Seven Arizona Cities Shine in WalletHub’s “Best Places to Drive” Rankings

Driving in America is often a drag: drivers spend hundreds of hours each year stalled in traffic, shelling out for repairs, and navigating potholes and inconsistent signal timing. Regional disparities in road quality, congestion, and car maintenance costs exacerbate inequality in mobility and commuting time.

Arizona’s presence with seven cities on WalletHub’s list is more than luck—it’s a signal that local governments, regional planning agencies, and state transportation departments are synchronizing priorities around mobility. The state’s vast geography and sprawling growth patterns make seamless driving harder than in compact cities, yet Arizona is proving it can punch above its weight.

When a city ranks well for “driver-friendliness,” it means a balanced performance across cost of ownership, safety, traffic and infrastructure, and access to vehicle services. Smooth suburban streets, efficient signal timing, affordable repairs and insurance, and lower crash rates all add up. In effect, drivers get more value from every mile.

For residents and investors, these rankings can influence perceptions of quality of life, appeal to commuters, and factor into residential choice. A region where getting around is efficient and relatively painless helps reduce friction in daily life—and that adds soft value beyond strictly real estate metrics.

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The spectrum of Arizona cities on the list reflects the diversity of challenges and advantages across urban form types. Scottsdale, with its lower density and high-value neighborhoods, benefits from stable traffic loads and easier maintenance regimes. Chandler and Gilbert, though rapidly growing, still retain enough flexibility in new development to embed solid infrastructure. Mesa must balance both older and newer corridors. Phoenix, as a large core city, contends with high volumes, legacy roads, and competing demands across dozens of neighborhoods. Tucson and Glendale face terrain, climate, and constrained budgets.

Each city type must tailor its approach. In suburbs, coordinated arterial expansion, context-sensitive design, and proactive paving can pay big dividends. In denser or older corridors, managing bottlenecks, retrofitting streetscapes, and prioritizing signal coordination and bus/truck access becomes essential. For metropolitan cores like Phoenix, the stakes are larger: freeway maintenance, high-capacity corridors, interchanges, multi-modal integration, and grid redundancy all must be synchronized.

From an equity and long-term value perspective, homeowners in well-ranked corridors benefit because cleaner, quieter streets, lower maintenance, and shorter commutes are amenities. Over time, these translate into stronger property values, especially when combined with local investments in parks, transit, and walkability.

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Transportation leaders in Phoenix often point to their freeway system as a hidden advantage: Phoenix ranks first in the nation for urban freeway quality, and Arizona as a whole leads on bridge quality. Those investments, funded locally in part through a half-cent sales tax approved by voters in 1985, have prevented the freeways from slipping into the “worst stretch” lists nationally.

In Scottsdale, city engineers frequently cite their multi-year overlay programs, sidewalk-link efforts, and signal modernization as key to keeping the city’s streets crisp and congestion in check. City newsletters often highlight resurfacing miles completed and intersection improvements.

In Gilbert and Chandler the municipal focus is on incremental upgrades tied to growth: every new subdivision, retail corridor, or employment center brings an opportunity to integrate infrastructure rather than retrofit. That level of coordination between planning, public works, and development is often lauded by local stakeholders.

By contrast, in Tucson and Glendale, fiscal constraints and competing priorities complicate road investment. Yet local advocacy groups, neighborhood associations, and city councils often point to resurfacing projects and arterial realignments as wins in tight budgets.

Real estate professionals I’ve talked to say that “driveability” has become a talking point in advertising listings—“commute-friendly,” “well-paved streets,” “low maintenance roads”—particularly in East Valley and north Phoenix subdivisions. In some cases, the driveability ranking itself is leveraged in marketing.

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To sustain and improve driveability rankings, cities should internalize three strategic themes: proactive maintenance, dynamic traffic operations, and integrated funding.

First, think of paving and resurfacing not as reactive tasks but as scheduled investments. Allocating consistent budget lines for overlay and crack sealing helps avoid the “catch-up” cycle where streets deteriorate badly before action. Infast growth corridors like those in Chandler or Gilbert, this means embedding road lifecycle planning up front.

Second, invest in intelligent traffic systems: adaptive signals, transit signal priority, queue detection, and coordination across arterials. That’s especially important in Mesa and Phoenix where cross-town travel is complex and delays ripple across neighborhoods.

Third, pursue hybrid funding models. Local sales taxes, developer impact fees, state grants, and federal dollars can be layered to sustain infrastructure. Communities that align transportation, growth, and economic development strategies tend to deliver better outcomes.

From a resident or homebuyer lens, choosing corridors with low crash rates, fewer midblock interruptions, and good connectivity helps daily life. Favor neighborhoods where the roads have been maintained recently, where signal delays are minimal, and where access to vehicle services (garages, parts, car washes) is solid. Such neighborhoods often also enjoy higher longevity in home values.

Finally, local transparency matters. Regularly publishing street condition maps, upcoming resurfacings, and traffic performance dashboards both builds trust and enables community buy-in for transportation funding measures.

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In sum, Arizona’s presence—with seven cities ranked among the nation’s best for driving—speaks to a broader alignment of mobility, growth, and governance. But rankings are snapshots, not guarantees. To keep advancing, local governments, planners, and residents must collaborate on maintenance, operations, funding, and communication.

This is not a prescription—always consult with licensed engineers, planners, or transportation professionals. But as a guiding narrative and set of strategic signals, these insights may help you sharpen your local mobility vision.
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How might we combine driveability with multimodal access (bike, transit, walking) so the entire mobility network benefits?
And how could neighborhoods use driveability performance as a lever in community planning, real estate narratives, and infrastructure funding decisions?

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