WASHINGTON — A new study conducted by University of Michigan yields some interesting details about how D.C. residents commute.
The Transportation Research Institute at the University of Michigan released a report on how Americans get to work in the 30 largest U.S. cities. They analyzed commuters in seven categories: Solo drivers, carpoolers, mass transit users, walkers, cyclists and teleworkers.
They found that while D.C. drivers account for a small percentage of the workforce, many rely heavily on mass transit. More than 38 percent of commuters use mass transit to get to work — second only to New York City where more than 56 percent of commuters took buses, trains, subways or cabs.
As for walkers, Boston leads the way, but D.C. comes in a close second place. About 13 percent of the workforce walks to work in D.C. compared to the more than 14 percent of Bostonians who hoof it.
Portland sees the highest number of cyclist commuters, but once again D.C. ranks second in the nation. Bicycling overall was the least popular form of commuting with only 0.6 percent pedalling.
Despite the region’s HOV highways and slug lines, the study found D.C. near the bottom of the list for carpools.
Also, D.C. ranks high when it comes to overall commute time, as did Baltimore. The researchers determined the cities with the longest average commute time (in minutes):
- New York (39.7)
- Chicago (33.7)
- Philadelphia (32.0)
- San Francisco (31.5)
- Baltimore (30.5)
- Los Angeles (29.9)
- Washington, D.C. (29.9)
- Boston (29.5)
- San Jose (27.3)
- Detroit (26.8)
The average commute for all of the cities included in the research was 25.8 minutes.
To gather the results, researchers analyzed Census Bureau data from 2013 for the 30 cities and how long it took those 16 years and older to commute as well as what types of transportation they used. The study considered people actually living in a city, not those commuting in.
WTOP’s Dave Dildine contribute to this report.
