Nationwide, the average worker spends 24.7 minutes, each way, traveling to and from work. People who drive alone spend 24.4 minutes; people who carpool spend 28.0 minutes; people who walk take 11.9 minutes; and people who take transit take 48.7 minutes.
In other words, people who take transit spend almost exactly twice as much time en route as people who drive alone. Why? The simple answer is that transit is slower. But this flies in the face of the idea that people have a travel-time budget that limits the total amount of time they are willing to spend traveling each day (or week).
Is the travel-time budget idea wrong? Or do people who take transit have different travel-time budgets than people who drive? Or is the travel-time budget different if, when you are traveling, you can relax and read your iPad or do something else entertaining than if you have to face the work and stresses of driving?
The travel-time budget notion implies that we arrange our lives so we won’t have to spend more time than we want getting to and from work. That means we choose our home location partly based on where we work and we accept jobs only within a certain distance from home (or move if the distance is too great). If a new technology, such as streetcars in the 1890s or automobiles in the 1910s and 1920s, increases our commute speeds, then the distance we are willing to travel can increase without increasing the time we spend en route.
The fact that transit takes twice as long, on average, than driving leads many to conclude that transit riders have less choice than auto drivers. Perhaps they are victims of racial or income discrimination in housing and forced to live farther from work than they would like. Perhaps they are one of two earners in a household that can only afford one car, and their home location is determined primarily by the work location of the other income earner.
To test this, we can look at data for individual urbanized areas. Average travel times to work can be calculated using tables B08136, Aggregate Travel Time to Work by Means of Transportation to Work, and C08301, Means of Transportation to Work, of the American Community Survey (ACS) for urbanized areas. The same tables are available for cities, states, and other geographic units, but urbanized areas are the best in this case as each urban area is something close to a single economic unit (at least, closer than any other geographic area).
It takes hard work and dedication generic sildenafil india to build anything worthwhile in this industry. Moist warm parts of the body i.e. buy cialis pill the groin, under the arms, under the breasts and the nappy area of babies can also be infected by yeasts which cause a rash in these areas.. Top buy viagra for cheap sexologist in Delhi, Dr. The causes of PE are rather brand viagra from canada davidfraymusic.com simple.
Divide the aggregate travel times by the numbers of people using each mode to get the average times. Table B08136 only has driving alone, carpooling, transit, walking, and “other,” so we can’t break out bicycling. Table B08136 is also not available for some important urban areas, such as San Antonio, even going back to 2010. But the numbers are available for most other major (and many minor) urban areas. For this discussion, I’ll use 2013 data unless otherwise noted; the numbers don’t change much from year-to-year.
The Transit Travel-Time Penalty
| Urbanized Area | Drive Alone Travel Time | Transit Travel Time | Ratio | Transit's Share of Commuting | Workers in No-Vehicle Households |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| New York | 28.6 | 50.3 | 176.2% | 32.1% | 23.8% |
| Los Angeles | 27.5 | 49.7 | 180.8% | 6.3% | 3.9% |
| Chicago | 28.6 | 48.8 | 170.9% | 12.5% | 6.4% |
| Miami | 26.7 | 49.3 | 184.7% | 4.0% | 3.8% |
| Dallas-FW | 25.8 | 53.2 | 205.8% | 1.7% | 2.1% |
| Washington | 30.9 | 46.3 | 149.8% | 16.5% | 6.6% |
| Philadelphia | 26.8 | 46.3 | 172.5% | 10.4% | 6.5% |
| Houston | 27.4 | 47.5 | 173.6% | 2.7% | 2.9% |
| Boston | 27.9 | 44.9 | 161.1% | 13.3% | 6.9% |
| Atlanta | 29.1 | 53.5 | 184.0% | 3.4% | 3.3% |
| Phoenix | 24.3 | 49.5 | 203.6% | 2.5% | 3.2% |
| SF-Oakland | 26.3 | 43.3 | 164.7% | 17.8% | 8.0% |
| Seattle | 25.6 | 43.9 | 171.4% | 9.3% | 4.2% |
| Detroit | 25.3 | 52.2 | 206.5% | 1.8% | 3.2% |
| Minn.-St. Paul | 22.9 | 39.3 | 171.5% | 5.4% | 3.2% |
| San Diego | 23.3 | 51.7 | 222.0% | 3.1% | 2.5% |
| Denver | 25 | 47.1 | 188.3% | 4.6% | 2.7% |
| Tampa-St. Pete | 25.2 | 41.8 | 165.7% | 1.4% | 2.9% |
| Baltimore | 27.9 | 53.6 | 191.8% | 7.9% | 5.7% |
| St. Louis | 23.2 | 48.2 | 208.1% | 3.0% | 3.7% |
| Portland | 22.7 | 44.6 | 196.5% | 7.2% | 4.0% |
| Las Vegas | 22.7 | 58 | 256.0% | 3.8% | 3.6% |
| Pittsburgh | 25.3 | 41.2 | 162.6% | 6.8% | 4.3% |
| Cleveland | 23.7 | 47.6 | 200.5% | 3.6% | 3.8% |
| San Jose | 24.1 | 51.3 | 213.0% | 3.8% | 1.9% |
| Riverside-SB | 30.1 | 61.5 | 204.7% | 1.9% | 1.9% |
| Austin | 23.9 | 39.9 | 166.8% | 2.7% | 3.0% |
| Kansas City | 21.1 | 40.9 | 193.5% | 1.5% | 2.2% |
| Orlando | 25.9 | 53.3 | 206.0% | 2.4% | 2.7% |
| Sacramento | 25 | 46.9 | 187.6% | 2.6% | 2.6% |
| Virginia Beach | 22.8 | 42.2 | 185.3% | 2.0% | 2.7% |
| Columbus | 21.8 | 39.3 | 180.6% | 2.2% | 2.9% |
| Milwaukee | 22 | 44 | 200.3% | 4.3% | 4.4% |
| Charlotte | 24.2 | 46.5 | 191.9% | 2.8% | 3.1% |
| Providence | 23.7 | 51.5 | 217.0% | 3.2% | 6.1% |
| Salt Lake | 20.9 | 44.4 | 213.0% | 3.7% | 2.0% |
| Richmond | 22.3 | 36.3 | 162.8% | 1.8% | 3.3% |
| Raleigh | 23.1 | 41.9 | 181.1% | 1.2% | 1.8% |
| Louisville | 21.8 | 41.6 | 191.3% | 2.2% | 3.6% |
| Bridgeport | 24.2 | 65.1 | 268.8% | 10.0% | 4.7% |
| Hartford | 22.1 | 36.6 | 165.9% | 4.1% | 4.8% |
| New Orleans | 23.1 | 42.1 | 182.0% | 3.4% | 6.1% |
| Honolulu | 25.7 | 45.7 | 177.9% | 8.8% | 4.6% |
| El Paso | 22.1 | 49.1 | 221.8% | 1.8% | 2.2% |
| Nation | 24.4 | 48.7 | 196.2% | 5.2% | 4.5% |
The first thing to note is that, where transit travel times average twice driving times on a nationwide basis, in the New York urban area transit times are just 76 percent more than times for people who drive alone. This isn’t because New York transit is so much faster than in the rest of the country; average transit travel times in New York are actually longer, at 50.3 minutes, than the national average of 48.7. Instead, it is because New York drive times are so much slower, at 28.6 minutes for driving alone (vs. 24.4 nationally). This isn’t necessarily because New York is more congested; instead, it is at least partly because it is a much larger urban area than most, so the data pick up more people who are willing to travel long distances to work.
New York also has a very high percentage of workers who live in households without cars: 23.8 percent vs. the national average of 4.5 percent. New York also has the highest share of transit commuters earning $75,000 or more per year (it’s 32.9 percent for New York state; unfortunately, these data, in table B08519, aren’t available for urbanized areas). In other words, a lot of people who take transit in the New York urban area could afford to own cars, but they take transit anyway despite the transit time penalty.
Based on these data, it is clear that people who lack choices and are forced to take transit despite the time penalty are only partly responsible for the time penalty. Instead, at least some of the penalty is probably because people who take transit don’t think their time is wasted and so don’t count it as a penalty.
Of course, transit supporters have been saying for years that this is an advantage of transit over driving. While this argument has failed to persuade many more people to ride transit, it does suggest that self-driving cars will completely alter people’s perceptions of travel time. If people who own self-driving cars are willing to travel 50 minutes to work, instead of just 25, it will quadruple their housing choices and completely change the shape of urban areas.
The cost of parking also influences the choice. In many areas such as the financial services area of San Francisco the cost of parking is high at $20 per day. Even a person with a middle class income will take transit rather than pay this amount.
“The travel-time budget notion implies that we arrange our lives so we won’t have to spend more time than we want getting to and from work. That means we choose our home location partly based on where we work and we accept jobs only within a certain distance from home (or move if the distance is too great). If a new technology, such as streetcars in the 1890s or automobiles in the 1910s and 1920s, increases our commute speeds, then the distance we are willing to travel can increase without increasing the time we spend en route.
Is the travel-time budget idea wrong?”
Of course it is. At best it is a vast oversimplification of how Americans organize their lives to fit their need and beliefs. As Mr. O’Toole points out the illusion of choice plays a large factor in where you live and work and how you get there. Also, many households have 2+ working adults living in them. Who get’s to decide which one wins the travel time lottery? Paul points out another important factor. Parking! The most divisive and combustible issue in all of city planning. That is probably the biggest sticking point with the dirverless car argument. Affordable driverless cars will solve a lot of problems, but we’re going to have to put ’em all somewhere. In cities like San Francisco and NYC where’s that gonna be exactly?
I know this would add to the complexity of the study, but I would make the case that driving vs transit is affected greatly by the competence and caring of area highway departments. And that such causes more people to use transit despite the longer commutes.
Many people use transit because their roads are either inadequately designed, poorly maintained or incompetently managed. (Non-coordinated traffic signals, no communication regarding accidents, etc).
I’m not sure I get the point of this post, Mr. O’Toole. If we’re talking about people taking transit for work, a huge portion of those people do it because they work downtown. What we want to know is how their commute compares not to the overall average of all drivers, but the median for people who work downtown and drive. Short of that, I’m not sure if this all really means much.
” That is probably the biggest sticking point with the driverless car argument. Affordable driverless cars will solve a lot of problems, but we’re going to have to put ‘em all somewhere. In cities like San Francisco and NYC where’s that gonna be exactly?”
That’s a good question. If enough driverless cars are put into use, where do they go? In a lot of areas I don’t think it’ll mean much. Worst case scenario they make like a Roomba and return to their docking station.
The parking question may play into who owns a self driving car and who just buys the service. Just as we see an unusually high use of transit in these areas, it may lead to an unusually high use of a car sharing type service where the car just goes on to the next user in the queue.
“If we’re talking about people taking transit for work, a huge portion of those people do it because they work downtown.”‘
What percentage?
And do they take transit because they work downtown, or do they take transit because most tranisit leads to downtown?
My wife would enjoy taking the bus, if it didn’t take 30-40 minutes to go two miles, which she can drive in 5-10.
Speaking of time, the numbers in the transit table above are misleading.
Compare Seattle’s 25.6 minute average commute. In Seattle, that will barely get you across town from Lake Washington to Ballard. Heck, it can take that long to go from Queen Anne to downtown thanks to terrible roads, terrible traffic, and constant new construction that takes years to complete (including a tunnel driller that is STILL stuck).
Compare to Kansas City’s 21.1 minutes, which can get you far, far away from town thanks to I-70 and 435, the second longest beltway in the nation. According to Wiki, it has “more miles of limited access highway lanes per capita than any other large metro area in the United States”, and the “relatively uncongested freeway network contributes significantly to Kansas City’s position as one of America’s largest logistics hubs.”
Again, 21 minutes in KC gets to you to a farm with a large house. 25 minutes in Seattle still gets you a house, unless you’re lucky enough to live right on I-5 or I-90, which it may get you to the edge of the city, but not during most commute times.
It’s simple. You’re not the only person on the bus. Most of Houston’s bus routes are what we know as “maid routes”, stopping every hundred yards for another person to get on or off. For some routes it’s actually faster to just walk. The planning of routes makes a great difference. The 12 mile distance to visit my Ex takes over 2 hours. Dropping in on the GF is just over an hour, and is a distance of over 40 miles. I used to use the #34 bus, and then realized that it was a nice cycle ride. Of course, Houston’s very flat, but also very warm, but I’ll still take a bike commute of 5 miles rather than the bus, just ’cause it’s quicker. No, I’m not a fit freak. I smoke cigarettes and drink vodka and all sorts of other nasty things, but still think it’s quicker and easier to bike where possible. OTOH, I’ve had access to a SHOWER on arrival. Non-trivial factor.
The largest transit/driving ratio is Bridgeport. How many of those driving are heading to manhattan? Probably a smaller share than those who are taking transit. For those taking transit to Manhattan, if they were planning to drive to work a lot of them would either need to get a new job or move.
For NY, a good chunk of those who take transit can’t just afford a car, they own one, especially outside the city. They might not be able to afford tolls and parking if they work in midown though.
“For NY, a good chunk of those who take transit can’t just afford a car, they own one, especially outside the city.”
This makes absolutely no sense. Are you posting while on Merlot?
Frank sorry if the phrasing wasn’t clear. Many people in the new York area own cars and still commute by transit. $500 a month to park and 10.66 daily tolls round trip on MTA bridges and tunnels, 11 on pa bridges tends to discourage driving, even once you own a car the marginal cost of driving to manhattan can be greater than the transit fare. This isn’t true in many cities, and isn’t true in NY for many trips. The subway and commuter railroads are also unaffected by traffic jams on the roads caused by the lack of adequate road pricing. For many transit commutes during peak hours are cheaper and faster than driving, the reverse of much of the country. So many use transit.
Thanks for the clarification. When I lived on LI, I took the LIE to get to NYC. No way would I want to navigate the maze sans GPS, but parking was also a major issue. Even today, were I to return, I’d still take the LIE. Although, when in NYC, I took cabs because the subway was so oppressively hot, smelly, and crowded. Were I to return to NYC, I’d still favor cabs over the subway. And I favor walking over all.
“If we’re talking about people taking transit for work, a huge portion of those people do it because they work downtown.”‘ ~me
What percentage? ~frank
I poked around again., but couldn’t’ find it. I’ll make a point of finding a good summary. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen them.
Either way there numbers should be high enough to compare the number of people that live in Lone Tree, CO or Parker, CO that work downtown and compare those that drive to those that take transit. That is, an apples to apples comparison.
This isn’t an actual test of travel time budgets. The TTB concept applies to all daily travel, not just commute trips. In fact, the amount of time spent on work trips is related to the amount of non-work travel one engages in. This is why the concept of a ‘budget’ is used. You need to measure the amount of travel, in addition to the time spent.