The Top 5 WORST Cities to Drive Through on the East Coast

As a life long east coast resident, the drive from Philly to VA is soul sucking. Richmond to DC too.

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.

The problem with Atlanta is the constant lane switching in an environment that is actively hostile to lane switching.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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'm glad you put South Carolina on here, 95 in SC is horrendous.

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 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!

THANK YOU for including I 95 in South Carolina...not only overcrowded but potholes...semis...crazy drivers...yikes.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.