The era of the 'super-commute' is here

[DCReid]

I don't have access to the full article in the Bizjournals link below but my google search did say that the DC area had the biggest increase over the past years. I did find this study from 10 years ago and DC was already very high along with California metros. I met LA people who would wake up at 4 am to drive from Antelope valley (Palmdale) to get to their job in Orange County; I met one DC person who lived near Hagerstown and worked in DC, but was proud of her 5000 sf house. Had co-workers who worked in DC and lived in Fredericksburg, VA, and Martinsburg, WV. Even had a co-worker who worked in DC and lived in Gettysburg, PA partly because she had several horses. Even heard of one or two people who lived in North Carolina and worked in DC 2-3 days a week...

https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/...hot-spots.html

https://www.census.gov/content/dam/C...-03_poster.pdf

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by DCReid

I don't have access to the full article in the Bizjournals link below but my google search did say that the DC area had the biggest increase over the past years. I did find this study from 10 years ago and DC was already very high along with California metros. I met LA people who would wake up at 4 am to drive from Antelope valley (Palmdale) to get to their job in Orange County; I met one DC person who lived near Hagerstown and worked in DC, but was proud of her 5000 sf house. Had co-workers who worked in DC and lived in Fredericksburg, VA, and Martinsburg, WV. Even had a co-worker who worked in DC and lived in Gettysburg, PA partly because she had several horses. Even heard of one or two people who lived in North Carolina and worked in DC 2-3 days a week...

https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/...hot-spots.html

https://www.census.gov/content/dam/C...-03_poster.pdf

Two hour (one way) commutes for blue collar tradespeople were common to job sites when I worked in the Bay Area including coming in from Sacramento/Central valley.

[Crawford]

Yeah, the DC area is definitely one of the supercommuting hubs. It also has unusually bad traffic, with all the twisty roads and not particularly extensive road infrastructure.

[dave8721]

Pretty common for Firefighters who work 3 days and then are off 4 to live in the Naples or Ft. Meyers areas and commute to Miami ~3 hours. They sleep at the station when working anyway.

[uaarkson]

Detroit’s commuter shed encompasses almost the entire southern half of Michigan.

[The North One]

Originally Posted by uaarkson

Detroit’s commuter shed encompasses almost the entire southern half of Michigan.

It does. People commute into Detroit all the way from the Port Huron area and those other little villages around like Imlay City. Which is wild to me, but there's a whole community of rural middle of nowhere residents who just drive into the metro all the time. It's about a 50 min drive to most places so I guess it's doable. But like just move closer WTF. Super long drives just don't seem to faze some people.

[jd3189]

These super commutes can't be good for long term health and sustainability. It kinda makes sense but it ultimately doesn't in the end of the day. Why spend 2+ hours every workday driving in shitty traffic just to go to work when you could work closer to home or even at home? You could save a lot on gas, car repairs, mileage, etc. Plus might even save a few more years of prime health.

Especially in California, it doesn't make sense to me. Folks are still paying a lot to own a home in the IE or high desert and have to commute to LA daily with a gas guzzler? Their choice I guess, but that sounds like hell as an urbanist.

[Trae]

Originally Posted by jd3189

These super commutes can't be good for long term health and sustainability. It kinda makes sense but it ultimately doesn't in the end of the day. Why spend 2+ hours every workday driving in shitty traffic just to go to work when you could work closer to home or even at home? You could save a lot on gas, car repairs, mileage, etc. Plus might even save a few more years of prime health.

Especially in California, it doesn't make sense to me. Folks are still paying a lot to own a home in the IE or high desert and have to commute to LA daily with a gas guzzler? Their choice I guess, but that sounds like hell as an urbanist.

It may not be an everyday commute but hey you can buy a home in the high desert or low desert (palm springs-indio) in the 300k range easy. most of the IE between Pomona (honorary IE) and Riverside/San Bernardino will run you $500k+. so if you for some reason love california and can't see yourself leaving, plus already have a decent enough paying job here then I can see it. I knew people that commuted from Highland, CA to the Mid-Wilshire area DAILY pre-pandemic. They'd leave at 5am to arrive at work by 7am and then leave by 3:15pm to get home by 5:30pm. Crazy and that's "just" 80 miles.

[Dariusb]

For people who have done the long-term super commutes by car, I wonder how many cars/trucks they've had to replace? I can imagine all of that driving would burn up engines.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by Dariusb

For people who have done the long-term super commutes by car, I wonder how many cars/trucks they've had to replace? I can imagine all of that driving would burn up engines.

Super commutes (assuming highway miles) are actually less taxing on a drive train than stop-and-go city driving. My wife drives ~30 miles to work but 25 miles of it is on the freeway so it's not as bad if she had a 10 mile commute full of stop lights and bumper to bumper traffic.