Driving Alone Dominates 2007-2012 Commuting Trend

[cpzilliacus]

NewGeography.com: Driving Alone Dominates 2007-2012 Commuting Trend

New data from the American Community Survey makes it possible to review the trend in mode of access to employment in the United States over the past five years. This year, 2012, represents the fifth annual installment of complete American Community Survey data. This is also a significant period, because the 2007 was a year before the Lehman Brothers collapse that triggered the Great Financial crisis, while gasoline prices increased about a third between 2007 and 2012.

[Laura]

My only beef with ACS data is that it is less reliable than the original "long form" census data. Less people fill it out, the margin of error is greater, and you have to put five years worth of it together to gain a greater precision in the data. But I digress.

That data doesn't surprise me because most people do not work at jobs in a city center. It's more difficult and less practical to commute to a suburb or even just to get from one side of a city to another. I've made a serious effort to use public transit and carpooling because I'm kind of a hippie (save the planet!) and transit nerd. Plus I love the extra time in the car w/mike and on the bus reading books.

As for the decrease in carpooling (which is unfortunate), I believe a lot of it has to do with the increase of employees working from home and working more flexible office hours. At a previous job, I commuted with co-workers twice by choice. The first time I was forced to leave early because the coworker forgot to tell me that she needed to pick up her kid at 3:30. The second time the coworker was running late and subtly blamed me for it even though I was ready and waiting for them to arrive.

At another job, there was a married couple there who rarely commuted together because he often worked late (same company but he was a manager for a different dept). Also, she hated that he listened to sports in the morning and he hated listening to her top 40 pop.

[agentsteel53]

there are VMSes encouraging Caltrans-approved ride sharing.

it's just way too formal for me.  you have to sign up and register way in advance and then, like some perverse dating site, you are matched up with people who don't particularly match your profile.

I'd love for an ad-hoc system (read: slugging, aka hitchhiking) to gain social preference.

[Scott5114]

For me, weird shifts are always what keeps me from carpooling. I used to work from 1am to 8am. How do you carpool that?

[NE2]

1975 Michael Summa from http://www.alpsroads.net/roads/fl/us_1/ms.html

[agentsteel53]

I just looked on Caltrans's site, and it remains irreparably broken.  there is a park and ride facility near my work, but the "find people with like commutes" seems to ignore it. 

I work very close to the largest employer in San Diego County (hint: their name is on a major football stadium) and I live conveniently near a park and ride.  my commute hours are well within reasonable (a bit offset late to avoid rush hour, but otherwise quite standard).

how the fuck am I unable to find dozens of matches?

[Duke87]

I'd love for an ad-hoc system (read: slugging, aka hitchhiking) to gain social preference.

The benefit of this is that the setup still works if one person randomly has different plans one day. Working later than normal? Get in a different car with a different bunch of people.

The downside is that it requires being comfortable getting in a car with complete strangers.


Also, I'm curious: what is the in-car social etiquette for people slugging in DC? Do fellow commuters chat during these trips or is everyone silent? The threat of having to talk to people during my commute would also drive me away from such a practice. I like how on public transit in NYC no one tries to start a conversation with you.

[Laura]

Also, I'm curious: what is the in-car social etiquette for people slugging in DC? Do fellow commuters chat during these trips or is everyone silent? The threat of having to talk to people during my commute would also drive me away from such a practice. I like how on public transit in NYC no one tries to start a conversation with you.

According to slug-lines.com:
"Normally, there is no conversation unless initiated by the driver; usually the only words exchanged are "Thank you" as the driver drops off the slugs at the destination."

In the Baltimore area, the amount of social interaction varies. Rarely do I end up in conversations on commuter lines that are closer into the city. However, on commuter lines that run from a farther out destination, the people are much chattier - most likely because they've gotten to know each other because its mostly the same crowd every day.

On my Wednesday morning bus, my nickname is "Wednesday" because its a commuter specific line and the same people ride at the same time daily.

I've also found people are also friendly and chatty on local buses that pass through lower income areas. The bus is a social place where people laugh and cry together. Literally. There was a lady on one of the local buses one day that broke down about her cancer and addiction problems, and me and another guy were trying to help her feel better.

That said, there are plenty of people that aren't chatty and/or are engaged in books, tablets, phones, music, and they aren't bothered. There are plenty of untalkative regular commuters and no one forces them to talk.

[PHLBOS]

For a brief period, I carpooled w/a co-worker that didn't live too far from me back when I was working in NJ.  However, that plan literally went up in smoke when one of us (either him or I) had to stay late to work on a project.

After that, my carpooling days to work ended.

That data doesn't surprise me because most people do not work at jobs in a city center. It's more difficult and less practical to commute to a suburb or even just to get from one side of a city to another.
...
As for the decrease in carpooling (which is unfortunate), I believe a lot of it has to do with the increase of employees working from home and working more flexible office hours.

While car pooling can, at times, be more flexible than mass transit; it still lacks the ubiquity associated w/driving alone.

IMHO, car pooling only works when all workers work the same exact hours and are located in roughly the same region (if working for different companies).  That's just not the case anymore and hasn't been for decades.

[formulanone]

1975 Michael Summa from http://www.alpsroads.net/roads/fl/us_1/ms.html

I know this is off-topic, but that sign was up as late as 1994, but without the legend below it.

Now it makes sense...because the face without the words seemed just a tad weird.

[jeffandnicole]

I've been in a carpool for about 12 - 13 years now.  Started with 3 guys...been 4 guys for nearly 10 years.

We live in 4 separate towns; we work in 3 separate buildings.  I live the closest to the office, and that's 42 miles away.  The others are about the same (43 - 46 miles from home to work); one lives about 50 miles away. Our working hours are about the same, although 2 of us have a bit more flexibility, which works since we 2 are in different buildings.  The 2 that are more rigid to their schedule (or so they claim) work in the same building.

The benefits are: Much less wear & tear on the vehicles, and the savings on gas, maintenence, etc, is huge. A side benefit for me is that on days I don't drive the carpool, I don't drive at all. They all meet at my house, just off the highway.

The cons are: The guys can be total assholes sometimes.  We have our different driving styles.  One member in particular has really odd quirks - doesn't like using the fan above medium-low for example.  Says it'll consume too much gas and wear the fan out faster.  It could be 95 degrees out, and he barely keeps the a/c on med-low, and often times on low.  He'll even turn it to the defrost mode for some strange reason.  But yet, yesterday, it was 57 degrees out, and he turned the a/c on to med-low!  He doesn't really explain his reasons either, and if he does explain it, it's an obvious bs answer (once he said he did it because he was bored sitting in traffic!?!?).  He also refuses to turn his PC off until his set dismissal time, as if they monitor that (we work in the same company.  They don't monitor it).  But he was coming out later and later - sometimes 9 minutes late.  He would give various answers/excuses.  He would even say he shuts his computer down and leaves, and that takes him 9 minutes.  I'll give you the background of that: He works on the 2nd floor of his building.  We park out front waiting for him.  That doesn't take 9 minutes.  I would tell him I work on the 9th floor of my building, take the elevator down, walk to his building nearly 1/2 mile away, and all of that takes 9 minutes.  His response to his obvious lie: Well, you're a better person than I am.

The others are a bit better, but still have their ticks and oddities. 

Did I say the pros are the gas, maintenance and wear & tear.  Yeah...that's what I put up with that shit. And the only reason why.

[agentsteel53]

that plan literally went up in smoke when one of us (either him or I) had to stay late to work on a project.

"goddamn it Elroy, if we don't leave in 5 minutes, I'm torching your car!"

I just found out a coworker moved to within 5 miles of me, so we've agreed to try carpooling... if our plan looks compatible the next day, we go for it. 

[NE2]

Now it makes sense...because the face without the words seemed just a tad weird.

And the words make the face not weird?

[formulanone]

Well...I saw the sign, realized "hey, that's not in the Florida Driver's Manual", realized I'm not on drugs...so I ignored it some sort of silly weird sign.

[Big John]

Warning, weird people ahead.

[cpzilliacus]

My only beef with ACS data is that it is less reliable than the original "long form" census data. Less people fill it out, the margin of error is greater, and you have to put five years worth of it together to gain a greater precision in the data. But I digress.

That is absolutely  correct.  It's a huge issue that nobody  wants to educate the Congress about.

That data doesn't surprise me because most people do not work at jobs in a city center. It's more difficult and less practical to commute to a suburb or even just to get from one side of a city to another. I've made a serious effort to use public transit and carpooling because I'm kind of a hippie (save the planet!) and transit nerd. Plus I love the extra time in the car w/mike and on the bus reading books.

Also correct. The decline in transit use is as much about the dispersion of employment to places far from downtown, like Fort Meade, Timonium, and the Edgerwood/Aberdeen area of Harford County in the Baltimore region, and to Tysons Corner, Reston, Fair Oaks and North Bethesda in the Washington region.  And it is a major mistake to assume that just because a transit like or two serves these places that increased transit ridership will naturally  follow.

As for the decrease in carpooling (which is unfortunate), I believe a lot of it has to do with the increase of employees working from home and working more flexible office hours. At a previous job, I commuted with co-workers twice by choice. The first time I was forced to leave early because the coworker forgot to tell me that she needed to pick up her kid at 3:30. The second time the coworker was running late and subtly blamed me for it even though I was ready and waiting for them to arrive.

Car-pooling is a great mode of transport, but as you say, it suffers severely from a lack of flexibility.  Only exception to that is in corridors where there are HOV lanes (with HOV-3 restriction) and enough critical mass of commuters to allow for "informal" car-pooling, like along Virginia's I-95/I-395 HOV corridor and along I-80 in the Bay Area of California.  In Northern Virginia, it is usually called "slugging."

There is another reason  for the decline of car-pooling in some areas - transit subsidies for people that do not want to drive, cannot usually be used for car-pooling, with the exception of some van-pools.

At another job, there was a married couple there who rarely commuted together because he often worked late (same company but he was a manager for a different dept). Also, she hated that he listened to sports in the morning and he hated listening to her top 40 pop.

Choice of radio stations in a car-pool does matter.

[cpzilliacus]

I'd love for an ad-hoc system (read: slugging, aka hitchhiking) to gain social preference.

Here's a site devoted to Northern Virginia slugging: Slug-Lines.com

[cpzilliacus]

Also, I'm curious: what is the in-car social etiquette for people slugging in DC? Do fellow commuters chat during these trips or is everyone silent? The threat of having to talk to people during my commute would also drive me away from such a practice. I like how on public transit in NYC no one tries to start a conversation with you.

According to slug-lines.com:
"Normally, there is no conversation unless initiated by the driver; usually the only words exchanged are "Thank you" as the driver drops off the slugs at the destination."

You beat me to it!

In the Baltimore area, the amount of social interaction varies. Rarely do I end up in conversations on commuter lines that are closer into the city. However, on commuter lines that run from a farther out destination, the people are much chattier - most likely because they've gotten to know each other because its mostly the same crowd every day.

Years ago, I rode the MARC commuter rail some days, and I found that to be correct.  People were much nicer on MARC than they were on the D.C. Metro, where most rides are as are cold and austere in their attitudes as the stations are.

On my Wednesday morning bus, my nickname is "Wednesday" because its a commuter specific line and the same people ride at the same time daily.

I like it!

I've also found people are also friendly and chatty on local buses that pass through lower income areas. The bus is a social place where people laugh and cry together. Literally. There was a lady on one of the local buses one day that broke down about her cancer and addiction problems, and me and another guy were trying to help her feel better.

Years ago, I found that to be the case when I rode Metrobus (WMATA's bus service), which I stopped taking after I noticed that it took the bus over an hour to go 6 or 7 miles.

That said, there are plenty of people that aren't chatty and/or are engaged in books, tablets, phones, music, and they aren't bothered. There are plenty of untalkative regular commuters and no one forces them to talk.

They dominate on the Washington Metrorail system.

[Brandon]

Also, I'm curious: what is the in-car social etiquette for people slugging in DC? Do fellow commuters chat during these trips or is everyone silent? The threat of having to talk to people during my commute would also drive me away from such a practice. I like how on public transit in NYC no one tries to start a conversation with you.

According to slug-lines.com:
"Normally, there is no conversation unless initiated by the driver; usually the only words exchanged are "Thank you" as the driver drops off the slugs at the destination."

Never been a part of a car pool around Chicagoland, but with the varied areas people work, it's tough to do so in the first place.  People work in Naperville, Schuamburg, Oak Brook, and other places.  My neighbors work in different places, and my coworkers almost all come from different places.

In the Baltimore area, the amount of social interaction varies. Rarely do I end up in conversations on commuter lines that are closer into the city. However, on commuter lines that run from a farther out destination, the people are much chattier - most likely because they've gotten to know each other because its mostly the same crowd every day.

On my Wednesday morning bus, my nickname is "Wednesday" because its a commuter specific line and the same people ride at the same time daily.

I've also found people are also friendly and chatty on local buses that pass through lower income areas. The bus is a social place where people laugh and cry together. Literally. There was a lady on one of the local buses one day that broke down about her cancer and addiction problems, and me and another guy were trying to help her feel better.

That said, there are plenty of people that aren't chatty and/or are engaged in books, tablets, phones, music, and they aren't bothered. There are plenty of untalkative regular commuters and no one forces them to talk.

I did not notice much chatter on the Pace (suburban Chicagoland) buses when I would take them several years ago.  I can't speak for the CTA buses or L, not having been on them much, but most Metra commuters in the off-peak hours keep to themselves.  The exceptions seem to be game days (Cubs or Sox) with fans on board and during the Christmas season.

[Henry]

And yet they're either building or planning new HOV/HOT lanes everywhere! This is going to be a tough sell for commuters who drive alone.

[jeffandnicole]

There is another reason  for the decline of car-pooling in some areas - transit subsidies for people that do not want to drive, cannot usually be used for car-pooling, with the exception of some van-pools.

That's because there's generally no cost to carpool.  There's no fee to pay, no fares to collect.  Most carpoolers get picked up at their house, park in an lot designated for carpooling, or in a parking lot where the business/company permits people to park all day.

At another job, there was a married couple there who rarely commuted together because he often worked late (same company but he was a manager for a different dept). Also, she hated that he listened to sports in the morning and he hated listening to her top 40 pop.

Choice of radio stations in a car-pool does matter.
[/quote]

Yes, it does.  We have 4 different people, and varying music tastes. Generally, the person driving chooses the station (or leaves the radio off).  Any given day, there could be news, country, top 40, pop, rock, classic rock...and that's just choices when I drive!!!

Thank goodness no one listens to very opinionated radio (ie: Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, etc) in the carpool at least.

[cpzilliacus]

And yet they're either building or planning new HOV/HOT lanes everywhere! This is going to be a tough sell for commuters who drive alone.

That's why they  are HOV/Toll lanes.  The persons willing to pay the toll do not need to comply with the HOV requirement.