Your car is better off on the streets of Detroit and Cleveland than the lousy roads of New York City and Newark, according to a new report.
Slightly more than half of the New York City metro region’s roads and highways are in poor condition, according to TRIP, a transportation research group based in Washington, DC.
California cities like LA, San Francisco and San Jose rated the worst — but the New York area scored sixth-worst overall with its pockmarked roads.
About 23 percent of roads were labeled mediocre, and only 14 percent were deemed good.
Drivers in New York and Newark spend an estimated $675 a year in additional costs from navigating all those roads in need of repair. The extra dollars go to maintenance, additional gas use and tire wear.
Anthony Baez, 36, of the Lower East Side, said he often hits potholes when he commutes to Maspeth, Queens, every day to work at UPS, especially near the Williamsburg Bridge.
Baez said he had to replace his tie rod last year, an axle that connects the wheels.
“It’s due to hitting potholes — bad ones, too,” he said. “If you hit it really bad, it blows your tire out. I’ve seen three guys on the side of the road fixing their tire because they hit the same pothole.”
Seventy cities fared better than New York and Newark in the report, created using federal data on pavement conditions released annually.
The report estimates that drivers nationally spend more than $80 billion a year on additional costs from driving on poor roads.
James Gucci, 31, of Manhattan, said that on average he gets a flat tire every three months.
“You bend a rim, you crack a rim,” he said. “You get a lot of dents and dings.”