4 Southern California cities among world’s toughest to navigate

If you need more evidence of how tricky it is to get around Southern California, note that four of its cities ranked among the 20 worst places for mobility on the planet.

My trusty spreadsheet reviewed a curious scorecard of navigation challenges by cell-service provider Holafly, which tracked 150 cities globally, including 69 from the U.S. and 13 from California. The grades were calculated by assessing mobility variables related to traffic, air quality, crime, walkability, public transit, cellular service and online searches for directions. And note that on this scorecard, the higher the ranking, the more difficult a city is to navigate.

According to this math, Los Angeles ranks as the world’s third-trickiest city to get around. That was also the lowest grade among U.S. cities studied.

You can link L.A.’s dubious distinction to 88 extra hours lost to traffic, the 20th-highest burden globally. Plus, the typical 57-minute commute ranked second-longest among the 150 cities.

But it wasn’t just crowded L.A. freeways that generated su...