WASHINGTON – New data from the Census Bureau shows the D.C. region has the nation’s second-worst commute, and that 72 percent of workers in the nation’s capital live elsewhere.
The Census report Tuesday comes a month after a respected report from the Texas Transportation Institute ranked the D.C. area with the nation’s worst traffic.
Tuesday’s Census report lists the average one-way commute in 2011 for the D.C. region at 34.5 minutes. The greater New York region had the nation’s longest commute at 34.9 minutes.
The national average is 25.5 minutes.
The report found a strong correlation between long commute times and a region’s reliance on public transportation.
Statistics also detail “mega commutes,” which are commutes of 50 miles or more that last at least 90 minutes. The District’s percentage of mega commuters — more than 2 percent — trumped the percentage of any state, information from the bureau says.
Additionally, no other region came remotely close to having a workforce so made up of out-of-towners. Residents of Maryland and Virginia accounted for 70 percent of all workers in the District.
“The District of Columbia is unique among states in that it is geographically small, the entire area is urban, and it serves as a job center for all of its adjoining counties in Maryland and Virginia … No other state’s workforce exceeded 20.0 percent in its rate of out-of-state commuters,” a Census Bureau report says.
Of the more than 500,000 people who commuted into D.C. from elsewhere — according to 2006-2010 census estimates — the bureau says 136,000 came from Prince George’s County, 107,000 from Montgomery County and 90,000 from Fairfax County.
See more details on the Census Bureau findings below:
Out-of-State and Long Commutes: 2011 by
WTOP’s Nick Iannelli and The Associated Press contributed to this report. Follow @NickWTOP and @WTOP on Twitter.
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