Wait. What?

From Kiplinger's via msn.com:

Wait. I’m sorry. I’m a reasonable person, so I know that Providence could not have been included – let alone come in third – on a list of places with favorable commutes to work. Rhode Island seems to be making a lot of lists lately, but mostly for negative things. So while it’s nice to see something positive said in the media about living here, it would be even nicer if those accolades weren’t complete bullshit. Let’s break this down, shall we?

Population: 1,600,642. The entire population of Rhode Island is just over a million, and not everyone lives in Providence. Adding Fall River and New Bedford – both in Massachusetts – makes no sense. Know who commutes from those towns to Providence, and vice versa? Nobody. Or at least very few people.

Average commute time: 23.9 minutes. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha no. Maybe they’re factoring in the commutes of people who work from home. Kiplinger’s either ignores or doesn’t know the fact that a more than a few people in Providence commute to Boston, and on the MBTA, 23.9 minutes will get you from the Providence station to Attleboro on a good day. On a regular day, which usually includes downed trees and power lines, broken engines, and everyone’s favorite: massive delays with no reason or explanation whatsoever, 23.9 minutes is the time it takes to go from looking forward to a productive day at work to envying the dead.

Average length of commute: 11.62 miles.  That actually may be accurate, at least for in-state commuters. Rhode Island is pretty small, and any distance greater than, say, 15 or 20 miles is more conducive to giving up and staying home than actually traveling anywhere. Which is why there are people in New Bedford and Fall River who have never set foot in Providence, let alone commute back and forth daily.

Cost of regular gas: $3.26. Not even close. You might be able to pay that price today if you spend eight thousand dollars on groceries at Stop & Shop and then buy gas with your loyalty card at one of their stations. Which you do.

Public transit users: 2.9%. Really? That high? Interesting. When I lived about five miles from where I work, I took the bus a couple of times, and it took an hour. I live 14 miles away now, and if I were to take the bus it would take two and a half hours of riding, plus about half an hour of walking. Each way.

I’m skipping over “congestion cost,” “yearly delays,” and “yearly fuel wasted,” because I have no idea. But let’s discuss the “located at the crux of I-95 and I-195.” Look at said “crux” on google maps with the traffic filter on any given weekday morning, and you will see that it’s hopelessly jammed. (It made this list!) Just to the north and south of downtown, I-95 has two of the most ill-conceived S-curves you will ever see, especially if you’re wiping out on one, which people do on a regular basis, because they insist on taking them at 80 mph, when a safe speed is more like 30. A few years ago, a small section of the freeway that passes over a river in Pawtucket was deemed unsafe for any tractor-trailer to cross, so they have to take a detour or pay fines of up to $5,000. So far the state has made millions off of these fines because truckers would rather pay five grand than maneuver their loads through the streets of downtown Pawtucket or take 146.

Now, on to “40 parking garages… [and] more than 1,000 on-street parking spaces that cost $1 per hour.” Sure, there are lots of spaces on the street, and that’s the going rate. And you can park your car there for exactly two hours. At 2:00:01, you must have moved your car to another street (not another spot on the same street), or you will find a ticket for $30 on your windshield. If you want to contest this ticket, you may have to appear on “Caught in Providence,” a cable access show on which you and countless hapless Johnson & Wales students plead your case to Judge Caprio, who may or may not cut you a break. So you’re better off parking in one of the city’s 40 parking garages, which cost considerably more than $1 per hour. Hell, I pay to park where I work, and I spent eighteen months on a waiting list for the privilege.

Look. There are things that the Ocean State does well. Seafood, for instance. Vegetable-inspired toys with interchangeable face parts. And so on. But commuting, and more specifically, infrastructure? Oh, no. No no no. Kiplinger’s needs to stop taking meaningless statistics and turning them in to top ten lists and corresponding slideshows. Somewhere, maybe in New York or LA, some poor sap is looking at this list on his smartphone while he’s stuck in a broken-down subway car or in an unmoving traffic jam, and maybe, just maybe, he’s starting to see Rhode Island as an option. Hey, fella? Read the top part: “There’s no guarantee that you can find a job” here. That’s the part they got right.