Americans commute earlier and longer: study Tue Oct 17, 8:33 AM ET
Americans are leaving home earlier to get work, fewer are walking, and more are driving alone, according to a study of commuting trends released on Monday.
The study, published by the Transportation Research Board, found people are also taking longer to reach their workplaces, with the number of people with commutes lasting more than 60 minutes growing by almost 50 percent between 1990 and 2000.
Alan Pisarski, author of the study 'Commuting in America III,' said the average national travel times among the nation's 128 million commuters grew to 25.5 minutes in 2000 from 22.4 minutes in 1990 and 21.7 minutes in 1980.
He said latest census data also showed that more Americans were leaving for work between 5 a.m. and 6:30 a.m. with men making up the majority of early-morning commuters.
"It's much more a product of the transportation system than the fact that they have an early starting time," Pisarski said.
"Before 8 a.m. it's very much a guy thing. The earlier, the more male it is and after 8 a.m. women are actually the majority of the commuters."
The Transportation Research Board is a division of the National Research Council, an independent adviser to the federal government and others.
Pisarski, who published similar studies on commuting in 1987 and 1996, said fewer people were walking to work.
After studying census data from 1990-2004, he found the number of Americans walking to work had dropped to 2.9 percent in 2000 from 3.9 percent in 1990 and 5.6 percent in 1980.
More people were driving alone to work, with an increase of almost 13 million solo drivers in the 1990s.
Commutes were also getting longer, with the proportion of workers traveling less than 20 minutes dropping to 47 percent in 2000 from around 50 percent.
But Pisarski said American commuting trends were about to change, with baby boomers reaching retirement age and more people starting to work from home. The percentage of people working from home had risen to 3.6 percent from 3.3 percent in 2000.
He forecast that future trends in commuting would be influenced by the growing number of newly arrived immigrants in the workforce.
"Unlike most native-born Americans or immigrants who have been in the United States for more than five years, many new immigrants either carpool, bike, walk, or use public transportation for their daily commute," Pisarski said in a statement.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061017/...E0BHNlYwN0bWE-
In yet another way (that makes just about every way) Americans are moving bass-ackwards. How can this once-great country be so stupid today?
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