Chart: America's driving capitals

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

Jevons paradox in action. You live in a small city where traffic is light and it's not that big across, but then you make up for it by spending more time in your car, covering more ground.

It's almost like people drive as much as they can until they're annoyed.

Land use has a lot to do with it too. I don't think most people deliberately choose to live in car centric environments, so much as they're steered to them by other factors. New, smaller cities pretty much started with sprawled out environments because they didn't have to immediately think about how people would get to their destinations by foot or transit.

My sister lived in Raleigh for a long time, and for people that live there it is a least a 10 minute drive to do much of anything. Almost no one there lives in a place where they can easily walk to a pharmacy, market, dry cleaner, etc. Public transit is also virtually non-existent, so taking transit to work is not much of an option, nor is letting your kids walk to school.

[dktshb]

I am a big 0 for San Francisco figures even though I go into the office 3 days a week.

[Wigs]

Buffalo's scoring well on these lists

[JManc]

One city that is deceptively easy to get around in is Anchorage. The city limits is huge and is low density but the actual developed areas are pretty compact. I can get from the airport to midtown or downtown in about 10-15 minutes.

[plinko]

Sadly, while I work from home 2 days a week, I still have a 5 day average of 32.4!

At least my commute is pretty...



Source

[BnaBreaker]

Originally Posted by plinko

Sadly, while I work from home 2 days a week, I still have a 5 day average of 32.4!

At least my commute is pretty...



Source

To a lot of people outside of California, myself included, that view will probably remind them of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

[Centropolis]

I knew St. Louis would be up there. St. Louis passed on building the planned subway/heavy rail system and its mid-century wealth and influence was its doom - we got all the highway (and demolition) funding we asked for and then some (along with Kansas City) before Missouri lost its relative position in congress. Not a tollway in sight and a better-than-Texas expressway system.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

I knew St. Louis would be up there. St. Louis passed on building the planned subway/heavy rail system

Such an unfortunate swing and a miss.

Might've been like the midwest's Philly with comprehensive legacy rail systems (rapid transit & commuter) that remained intact.

[PhillyRising]

Even living here in suburban Philly...I am at about the area average from a suburb to suburb commute and it's only 20 miles over the road because of the terrain and our lack of expressways that keep it from being a 15 mile commute if it were a straight line from door to door. It takes me about 25 minutes at most going in at 5am and about 40 coming home at 3:45 with traffic and more red lights.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by PhillyRising

Even living here in suburban Philly...I am at about the area average from a suburb to suburb commute and it's only 20 miles over the road.

I can't fully tell, but it sounds like you're talking about the one-way driving distance for your commute, which would put you at roughly double of the Philly metro average weekday miles driven (40 miles vs. 21.1 miles)

[Gantz]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

Most miles traveled
1 Raleigh, N.C. - 38.1
2 Birmingham, Ala. - 36.1
3 Jacksonville, Fla. - 36.0
4 Nashville, Tenn. - 35.5
5 Charlotte, N.C. - 35.5

Genuine question for people living in these cities and commuting long distances. Why not just live closer to work? Its not like there is any significant advantage achieved by living that far away when it comes to housing cost. And ya'll go to and commute to the same stores anyway.
I am very ignorant on this topic.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Gantz

Genuine question for people living in these cities and commuting long distances. Why not just live closer to work? Its not like there is any significant advantage achieved by living that far away when it comes to housing cost. And ya'll go to and commute to the same stores anyway.
I am very ignorant on this topic.

Length of commute time is the primary consideration for how far people choose to live from work, so all of those cities with long commute distances are places where it is easy to cover a long distance in a short amount of time. All cities are equally influenced by the 30-minute commuting radius rule. Within a 30-minute radius, people will prioritize other factors like status, space, etc. Outside of a 30-minute radius people will prioritize distance.

This happens regardless of primary mode of transit. If a city/region builds wide roads, freeways, etc., then people will just respond by living farther away. If a city/region prioritizes fast and reliable mass transit then people will respond by clustering close to transit hubs.

The size of cities remained relatively stagnant for around 1,000 years. Bloomberg compared how ancient Rome and medieval Paris were roughly the same size, mainly due to most people needing to commute on foot. Municipal boundaries paralleled rough estimates of how far someone could walk in 30 minutes, also known as the Marchetti Constant.

Most people still commute 30 minutes each way every weekday, but how we commute has changed. Across the 19th and 20th centuries, the Second Industrial Revolution introduced ever faster and more convenient methods of public and personal transportation. From railroads and streetcars to subways and highways, development eventually led to the poster child of 21st-century suburban sprawl, Atlanta.

https://jalopnik.com/the-30-minute-c...nia-1851002886

[Gantz]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Length of commute time is the primary consideration for how far people choose to live from work, so all of those cities with long commute distances are places where it is easy to cover a long distance in a short amount of time. All cities are equally influenced by the 30-minute commuting radius rule. Within a 30-minute radius, people will prioritize other factors like status, space, etc. Outside of a 30-minute radius people will prioritize distance.

This happens regardless of primary mode of transit. If a city/region builds wide roads, freeways, etc., then people will just respond by living farther away. If a city/region prioritizes fast and reliable mass transit then people will respond by clustering close to transit hubs.

Do people in those cities average sub-30 minute commutes door to door?

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Gantz

Do people in those cities average sub-30 minute commutes door to door?

Yeah, probably. Without congestion it takes about 30 minutes to drive 30 miles on most freeways. That matches up with average commuting distance for cities on the higher end according to this list.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

Yeah, probably. Without congestion it takes about 30 minutes to drive 30 miles on most freeways. That matches up with average commuting distance for cities on the higher end according to this list.

Once again the numbers on this list are for total average weekday miles driven for all adults.

They are not average one-way commute distances.

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by Gantz

Genuine question for people living in these cities and commuting long distances. Why not just live closer to work? Its not like there is any significant advantage achieved by living that far away when it comes to housing cost. And ya'll go to and commute to the same stores anyway.
I am very ignorant on this topic.

Being most familiar with Nashville of those top 5 listed - you buy where you can afford AND are lucky enough to get an accepted offer through before everyone else and then you just deal with it - and employment is all over the place. Matching where you work with where you can actually get a house is NOT that easy in Nashville.

Illinois commuters definitely increase the avg mileage for St. Louis since there is a lot of white collar employment all along the central corridor (I-64) corridor all the way up into St. Charles County. There's always been a substantial number of Illinois commuters all the way through metro St. Louis everywhere I've worked due to the relative lack of professional class employment in the metro east and there is a reverse traffic jam for that reason (plus tons of City reverse commuters to central and western suburbs which I was for years).

That's not to say that metro St. Louis doesn't have a major decentralization issue with monster-sized exurbs in addition to interstate commutes. Metrolink was too late, too limited, and too slow to make a huge difference.

[Emprise du Lion]

Originally Posted by Gantz

Genuine question for people living in these cities and commuting long distances. Why not just live closer to work? Its not like there is any significant advantage achieved by living that far away when it comes to housing cost. And ya'll go to and commute to the same stores anyway.
I am very ignorant on this topic.

Originally Posted by Gantz

Do people in those cities average sub-30 minute commutes door to door?

I figured I'd throw my 2¢ in since my daily roundtrip commute is approximately the same as those in the top 5.

I actually pay more to live that far away from my job because I'm reverse commuting from St. Louis proper to a suburb in Illinois. I have lived in said suburb before, but I chose to move to the city for better restaurants, bars, etc.

I have thrown around the idea of moving back, but the reality is that I would still end up driving or Ubering over to the city to do what I want to do a lot of the time. My job is paying for my mileage, and my commute is usually 25 minutes or less because traffic is going the opposite direction of me during rush hour.

I'm also an attorney who obtained his Illinois law license first, so that certainly complicated my job hunting and career path. I now have my Missouri law license as well, but all of my connections are where I am working in Illinois.

Originally Posted by Centropolis

Illinois commuters definitely increase the avg mileage for St. Louis since there is a lot of white collar employment all along the central corridor (I-64) corridor all the way up into St. Charles County. There's always been a substantial number of Illinois commuters all the way through metro St. Louis everywhere I've worked due to the relative lack of professional class employment in the metro east and there is a reverse traffic jam for that reason (plus tons of City reverse commuters to central and western suburbs which I was for years).

That's not to say that metro St. Louis doesn't have a major decentralization issue with monster-sized exurbs in addition to interstate commutes. Metrolink was too late, too limited, and too slow to make a huge difference.

Yeah, the biggest employer in the Metro East is Scott Air Force Base, and it's not even close. They employ something like 13,000 people. Outside of government employers, most of the professional / white collar jobs are in Missouri.

If Metro St. Louis is decentralized, the Metro East in particular is on another level. With the demise of East St. Louis at its peak, there's not one city that can hold sway across the Metro East. It's really just a collection small towns and cities that don't have much to do with each other besides being in close(ish) proximity to St. Louis.

[edale]

Originally Posted by Gantz

Genuine question for people living in these cities and commuting long distances. Why not just live closer to work? Its not like there is any significant advantage achieved by living that far away when it comes to housing cost. And ya'll go to and commute to the same stores anyway.
I am very ignorant on this topic.

I live in Los Angeles, so not one of the cities on the top of the list, but I was recently rotated to a new position within my organization, and my commute went from 3.5 miles to 14 miles each way. It's less than ideal, but I like where I live, and would not want to live near where I am now working, so I deal with the longer drive. Also, there's a great possibility I could get reassigned back downtown or to another office at some point, so it doesn't really make sense to move to be close to the office in my case. Thankfully, my new commute largely goes against traffic, so even though my distance traveled has nearly tripled, my overall commute time has only increased by 5-10 mins (most days).

[Crawford]

There are plenty of reasons why people would rationally choose long commutes. They have a spouse, with a short(er) commute. They have family commitments. They like their home, or community, or school system. They're willing to trade a longer commute for lower home costs.

People on average change jobs every 3-5 years. In a major metro, it would be pretty hard to find a strategic location ensuring careerlong convenient access for two working spouses. Harder still if kids are in the equation.

[Doady]

Not surprising to see a city in North Carolina at the very bottom.

The lay out of the roads might be a factor too. The distance they drive can be much longer straight-line distance between the origin and destination.

The arterial roads in Las Vegas for example are laid out in a distinct grid and no mountains or rivers as obstacles (which also helps transit), so it is ranked highly.

Baltimore is ranked in the bottom half, and of course we still remember what happened there recently.