Recent Streetsblog USA posts about Commuting

There Goes the Neighborhood: Why Homeownership Drags Down Employment

By Tanya Snyder | May 8, 2013 | 6 Comments

If your idea of the American dream is to spend your mornings and evenings alone in an idling car surrounded on all sides by other lonely people in other idling cars, by all means, buy a house. A new paper [PDF] from the Peterson Institute for International Economics finds a strong link between homeownership and […]

Tell Us About Your “Commuter Idyll”

By Tanya Snyder | May 2, 2013 | 37 Comments

Before I became your editor here at Streetsblog Capitol Hill, I was a reporter for WTOP, the DC area’s “most-listened-to” radio station. Its traffic reports “on the 8s” helped feed my ire toward auto-centrism – they wasted one out of every 10 minutes of airtime on an unintelligible litany of route numbers and exits. Meanwhile, […]

Long-Distance Commuting Hits a Wall

By Angie Schmitt | Mar 7, 2013 | 2 Comments

The new Census data on commuting in America contains a fair amount of information but little reason to celebrate. The big takeaway is that almost four in five American workers commuted alone by car in 2011. Nationally, only about 5 percent of workers commute via transit. But amid the lousy news are a few reasons […]

Census Shows Slight Decline in Solo Car Commuting

By Angie Schmitt | Sep 26, 2012 | 3 Comments

For the first time in four years, a smaller share of Americans are driving to work alone. The 2011 estimates by the U.S. Census Bureau [PDF] show a razor-thin decline in solo car commuting, 76.6 to 76.4 percent. Meanwhile, public transit’s share ticked up slightly, to 5 percent from 4.9. While the numbers are small […]

A New Bill Passes, But America’s Transpo Policy Stays Stuck in 20th Century

By Tanya Snyder | Jun 29, 2012 | 11 Comments

The House of Representatives approved the transportation bill conference report this afternoon by a vote of 373 to 52. [UPDATE 4:00 PM: The Senate has also approved the bill, 74-19.] This is a bill that’s been called “a death blow to mass transit” by the Amalgamated Transit Union, “a step backwards for America’s transportation system” […]

Study Links Long Commutes to a Host of Health Maladies

By Angie Schmitt | May 15, 2012 | 1 Comment

We all know regular TV-watching is a risk factor for obesity and associated health problems. Also, recent studies shined a light on the role of sedentary jobs. Less attention has been paid to the threat of the lengthy car commute. But a new study [PDF] from the Center for Disease Control, National Institutes of Health and […]

Show More Stories