider bridge as we speak!
@@skypesos I'm referring to a true bypass around the western side of the area.
@@skypesosthat bridge is finished and operational 👍
Great video sir!, of these picks and from what I’ve personally experienced I would say Atlanta is definitely a trip. One thing that plagues the East coast is just the fact that the population in most of the states and the metros that they bear have significant population, sprawl, and people from other states traveling or commuting for work. FL alone with over 22 million people, various metro areas, and tourist is a prime example. The 2 lanes for I95 in SC will more then likely cause you to worry about one thing an accident happening, if said accident happens well then it’s time to wait. Most of the counties that I95 goes through in the Carolinas and Georgia are relatively sparsely populated. There are stretches of I95 that I really enjoy and ones that I don’t but going from Emporia, VA to Port Saint Lucie, FL. most times it isn’t to bad.
I’ve driven I95 from Maine to Florida many times and it was always nerve wracking to say the least. I would call it the most dangerous road in the country and it would still be even if you doubled the width for the entire distance where possible. The Connecticut section from New Haven to the New York line averages an exit/entrance less than every mile.
Always exit I-95 and get on I-287 (first exit in NY) to I-287 to the Tappen Zee to the GSP Exit 14A to the New Jersey Turnpike, best route. That's what I use coming from NH.
@@mrmuffer69
I used that route most of the time then taking the orange state parkway to the NJ turnpike.
If I were going to go through the NYC area coming from New England, I would never take I95 in Southern Connecticut. I would always take 84 to NYS and then head south to the Tappan Zee Bridge.
@@rickdesper
Many times I considered using the Merritt Parkway but ended up just sucking it up and staying on I95.
@@rickdesper
I should add that I always stopped at my nieces house in RI for a day,with easy access to I95. Coming straight from my home in ME I would probably have gone through Hartford.
You neglected to mention the abhorent toll prices in crossing the state line from jersey to new york. if you need to drive that daily you might as well put your car on pontoons and paddle it around manhattan
While I'd be hard-pressed to disagree with this list, I will also mention that the worst traffic jam I ever encountered was in the relatively modestly-sized area of Scranton and Wilkes-barre PA. It ended up taking us approximately 4 hours averaging around 12 mph.
Yes from Petersburg, VA to the Georgia state line on 95 is hell with two lanes i see in the Fayetteville area they're making three lanes but its to much thru traffic nowadays for two lanes this is not the 60's
About your #3, at least there are plenty of back roads you can take to avoid the traffic, since you’re driving through the wide open South. Yes it might take longer, since the speed limits are lower, and you might go through some crummy old towns, but scenery is subjective. Besides, it’s not like having to get past a major city next to a large body of water, which plays a critical factor in limiting your route options.
Sounds nice but a family with kids from Ohio driving to Disney isn't trying to drive through random back roads in middle of nowhere through a state they know nothing about.
Backroads work well until you get to the Savannah River. There are not alot of crossings other than I 95 near there.
The thing about that section is it's not that there is bumper to bumper traffic, it's more that section gets congested with slower moving vehicles like trucks and moves much slower than the speed limit. So you're still going faster than the backroads but slow for the interstate. However if there is an accident, yes the backroads may be more viable but there are not a lot of options.
I do think it would be a more scenic drive, though I am from MD so who am I to judge.
I guess it's just that I'm a conservative man who is so damn sick of the liberal drama going on in the cities, so seeing some southern rural scenery is a breath of fresh air for me personally.
@@DanielP-jq4dj It is pretty through there. Especially going through the tree filled swampland
Living in Philly but growing up in the Jacksonville area, I make the trip up and down I-95 quite often. Absolutely hate the corridor from the big Alexandria flyover down to about Richmond. It is rarely quick and you'll go from 70-75 to dead stop quite often, for no apparent reason. Runner up is the SC corridor you mentioned. We call it "2 lane land".
I was a little startled that Boston wasn’t on the list! Anyone who has to cross Boston to go to Cape Cod (as in anyone from ME or NH) knows that that trip needs careful timing as MA-3 gets backed up pretty easy. Coming from the northwest or west of Boston the trip to the Cape won’t be so bad. I still remember driving up Route 3 on a Saturday, we were going from Cohasset to Cambridge. It was packed and some poor women was stuck, I guess maybe her clutch failed, in the left lane, he head was on her steering wheel like “I’m stuck dead in the middle of RT 3 and I’m the traffic jam” (she wasn’t, it was heavy anyway)
I live in far northern NYS and would like to point out that if avoiding Boswash is important there are numerous ways to do that. We used to drive to Florida a little less than once a year, usually at Christmas, and generally in the winter. Our choice was I-81 or connecting to the NJ turnpike and 95 from there. We only did that once, knowing there was a snowstorm in the mountains, it was rather…rough. No snow but we didn’t get as far south the first day as we might have wished.
Another time we went down 81 in spite of a storm, except for a stretch in Northern VA it wasn’t that bad. 81 was backed up, and we went on US11 for a few miles, the only disagreeable surprise is that as Winter hardy people we expected a stretch of road designated Truck 11 would be much better cleared than it was. Should’ve gone through town!
We were also once caught in that stretch of I-95 in SC, northbound and I was thinking “There’s no “Here” here, where tf are all these cars coming from?”
I guess one explanation could be that Boston is the northern end of the NE travel corridor, meaning that a lot of people coming up to Boston probably aren't passing through on their way to somewhere else up to NH or Maine. So although you do have a lot of traffic issues like anywhere else, you may not have the overall volume of other places - such as Atlanta, where we get so many people passing through on their way to/from Disney.
Absolutely love your channel dude! Thanks for what you do.
I've driven thru each of these places multiple times and completely agree with this list. The best big city in the east to pass thru is Pittsburgh because none of the thru routes pass into the central city. I wonder why more highway designers in the 50s didn't use this strategy. Long distance freeways should have been built to pass by on the outskirts with spur routes into the city.
Lexington Kentucky is like that too, Eisenhower never intended for the interstate highway system to go through the big cities but the mayors of certain cities begged for the highways to pass through, turned out to be a big mistake as it divided many cities.
I've been to Pittsburgh, and yes the highway set up is a joke. I merge right onto one interstate, then the GPS says "in 500 ft, exit right". Now I gotta cross over 4 lanes
Well sounds like you haven't lived there so pittsburgh might of seemed fine but I lived there in 2009 and the reality is with th construction at the time it was a hour plus to get across the city on the interstate. I would sit in non moving traffic bumper to bumper on the interstate 30 mins plus and that was only a mile or two into the trip. Now it might not be so bad but for that year It worse than NYC. I drove in NYC the same year and it was cake compared to the Burgh.
Because traffic engineers don't use logic in planning these things, their goal is to create the utmost congestion possible. As to why they didn't use that strategy in the 50's of bypass roads with spurs, it's because you didn't have the amount of commuters going in/out of the city like we do now. People tended to work where they lived, and job hopping wasn't as common either, so you could guarantee that you'd be at one job your entire career. Also a lot less population back then with a lot fewer cars - most households only had 1 car. Now every household has 3 or 4.
Lived in the burgh all my life, and it is split up into four areas (north, east, south, and west) Only the north goes to the city without a tunnel, where every other direction you have to drive through a tunnel. If one only stays on there own side of the city, traffic is not bad, but going to any other area takes you through a tunnel and right in the middle of downtown Pittsburgh (not including the turnpike from east to north).
If you have to drive from the Airport (west) to the east side of the city during anytime around rush hour, expect 2 hours of your life to be in traffic.
As a OTR truck driver an Atlanta native i 1000% agree with this list
I drove through Atlanta once. Never again! It was 5 lanes of chaos. I remember I had to get 2 lanes over, which I found out late. I didn't know how I was going to be able to get over in time. Luckily, after I put my left turn signal on, the cars let me switch lanes. I'll give them credit for that. Maybe it was southern hospitality, or maybe it was the fact that they knew how it could get a bit dangerous if someone desperately tries to make sure they don't miss their exit, so being courteous is the safe way to go.
and that was a good day - just imagine if you were here on a bad day...
Great list! I am surprised Miami did not make the list
You nailed the problems with traveling thru Atlanta
DC, Atlanta, and New York are by far the worst cities that I've driven through on the east coast. Miami is an honorable mention just because it has the dumbest and most reckless drivers in the country. I agree about that section in South Carolina. I used to drive from Fayetteville, NC to Jacksonville often and it was always congested and slow.
I've driven though Atlanta, won't be doing that again and a couple of trips through Philly which is just soul crushing.
As someone who lives in the DC area, driving to any city from DC is a nightmare. 495 might be the worst highway in America. No matter what time of day or day of the week, it is always stop and go traffic
I assume Boston would have been #6. I-93, even after the Big Dig, is still brutal.
i kept expecting boston.
When Washington DC was founded in 1790, it was considered a "central" location for the new capital.... though it took 3 days to get there from Philadelphia, 130 miles away. Nowadays we can fly to California in 4-5 hours... but it can still take a day to get here from Philly. ;)
Baltimore really ain't that bad traffic-wise as long as you stay off 695. Now for the Suburbanites that depend on 695, that's a different story. But if you're driving thru, never get off I-95.
Especially true for the western half of 695, that can turn into the thunderdome real quick during rush hour.
So very true... Take it from me... a "BaltiMORON".@@SINREKA
I knew this was going to be a good one. It's like asking "Which gas station in town has the worst sushi bar?" (The worst one in my town is run by a Chinese lady who has a bait shop and buffet inside the gas station. Sometimes you see the distressed bait shop inventory on the sushi bar). My brother-in-law used to deliver cars to Jacksonville and Miami. He asked me which city had the worst drivers. I said Miami because their drivers flip you off after nearly running you off the road tail gaiting and swerving across lanes, whereas in Jacksonville they are just aggressive drivers without personal malice. Also agree with your takes on Baltimore, D.C., and that awful stretch of two-lane I-95 in South Carolina. I sometimes take the secondary routes that cut diagonal across S.C. to avoid I-95. I likewise by-pass Atlanta on secondary roads 40 miles east or west of the center of town. I expected this video to be a good one, and it was, confirming my worst experiences of difficult East Coast urban areas to transit. Due to increasing congestion, the Interstates are not always the best routes any more.
Omg it’s almost as if we should stop investing in more lanes and start building decent transit 🙃
Never going to happen we’re too individualistic
I travel several times a year from NH to Phili area ALL mapping software takes me over the GW. No way no how. I always use I-287 over the Tappen Zee (it's still the Tappen Zee) to the GSP to either US-1 or the New Jersey Turnpike.
Really surprised DC isn't higher on the list. The beltway and the feeder highways are bumper to bumper pretty much all day and are slow even on the weekends and at night. It is difficult to get into the heart of the city BY DESIGN (they wanted to make it hard to mount any direct land attack on the capital) so it forces most traffic to the beltway and then jams the surface streets. I can't speak to Atlanta, but DC has frequently been listed as one of the very worst traffic cities in the nation. Plus the issues really extend far into Virginia (on 95) and Maryland (270). A weekend drive from the DC area to Richmond (~100 miles) can easily take 4+ hours some days.
I like your content, but I would love it even more if you added chapters! I watch the whole videos, but would like a quick reference link to share with friends that might find a segment interesting.
As a native of Delaware, I cannot express to you the sheer excitement I felt when you showed my commute on 95 at the beginning of the video. We never get highlights for anything, so thank you for that 😂❤
That road on holidays 😰 It’s totally static. Being next to a booming shopping mall doesn’t help.