Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Everything You Wanted to Know about Commuting but Were Afraid to Ask

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by

James A. Bacon
in

The Washington region is third only to New York and Chicago for the percentage of workers with “extreme commutes,” defined as 60 minutes or more each way, according to “Commuting in America III,” published by the Transportation Research Board. (For a snappy summary of the findings, read the coverage in the Washington Post.)

The study offers an abundance of data about commuting trends. (Read a digest of cool commuter facts here.) Work travel constitutes only 16 percent of total travel. (Ever notice how congested it’s getting on Saturdays?) … Because most immigrants are working age, they’re more like to drive to work. Hispanic immigrants also are more likely to carpool…. Commuting from suburb to suburb now accounts for 46 percent of all commuting…. Driving alone continues to increase, while walking to work is declining precipitously…. Average commute times have increased from 21.7 minutes in 1980 to 25.5 minutes in 2000….

Of particular interest to me is the “extreme commuting” number. Here are the rankings for major Virginia metro areas:

3. Washington, 12.83 percent of commuters
33. Hampton Roads, 4.89 percent of commuters
38. Richmond, 4.46 percent of commuters

Of the 12 counties with the highest percentage of long commutes in the country, the Washington area has three: Prince William, Va., and Prince George’s and Montgomery in Maryland.

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22 responses to “Everything You Wanted to Know about Commuting but Were Afraid to Ask”

  1. E M Risse Avatar
    E M Risse

    Jim:

    For starters to answer your question see the third para of our post “MORE ON TRANSFER OF PROPERTY RIGHTS.”

    EMR

  2. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Isn’t Prince William in Virginia?

  3. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    PW in VA – yes.

    but this part puzzles me:

    “Of the 12 counties with the highest percentage of long commutes in the country, the Washington area has three”

    and then they name Prince William

    What happened to Stafford and Spotsylvania which are south of Prince
    William?

    The percentage of “out-commute” in the Fburg area was 40% in 2000 and 75% of that was I-95 North and 25% of that was to Fairfax.

    That’s about 40,000 cars a day of which it appears about 10K are headed for Fairfax and environs.

    http://www.fra-yes.org/study/report2.htm#results

    That’s a commute that’s 20-30 miles further than commuters from Prince William.

    The folks who did the study are located in NoVA.. so I doubt this was overlooked.

    If that kind of data is also missing from other metro areas.. I’d question the validity of the study.. just a tad.

    If anything.. it appears to UNDERESTIMATE the scope and scale of the Wash Metro area commute.

  4. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Larry:

    You are right on top of this.

    Read our column “Spinning Data, Spinning Wheels” from 20 Sept 2004 at db4.dev.baconsrebellion.com.

    Bowing to political pressure, the Census Bureau changed the definitions of MSAs and CMSAs before the 2000 data came out.

    You asked recently what analysis by New Urban Region had to do with things? Well any commuting data that does not include the whole New Urban Region is bogus.

    That is only one problem with Alan’s work. He paid to spin things the way he does.

    For another take on this issue, see “The Commuting Problem” 17 Jan 2005.

    If you keep digging you will see why sustainable New Urban Regions consisting of Balanced Communities are the only feasible way to provide mobility and access and why Autonomobility is a dead end.

    Silly “research” to the contrary not withstanding.

    EMR

  5. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Dear All:

    Now that we have tried a highspeed connection again (We were an early adopter but the security avaliable then let in all mannor of viruses so we went back to dailup) we get things downloaded from sites we use that conflict with the Blogger.com software so for the time being from time to time we are “Anon.” But you will always see our signature EMR and know who we are.

    It is perverse that you can post as Anon far easier than with a name.

    EMR

  6. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Larry:

    Sorry, the short answer to your question:

    Spotsy and Stafford are in the “Fredericksburg MSA” now so they did not show up when Alan ran the MSA numbers.

    That is another way to illustrate the importance of New Urban Regions as unit of analysis. It is the fundamental building block of economic, social and physical reality.

    EMR

  7. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    Thanks EMR.

    ummm… when 40K cars a day are commuting between one MSA and another MSA…

    and then someone does research on only one of those MSAs .. and does not include the “out commute” from the second one… to the first one

    … well.. how useful is the study?

    what conclusions can you draw from it that reflect actual conditions?

    my curiosity led me to find the definition of MSA .. where upon I stumbled onto “combined statistical areas”

    and to wit: “CSAs represent multiple metropolitan or micropolitan areas that have a high degree of employment interchange. CSAs often represent regions with common labor and media markets”

    So… I’m at the end of my knowledge on this but it does appear to me that the author of this study needs to explain why he used MSAs instead of CSAs for commuting …

    .. or am I off on a tangent?

  8. Toomanytaxes Avatar
    Toomanytaxes

    If one were to assume, at least for the moment, that people are generally behaving in what they perceive to be their best interests, what does that tell elected officials in Virginia to do?

    Nothing?

    Impose congestion taxes on the heaviest direction of travel during busy hours? Impose substantial parking taxes at the destination jurisdictions (Fairfax, Arlington, Alexandria, Washington, D.C.)? Do both?

    Amend land use laws to make it difficult to build single family houses and townhouses in exurban areas; thereby “encouraging” people to live in condos/apartments closer to work? Amend land use laws to make it more difficult to build commercial buildings in the target areas (Fairfax, Arlington, Alexandria, Washington, D.C.); thereby encouraging employers to locate outside today’s target areas? Do both?

    Or, as a last resort, turn Senator Robert Byrd loose to force more federal agencies and (effectively) their contractors to West Virginia?

  9. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    I couldn’t get much out of the report in the paper, and there is a lot left unsaid. Still, I’m surprised that long distance commuting is increasing in the face of higher fuel prices.

    Commuting time and money spent on travel is a throw away, but money invested in your home is not. Logically, if you had a choice you would divert travel money in order to live closer in. But if suitable close-in housing is out of your reach then the ratio of how you spend your money is meaningless.

    20 and thirty years ago most Fauquier residents wokded in Fauquier. That is no longer true due to the decline in agriculture. On the other hand the Fauquier per capita income is much higher today. Maybe they have figured the commute is worthwhile, or there is no option.

    The report noted that reverse commuting has increased 20% in most areas, but not so much in DC on account of government jobs. In other words, other cities have been more successful at distributing the job centers.

    DC and New York have the best transit systems around, and the longest commutes in terms of time, and distance.

    90% of our congestion occurs on 5% of highways carying 16% of traffic. We can do a lot by clearing bottlenecks for commuter traffic. As for that Saturday traffic, we know almost nothing about it.

    Think about what this means. If we are 100% successful in getting every commuter to cut his commute in half, we would reduce total travel by 8%. But that is highly unlikely. If you got 10% to change locations you would reduce total travel by 0.8%, an amount that will be overwhelmed by the increase in population. Closer in habitations can only contribute a minor amount to relieving our congestion problems, and the expense is enormous.

    If the report is correct, people are increasingly rejecting that option. Even though it logically appears to be a sensible one, it does not work out in practice.

  10. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Larry:

    CMSAs are better but they still cover only 60 or so percent of New Urban Regions. The new definitions also exclude the new mini MSAs like Winchester and Fredericksburg in some cases.

    Hello? Folks are commuting from west of Winchester thourgh Winchester all the way to Dulles and Tysons corner.

    There is really very little one can learn from the current data.

    Looking for the impact of higher gas prices? This data was gathered before that became an issue.

    Give it up. This stuff is just busy work. Think real components of settlement patterns.

    EMR

  11. Gold_h2o Avatar
    Gold_h2o

    Yeah, the study leaves a lot to be desired.

    The Winchester Star ran a front page article a few weeks ago and Winchester residents have the 8th longest commute in THE NATION.

    Like the previous poster stated most folks are going to Dulles & Tysons….many go even further in than that. Ever heard of Capon Bridge, WV??? It’s 20 miles west of Winchester and I know A LOT of folks that travel to Dulles & Tysons every day from there.

    That kind of commute leads me to believe that our value system is out of whack or our economy sucks….who would drive that far unless they ABSOLUTELY have to?

    Think of the costs of commuting not only on your time but on your wallet….gas, repairs, car payments, etc.

  12. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    It really is crazy.

    I sold a load of hay once, to a customer in Elizabeth Furnace. He had a nice place, but after driving through miles of nothing to get there, I asked him what he did for a living way out there.

    He was a construction manager, in Alexandria! He starts work at 6:00 AM. That’s got to be 85 miles, one way.

    As it was, I was glad I was charging him HMT. (Hay Miles Traveled) 🙂 You’d think you could get hay close than that, but apparently not.

  13. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    TMT said: “If one were to assume, at least for the moment, that people are generally behaving in what they perceive to be their best interests, what does that tell elected officials
    in Virginia to do?”

    In short: maintain a decent quality of life for existing residents and newbies by charging what it costs to provide the infrastructure necessary to maintain a specified level of service.

    As long as WashMetro has existing and new jobs, people will LOCATE in the REGION …. AND they WILL go somewhere.

    I think there are two fundamental issues – and that is the COST and the EFFICIENCY of infrastructure to serve new people and the most costly of the infrastructures are the ones that provide mobility.

    New Urbanism emcompasses all of this.

    But until, a transporter machine is invented, MOBILITY is a fundamental nexus.

    I think what we have is Mobility that is NOT market-based and actually perceived as an unlimited “free” public utility …

    where each person can use as much of it as they wish any time they wish for any purpose for about a dime on the dollar of what it actually costs to provide.

    If somone wants to drive from .. say Capon Bridge every day, SOLO in a SUV/Truck .. and arrive at rush hour on the beltway – the monetary cost for that is minimal – probably less than 1/2 hour worth of their daily 8 hr pay.

    If electricity were provided on the same basis of roads – we’ve have daily brownouts and blackouts during “congested periods”.

    More important, there would be a huge baseload demand as people would have little reason to conserve electricity with their daily habits nor would they be motivated to buy efficient appliances.

    If we want electricity to work like roads all we need to do is charge everyone the same low price no matter how much they use or when they use it.

    Then we’ll see our electric grid replicate our road network in terms of functionality.

    We’ll have brownouts and the electric company will come back and ask for a rate increase – for everyone – regardless of actual useage – to avoid rolling blackouts that affect everyone.

    This is how we do roads today.

    We charge the SAME amount for each driver no matter WHERE they drive or WHEN they drive and when gridlock threatens – the solution is to charge everone more – no matter than they don’t drive on already congested roads at rush hour.

    That guy in Norton Va gets to pay the same amount in gas tax as that Capon Bridge extreme commuter does.

  14. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    re: “As it was, I was glad I was charging him HMT. (Hay Miles Traveled) 🙂 You’d think you could get hay close than that, but apparently not.”

    This is a perfect example of the issue.

    It costs money to ship goods and generally the further you ship goods – the more it costs because the transportation costs are passed on to the customer.

    However – what if Ray had to deliver a huge load of hay at RUSH HOUR – on a “just-in-time” basis?

    In other words.. he had to deliver it at a specific hour – not before that hour and not after that hour.

    Compare this to the Rush Hour Commuter – who must be at work – essentially somewhere within the rush hour time slot?

    This guy pays no more to do this than if he could show up at work anytime he wished…

    If you want to compare this to METRO – as I know Ray will – how about having METRO charge even less than it is now with no increased fares at rush hour?

    What would happen to METRO’s rush hour capacity if they essentially gave it away for .. say 1/10th of what it cost to provide?

  15. Toomanytaxes Avatar
    Toomanytaxes

    Larry – Fairfax County taxpayers pay $6.8 M each year to fund the Economic Development Authority’s advertising to attract more jobs (and more traffic) to Fairfax County. This is done in the name of keeping real estate taxes lower. Ha, ha, ha. (The share of county real estate taxes paid by commerial buildings is down to the high teens from the high twenties. The EDA should, therefore, be shut down based on incompetence alone.)

    Isn’t this another example of a big and counter-productive subsidy? I don’t disagree that the person who wants to live in [fill-in-the-blank] county should pay the costs for living there, just as he/she enjoys the benefits. But shouldn’t the investors in the REIT building an office tower in Fairfax also pay the costs of advertising? Why are paying higher taxes to increase the mismatch of jobs and residents? So far, no substantive answers from the BoS.

  16. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    Look, I agree that highly congested roads should have congestion pricing. Metro already charges a higher price during peak hours, but it obviously isn’t high enough. I think they should do what airlines do, keep raising the price (and lowering it) until everyone has a seat. But I think the result will be that more jobs will move out, and not more urbanism.

    As you point out the cost of travel is minimal, it is nowhere near enough to cause people to reduce travel, let alone move their residence. Travel may cost you an hours pay each day, but it may be only 1% of the difference in your mortgage, assuming you can qualify to get one.

    So, TMT is right. Fairfax is spending $4.6 million a year in order to make the jobs imbalance even worse, and they are exporting their housing dilemma and expenses to Loudoun.

    We encourage Fairfax to do that by providing additional peak Metro transit at less than one third of costs, even though we know that this concentrates not only Metro traffic but auto traffic on the small areas immediately around the stations.

    In orer to fix this new problem, the plan is to penalize auto drivers by making parking more expensive, even though Metro is at max capacity anyway. Then we will penalize them again by maiking them pay full personal costs through congestion charges, and use this money to subsidize Metro riders still more.

    In addition, we will slap on, not only the fair and allocable new costs for all those homes in Loudoun, but every other trumped up and deferred cost or charge we can think of. And we will make the land prices as expensive as possible through market manipulation via regulation.

    All of this just to subsidize new urbanism, and the claim is that all this spending will save us money. Somehow.

    And it will reduce congestion, prevent pollution, and eliminate obesity. All we have to do is put a million people on 3300 acres around the Metro stations. On weekends they can all drive out to the country to enjoy the 76 million acres we conserved, if it isn’t all private property. Of course, in order to do THAT, you willl need considerable peak road capacity, which will be provided as a means for emergency evacuation of the city.

    Hogwash, gentlemen, hogwash.

  17. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    re: “Of course, in order to do THAT, you willl need considerable peak road capacity, which will be provided as a means for emergency evacuation of the city.”

    Actually the solution to evacuation is the same solution to rush hour.

    At evacuation time – no car can leave without being full. Buses, Vans, etc get priority access.

    Imagine if just 1/3 of the SOLO SUVs at rush hour were replaced with 3 person carpools at rush hour?

    re: recruiting new jobs when we can’t afford the impacts of the new jobs.

    Okay – guys – make a list of places in the USA where they tell everyone that they do NOT want economic development? 🙂

    This is one of those things that you are so UPHILL on that you do need to at least find out what no localities would dare to do this… and how would you convince.. not area leaders – but those that elect them – that the JOBS thing IS THE PROBLEM?

    re: density, new urbanism, parking et al – Ray – tell me WHY these things are being proposed – in response to what – then you can tell me if you think .. these responses are in reaction to non-issues .. that they’re just bad “ideas” with no clue as to what problem they would “fix”.

    My premise is that these things are in response to perceived problems that would be made better. Do you not agree – not with whether or not these things are fair or would work – but the premise behind doing these things to start with?

  18. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    I know of one community where, so I am told, two potential business men were in formed by officials, not in the public meetings, which were polite but negative, but in private, that they were not welcome. Another business man felt so harrassed by the zoning board that approved his business that he got his lawyer involved. So, there are some places that discourage economic development. I believe the reason is tha they do not wnat the associated housing development, or in fact, any development.

    You seem to believe that we cannot regulate jobs creation. Why is it OK to regulate land use where there is none and not OK where there is too much?

    There is nothing wrong with promoting balanced development, or with putting fair and balanced methods in place to achieve it. I don’t see that proposing to set aside 76 million acres for nothing and cramming the next million people onto 3300 acres is balanced development.

    You seem to think that elected leaders do as the voters tell them. I believe that once elected, they do pretty much as they please. It is the leades that make the decsions, and it is they that need to be convinced, hence we have special interest groups who can get access to do the convincing.

    Your premise is that these thing (parking, new urbanism, etc.) a propsed in response to perceived problems that would be made better.

    I think the perception of problems is wrong, and that what is seen as better is both subjective and selfish. The idea that the proposed solutions will work is ludicrous. Not only that, but the probles, as stated, are merely a smokescreen for what people think the problems really are.

    I think that many people think they have something they don’t own that they want to keep. They are willing to do anything, even if it is unethical, unfair, and borderline illegal, to keep it.

    We can’t agreee on the problem, the agenda, or the results, so we will never agree.

    We don’t have the fair and balanced methods in place to achieve balanced development precisely because we don’t want balanced development. The best place for development is in some one else’s jurisdiction.

    We don’t have methods in place to achieve balanced development, and we can;t agree on what they might be.

    We do have the market, which is reasonably efficient, and left untampered with, is brutally fair.

    If someone wants to put up a Walmart or parking lot, let them. If enough people dislike it, think it is in the wrong place, or the price is too high, then they won’t use it and it will go broke. Then something else will happen there. What won’t happen there is a public park, unless the people agree to raise the money and pay for it, as Fairfax City is doing.

    If someone wants to build a Metro, let them, and if he can’t raise enough money from the riders to keep it going he will go broke, unless he can convince enough non- riders that he provides other benefits that they should pay for.

    If someone wants to put up a farm, he can buy fifty houses and tear them down to do that. I don’t think anyone would stop him. But if he can’t sell enough products to make it pay, he will go broke, unless he can convince enough other non-buying people that he is providing other valuable services, and to pay for them.

    If he fails at that, he might want to put the fifty houses back up, but then you can be sure that people would object. Even if other people are standing in line to buy the houses.

    You seem to think that we shouldnt take on the jobs development issue because it is uphill, but it is OK to take on the development issue because we have the votes and the numbers on our side. It is downhill solet’s take the easy way out. Besides, who cares what happens to Fairfax, it is ruined anyway.

    You have seen the films where the bigoted country sheriff stops a car on a lonely road, only to discover it is driven by someone who is black. Walking around the vehicle he casually smashes out a tail light with his baton. He tells the driver “We don’t want your kind around here.” and arrests him for the tail light. The arrest is legal because the tail light is broken. The driver can go to court, but he knows that is an uphill battle staked against him.

    So, a bigoted county official casually smashes one of my development rights. He tells me I am not welcome here, and he arrests my right to develop. I can go to court, but I know it is anuphill battle.

    If you think this is an extreme analogy, you haven’t been in my shoes. If youthink there is a difference, please explain it to me, because I have long since lost sight of it. I am tired of being told I have to sit in the back of the development bus, just because I am different/larger.

    We don’t agree on the premise, the problems, the solutions, or the agenda. Even if it turns out you are correct, we don’t agree on the results.

  19. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    re: “You seem to believe that we cannot regulate jobs creation.”

    no more or less than you can keep people from moving here.

    “Regulate” is not the word I used.

    I said “keep businesses from locating here”

    Some “kinds” of businesses might be discourage from locating in certain areas but I don’t see anyone anywhere telling Motorola or IBM that they don’t want them to locate in their jurisdiction even if they already have Microsoft and HP.

    This is EXACTLY what is going on in NoVA – high quality companies want to locate here and I don’t see anyone saying that this is a bad idea – yet.

  20. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    re: “Besides, who cares what happens to Fairfax, it is ruined anyway”

    right. .I’ve heard this before.

    It’s like.. my carpet has dirt in it.. so I’m going to keep chickens on it from now because it’s ruined anyhow.

    in other words – Fairfax is ruined.. let’s REALLY trash the place.. and while we’re at it the surrounding places too.

    That will win you some votes! 🙂

  21. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    “I don’t see anyone saying that this is a bad idea – yet.”

    Isn’t this what TMT is complaining about, and isn’t this what adding another million people to 3300 acres amounts to, REALLY trashing the place? And doesn’t EMR regularly point to the example of AOL as a bad one?

    I guess what amounts to a bad idea depends on where you live.

    So, if we can regulate jobs creation the same as housing, why is it that 13,000 jurisdictions have some kind of growth control, primarily directed against housing?

    It is because we have locked ourselves into thinking that jobs are good and housing is bad, fiscally speaking. But jobs and housing (and roads and transit and infrastructure) are different faces on the same dice. Saying one is good and the other bad is clearly nonsense.

  22. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    I think clearly jobs come at a high price for areas that have “tight” quarters.

    Farmville or Norton would LOVE to have AOL and I’m sure TMT and others would love for AOL and a few dozen other companies to depart for those areas.

    A real win-win .. heh heh…

    but not to be.

    I pointed out in another thread that places like NYC and California actually do recognize the “costs” of jobs and businesses are expected to pay more of their share .. and those areas are classified as less “business friendly” than Virginia – right?

    So perhaps a good question.. close to what you and TMT are asking is “Does ‘Business Friendly’ mean that taxpayers and not businesses pick up the costs of their impacts – in exchange for the jobs provided?”

    If true – is this what Fairfax should be doing given it’s current circumstances?

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