Austin’s roadways are no picnic, but a new report by WalletHub puts none other than the Texas Capital on its list of the top 10 best U.S. cities to drive in for 2025.
The annual report examined 100 of the largest U.S. cities to determine their “driver friendliness” using 30 relevant metrics across four key dimensions: Costs for vehicle ownership and maintenance, traffic and infrastructure, safety, and vehicle and maintenance accessibility.
Austin came in as the 9th most driver-friendly U.S. city with high marks in areas like cost of vehicle ownership and maintenance, and (surprisingly) traffic and infrastructure.
The Gulf Coast city of Corpus Christi came in as the No. 1 best city to drive in nationwide. Other Texas cities that made the top 10 include Laredo (No. 5), Lubbock (No. 6), and Plano (No. 8).
According to WalletHub’s findings, Austin drivers benefit from having the 15th best ownership and vehicle maintenance costs in the country. This category analyzed factors like average monthly car insurance premiums, auto maintenance costs, average gas prices, the cost of a new car, and other metrics.
The report additionally rated Austin’s traffic and infrastructure the 19th best nationwide, which considered road and bridge quality, average commute times, the annual rate of hours spent in traffic congestion per vehicle commuter, and more.
According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, about 87 percent of a household’s daily travel is done in personal vehicles, underscoring just how dependent Americans are on their cars rather than public transportation methods like busses and trains.
“Drivers annually spend an average of more than 369 hours on the road,” the report’s author wrote. “That’s 15.4 days. Add the costs of wasted time and fuel due to traffic congestions, and our collective tab comes to about $771 per driver each year.”
Other Texas cities that earned spots on the list include Arlington (No. 18), Garland (No.24), San Antonio (No. 25), Fort Worth (No. 27), Irving (No. 29), El Paso (No. 30), and Dallas (No. 47). Garland also earned a small shout out in the report for having the 5th-most auto-repair shops per capita in the nation, while Laredo topped a separate ranking of U.S. cities with the lowest average gas prices.
Poor Houston was No. 66, the lowest-ranked Texas city on the list for 2025.
WalletHub’s top 10 best U.S. cities to drive in for 2025 are:
No. 1 – Corpus Christi, TexasNo. 2 – Greensboro, North CarolinaNo. 3 – Boise, IdahoNo. 4 – Scottsdale, ArizonaNo. 5 – Laredo, TexasNo. 6 – Lubbock, TexasNo. 7 – Birmingham, AlabamaNo. 8 – Plano, TexasNo. 9 – Austin, TexasNo. 10 – Winston-Salem, North Carolina