10 American Cities With the Worst Commutes

New York has the longest, while Tulsa has the shortest
Posted Jun 15, 2025 8:26 AM CDT
US Cities With the Best, Worst Commutes
A traffic jam in Los Angeles.   (Getty/egdigital)

The average commute time in the US is 26.8 minutes, according to an analysis of 2023 Census Bureau data at Yardi Kube. That's up 0.4 minutes from the previous year, likely the result of a greater number of people returning to the office. The site crunches all the related data on that trend and also highlights the best and worst cities for commuters:

Longest commutes:

  1. New York City, 40.1 minutes
  2. Chicago, 33.0
  3. Los Angeles, 31.4
  4. Philadelphia, 31.1
  5. San Francisco, 30.9
  6. Long Beach, California, 30.4
  7. Washington, DC, 30.4
  8. Boston, 30.2
  9. Oakland, California, 29.9
  10. Baltimore, 28.5

Shortest commutes

  1. Tulsa, Oklahoma, 19.1
  2. Wichita, Kansas, 19.3
  3. Omaha, Nebraska, 20.0
  4. Memphis, Tennessee, 20.9
  5. Minneapolis, 21.0
  6. Columbus, Ohio, 21.1
  7. Kansas City, Missouri, 22.1
  8. Oklahoma City, 22.1
  9. Tucson, Arizona, 22.1
  10. Milwaukee, 22.2
See the full analysis. (Or check out other lists.)

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