Extreme Commuting
CBS Sunday Morning had a story a couple weeks ago about The Ever-Growing American Commute . The subtitle is "People Are Living Farther From Cities And Enduring Longer Commutes So They Can Have Large Homes". Much of the background data for the story comes from Commuting in America III from TRB. While one can buy the whole report for $60, there are important (free) data available in the summaries. The most interesting thing I learned is that the commuting patterns are not just from the suburbs to the central city, but from a suburb of one central city to a suburb of another central city. The implications of this is that carpooling and mass transit are almost never available options in these situations; thus, individual - no passenger - use is on the rise in many areas. Yet, there is this countervailing trend: "Although immigrants make up less than 14 percent of all workers, they represent about 40 percent of those in large carpools. The percentage is particularly high amo