The conventional wisdom holds that traffic congestion is getting worse and worse, that commuting times are getting longer, and that citizens are enduring increasingly unbearable frustration while stuck in traffic. But what if that’s not true? What if, while nobody was looking, commuting times actually got shorter? What if the reality on the ground was at total odds with the political rhetoric?
New census data, which the Axis of Taxes (which includes most of the media) conveniently chose to ignore, suggests that there may be a chasm between perception and reality. According to a September statement by the AAA, the Census Bureau has released data indicating that commuting times actually got shorter between 2000 and 2005.
The average daily commute to work has shrunk from 25.5 minutes in 2000 to 25.1 minutes last year, according to data released this week by the Census Bureau.
“We all should hold a celebration,” said Alan Pisarski, author of Commuting in America. “We’re saving 0.4 minutes!”
I don’t know if Pisarski, a prominent Northern Virginia transportation consultant was speaking sarcastically or not. But I, for one, find the news quite encouraging.
Of course, national averages can obscure local trends. Commuting times in the Washington metro area, third longest in the country, actually got “slightly longer” between 2000 and 2005, AAA reports without providing details. A U.S. Census press release singles out Prince William County, Va., as a suburban county with one of the longest average commutes, 36.4 minutes — fifth longest in the nation. (Which may explain the blind frustration motivating the freeze on new home building there.)
Average commuting times for Virginia in 2005 were 25.8 minutes, ninth longest in the nation. How does that compare to 2000? AAA didn’t say. But the Bureau of Census, god bless ’em, puts its data online. Go here and see for yourself: That’s down from 27.0 minutes in 2000!
A decline of 1.2 minutes in averaging commuting time would be so dramatic and so counterintuitive, that one must consider the possibility that some of the change can be accounted for by the margin of statistical error in Census data or some other change in the way data was collected and compiled. But until such a case can be made, I can only presume that the conventional wisdom just may be wrong.
The commuting data also might explain why, despite the media- and politician-generated hysteria over traffic congestion, most Virginians stubbornly refuse to endorse the idea of higher taxes for transportation.
