WEST CHESTER, PA — Drivers around the West Chester area can easily get slogged in traffic coming from multiple angles: Route 202, Route 3, Route 100, Route 30, downtown congestion, and more.
Now, a new analysis by a mental healthcare network has ranked the area as the 12th worst in the United States for "commuter burnout."
The survey from A Mission for Michael took opinions from thousands of drivers around the country and sought to measure things like unpredictable delays, stop and stop traffic, roadwork, inaccessibility of public transit infrastructure, and the distance traveled by many from home to work.
“Burnout is often framed as something that happens at work, but for many people, it starts and ends with the commute”, Anand Meta, the executive director of Mission for Michael, said in a statement. “When you’re losing hours of your day before and after work even begins, it leaves very little room to recover. Over time, that constant drain can have a real impact on mental wellbeing, even if it doesn’t feel obvious at first.”
Commutes from West Chester to the city, or vice versa, can be done in less than an hour in prime conditions. But traffic often extends that commute time to 90 minutes and even more than two hours on bad days during rush hour.
Palmdale, California, outside Los Angeles, was ranked as the nation's worst, followed in second by White Plains, New York, in the suburbs of New York City.
Two other Pennsylvania commutes made the list after West Chester, including Cranberry Township in 28th and Carlisle and Harrisburg in 44th.
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