The Percentage of DC-Area Residents That Travel 90 Minutes to Get to Work

• April 25th 2018

by Nena Perry-Brown

One consequence of the rise in housing prices in high-demand metro areas is the increase in area residents that have very long commutes, a dynamic ApartmentList unpacks in a recent study. 

Census data from 2016 shows that one in 36 commuters nationwide spend at least 90 minutes a day either on public transportation or in traffic to get to work, a 16 percent increase compared to 2005. 69.7 percent of super commuters drive to work compared to 91.4 percent of non-super commuters. 

About one of out of every twenty commuters in the DC area have at least a ninety-minute commute, the seventh highest in the nation. Of super commuters in the region, 62.8 percent drive to work compared to 81.2 percent of non super commuters.

As seen in the above graph, just as area residents with incomes below the median are more reliant on public transit than those with incomes above the median, residents with incomes below the median are also over-represented among super-commuters who use transit. 

This data drives home the point that increasingly-high housing prices push residents further out from the epicenter of the metro area in search of lower housing prices, and does not necessarily enable those residents to afford a car to commute.

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/the-dc-area-has-7th-highest-share-of-super-commuters/13894.