The share of American workers who took transit to work fell from 5.0 percent in 2019 to 3.2 percent in 2020, according to survey data just released by the Census Bureau. The share of people working at home grew from 5.7 percent to 15.8 percent. These numbers are the average for the year, while the pandemic was only during the last three quarters of the year, so pandemic work-at-home numbers may have been higher.
Due to the difficulty in collecting data during the pandemic, the Census Bureau didn’t do as detailed a survey as it had in previous years. Previous American Community Surveys had produced more than 1,500 tables of data including such information as how people commuted to work by age, income, race, and number of vehicles in the household, all available for all states and most counties, cities, and urban areas. For 2020, the Census Bureau produced only 54 tables, and so far they are available only for the nation and states.
Still, there are some useful data. Transit didn’t even do well among people who didn’t work at home. Of people who commuted to work, 81.9 percent drove alone (up from 80.5 percent in 2019), 9.4 percent carpooled (unchanged from 2019), and 3.8 percent used public transport (down from 5.3 percent in 2019).
The huge increase in telecommuting reduced numbers in all other categories. The number of people driving alone to work declined from 119.2 million in 2019 to 103.5 million in 2020. Carpooling dropped from 13.9 million to 11.8 million. Transit dropped from 7.8 million to 4.8 million. All other forms of commuting — taxicab, motorcycle, bicycle, walking — were lumped together in the 2020 survey and amounted to 6.2 million in 2020, down from 7.1 million in 2019.
In the District of Columbia, 34.9 percent of workers telecommuted in 2020. The states with the highest amounts of telecommuting were Massachusetts (21.6%), Colorado and Maryland (20.9% each), Washington (20.8%), Virginia (19.4%), and Minnesota and New Jersey (19.1% each). Arizona, California, Connecticut, Oregon, and Vermont were all between 18 and 19 percent. At the other extreme was Mississippi at 5.5 percent, while Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, West Virginia, and Wyoming were all under 10 percent.
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These numbers are averages for the year, while the pandemic was only during the last three quarters of the year, so pandemic numbers will be different. At the height of the pandemic, April 2020, some estimated that more than half of American workers were telecommuting. This has declined, but the best estimates are that, after the pandemic (if ever there is an “after”), 20 percent of workers will continue to work remotely on any given day.
The 2020 survey data also address other issues. According to the surveys, median family incomes grew from $80,944 in 2019 to $84,394 in 2020. That does not completely reflect the results of the pandemic because the census question was “what was your income in the last year.” Since the surveys were taken throughout the course of the year, many of the respondents weren’t answering about the 2020 incomes but their 2019 incomes.
Another 2020 table estimates that the median value of a home was $253,600 in 2020, up from $240,500 in 2019. Again, these are the values in the previous year and won’t take recent price rises into account. But they do indicate that the standard measure of housing affordability — value-to-income ratio — has gone up slightly from 2.97 to 3.00, meaning nationwide housing has gotten a little less affordable.
Housing in California became a little more affordable, with value-to-income ratios dropping from 6.22 to 6.13, possibly because so many people were moving out. The biggest improvements in affordability were in the District of Columbia (4.96 to 4.20) and Hawaii (6.94 to 6.32), while the biggest declines in affordability were in Idaho (3.53 to 3.84) and Utah (3.83 to 4.07), probably because those were the fastest-growing states and builders were unprepared for so many immigrants.
The history of rail in Europe and the US is very, very different. In Europe rail was built to link existing cities and towns to one another other. Much of the US rail system was built to encourage the settling of the interior. Rail companies in the US were given huge areas of land not only to build a line but also to develop population centres in the interior. Cities like San Francisco, Phoenix, Denver, etc.
There’s a saying that on the East Coast, the cities built the rails but in the West the railroads built the cities. Where a railroad laid their tracks could determine the future fate of an area. Dallas, TX is a city that grew around a rail junction.
– The electric streetcar was invented in 1874.
– Automobile in 1886, but didn’t popularize til about 1906.
Streetcars didn’t compete against cars, they were competing against horse/buggy, by contrast.
which, was “Cleaner”
Streetcars didn’t require food, warmth, didn’t suffer colic or have to be castrated or euthanized, Streetcars didn’t shit on the street or attract flies or fecal borne diseases. But they did need dedicated infrastructure.
Transit advocates bring up “Subsidies to roads” as languishing old time excuse; what they fail to realize, long before cars were popular or even existed! We had roads paid for by local government. Hundreds of thousands of miles of roads, some paved with gravel, brick, cobblestone and others just dirt and even boardwalks of wood. These were used by horse/buggies and carriages well into the 20th century. When the automobile was invented; it used the same infrastructure, no changes needed, IT JUST HAPPENED….to use the infrastructure governments were already subsidizing for the last 150 years.
By contrast rail infrastructure was paid for by railroads….And they never really begged for subsidies to pay for infrastructure. They did however ask government to restrict early automotive transit industry (Jitney)
Luxury trains were for few and far in between, but cars got more luxurious even amongst owners of lesser incomes. As I stated years ago; Automobile technologies; perks ;they start off as luxury options then become generic.
– Leather seats
– wood trim
– radio
– air conditioning
– automatic windows
– GPS
– Center screens
– antilock brakes
– traction control
– cruise control
”
This has declined, but the best estimates are that, after the pandemic (if ever there is an “after”), 20 percent of workers will continue to work remotely on any given day.
” ~ Anti-planner
This is the one that’s going to be interesting to how this plays out. A common argument is the desire and tech was already there before Covid, companies were just reluctant to let their office workers work from home.
We very well could see that major downtowns lose 1/2 of the office workers that came downtown. That’s going to impact a lot of small service businesses.
Here’s the rub for transit, those office workers that used to come in M-F and took transit but are not only coming in on Tuesdays and Thursdays, they may never use transit again. When you’re only driving twice a week, it’s going to be easier to justify paying for parking. Especially if you’re really going into the office from 10 til 3 on those days.