Concern over gas prices is always high, but right now, it’s at a fever pitch. It’s one of the main topics of conversation these days (even when people don’t know what they’re talking about) and we’re all looking for ways to save money at the pump.
Your driving habits play a big role in how much gas your car guzzles and, so, how much cash you fork over for it—but your “habits” may not be entirely to blame here. Your city can shoulder some of the responsibility, too. Let’s check out data from the Texas A&M Transportation Institute and INRIX to see in which regions commuters consume excess fuel due to congestion.
The worst gas guzzlers among very large cities
We’ll look at the top five cities in each size category as determined by the 2021 Urban Mobility Report. First up is “very large.” Here are the areas that wasted the most gas in 2020 and how many gallons were lost by each commuter on average.
New York: 23 gallons
Houston: 21 gallons
Boston: 20 gallons
San Francisco: 17 gallons
Chicago: 16 gallons
This data is from 2020, a year when travel took a significant dip because of the pandemic and gas prices were considerably lower than they are now. We can assume that gas waste is up again presently, as cars are being used to get people to work, school, and vacations more than they were in lockdown times. Let’s use the average prices of gas from 2020 and the available numbers from the report to determine what that waste translated to in cash—but with the understanding that with travel and gas prices up now, these numbers are even lower than what we can assume fuel waste costs the average commuter in 2022.
For instance, the average price of gas in New York in 2020 was $2.18, which means the average commuter wasted about $50 per year. Even if New Yorkers were only wasting 23 gallons of gas this year, too (they’re not; it’s surely higher), with the average price per gallon hovering around $4 so far this year and assuming it holds until December, each commuter is looking at nearly $100 in waste, at least.
The worst gas wasters among large areas
The top five in “large areas” in 2020 were:
Austin, Texas: 15 gallons
Cleveland: 15 gallons
Oklahoma City: 15 gallons
Sacramento, Calif.: 15 gallons
San Antonio: 15 gallons
Two Texas cities, Austin and San Antonio, made this list, both with 15 gallons wasted per commuter, on average, in 2020. The average price of gas in the state that year was around $1.90, which means drivers in both cities lost about $28.54 to waste.
The top gas wasters among medium-sized areas
Moving on, we’ll find the five worst gas wasters in “medium average”-sized regions in 2020:
Bridgeport/Stamford, Conn.: 16 gallons
Albany/Schenectady, N.Y.: 15 gallons
Buffalo, N.Y.: 14 gallons
El Paso, Texas: 14 gallons
Fresno, Calif.: 14 gallons
We’ve already done the math for Texas and New York, so let’s look at California’s average gas price from 2020 to determine how much Fresno commuters wasted that year, on average. California averaged a price of around $3.13 per gallon that year, meaning drivers in Fresno wasted about $43.89.
And small areas aren’t immune, either
Finally, we have the breakdown of what the typical commuter in a “small average” area wasted in gas in 2020. Here are the top five worst cities:
Corpus Christi, Texas: 14 gallons
Stockton, Calif.: 14 gallons
Poughkeepsie, N.Y.: 13 gallons
Boulder, Colo.: 12 gallons
Madison, Wis.: 12 gallons
We’ll crunch the numbers for Wisconsin this time to see how much money basically evaporated out of the tanks of Madison drivers in 2020. The average price per gallon in that state at the time was $1.27, which means those commuters lost out on about $15.24.
Worried by these findings, especially knowing they’re certainly worse now? Here are seven ways you can save money on gas.