People driving alone have longer commutes and are more wretched than ever. That’s one takeaway from the 2019 COG State of the Commute report, which covers the greater Washington region, documenting commute patterns while examining alternatives to driving alone. It reveals that the average commute is 43 minutes, up from 36 minutes in 2013, a jump of around 20 percent. Furthermore, only 45 percent of solo drivers are satisfied with their commute. Overall, only half of commuters are satisfied with their daily trip, down 8 percentage points from 2016, and sliding further down 14 percentage points when compared to 2013.
The report’s findings derive from interviews with 8,246 residents of the greater Washington DC region, 7,808 from an Internet survey, and 438 from a telephone survey.
Fortunately, beyond the headline of declining commute satisfaction rates for drive-alone commuters, there’s some good news. Report highlights include that “telework is up, which is great, metro satisfaction is also up, and the drive alone rate is down,” Sheila McGraw, Property & Development Manager of Arlington Transportation Partners, told me. Indeed, driving alone has declined “from 66.9% in 2007 to 58.3% in 2019,” according to the report. Instead, more people are taking transit and newer alternatives, such as electric scooters, as well as teleworking. Transit was used for 24.1 percent of commute trips, up more than six points from 2007.
More good news is that innovative forms of mobility are blossoming. “New modes such as ride-hailing, scooters, and bikeshares have expanded… alternative modes of travel,” according to Mobility Lab’s key highlights of the 2019 State of the Commute findings. Although biking, scooter use, and walking remained at a 3.3 percent share, overall, the region is perhaps slowly decreasing car use, with “57% of respondents using alternative modes stating they had switched within the past three years, and 39% of those respondents stating they had previously alone to work.”
Higher satisfaction rates for those who walk, bike, and take transit
Transit riders are somewhat happier than solo drivers, the State of the Commute report revealed, with Metrorail riders reporting 56 percent satisfaction. This follows a plunge to 48 percent in 2016 from a 2013 high point of 67 percent. The low point could have been due to deteriorating conditions, made even worse during the 2016 SafeTrack campaign. This meant closures and delays during the campaign, but should have improved service afterwards.
Happiest of all, the report reveals, are people who walk and bicycle, 54 percent of whom reported satisfaction with their commute. This suggests that dense, walkable, mixed-use communities pay off in health and life-satisfaction.
The price of sprawl
Arlington County, Virginia has long been a leader in policies that encourage alternatives to solo car trips—and hence, a happier, healthier, more environmentally friendly commute. It helps greatly Arlington is in the denser inner core of the region, with better transit options and more walkability and bikeability. “Being included in that Inner Core section . . . has some huge geographical advantages,” said McGraw, including shorter and more diverse commutes.
In contrast to the Inner Core, the State of the Commute report indicates high percentage of drive-alone commuters in places with limited transit options—after all, how else is one to get around? Thus, for residents of the Inner core, comprising Alexandria, Arlington, and Washington, DC itself, 37% of commuters drove alone. On the other hand, 64% drove alone in the Middle Ring, Fairfax, Montgomery, and Prince George’s counties, while 75% of Outer Ring residents drove alone. One takeaway is that geography matters (and a corollary would be that density matters). Yet even outer areas can build more infrastructure, and implement thoughtful policies, to increase transportation alternatives.
Across the region, but especially in outer areas, transit access is still relatively scarce. Only 37 percent of respondents live under a half mile from a bus stop and only 17 percent less than a mile from a train station. Those most lacking access reside in the Outer Ring. This points to a larger problem with sprawl, but also to a culture of planning around cars. Indeed, satisfaction with the regional transit system is declining, from 44 percent in 2013 to 36 percent today, according to the report. This should encourage localities to continue promoting transit.
Good policy helps
Residents of outer areas need not despair. Along with infrastructure, policy matters and can achieve results relatively quickly and inexpensively. Arlington has long demonstrated this with its forward-looking transportation demand management (TDM) policies. Effective TDM includes successful government partnerships with businesses. Policies include transit subsidies from employers, which is especially effective because cost savings has been shown to be one of the biggest factors in reducing driving. Providing pre-loaded transit cards is an easy way to help workers use transit, but other actions can be effective, such as providing access to bikeshare and scooters and making sure bike parking is convenient. Even businesses outside the transit web can work with local government to provide shuttles and vanpooling. And microtransit, on call from smart phones, might be the newest way of expanding the transit web.
Yet Arlington goes beyond just working with employers, McGraw explained, asking “where your trips originate,” thereby including residential buildings, such as apartment complexes in the effort. So, for instance, when someone moves to a new apartment or condo, they are most susceptible to changing their transit behavior. “The biggest opportunity for behavior change is when somebody makes a big life event change,” she added. If education and benefits are right there, the new resident might shift to transit or biking.
Free parking hurts
Over the last century, TDM approaches have been the rare exception. Instead, employers have a long history of providing free or cheap parking, effectively subsidizing congestion. Today, some 60 percent of Washington area employees provide free parking, down slightly from 63 percent in 2010, according to the report. The differential between city and suburbs is stark, with free parking for 84 percent of Outer Ring employees but only 23 percent in the Inner Core. This is largely due to the much higher cost of land in the city itself, but also due to the lack of transit options in the far suburbs.
One major change forward-thinking employers are starting to make is shifting from monthly parking charges to daily. “If somebody, say, has to drive one day a week,” daily parking charges “encourage them to drive the least amount possible,” said McGraw. By contrast, if one’s parking bill is paid up for the month, the incentive is to simply drive every day.
Change happens, but we need to work at it
Another avenue ripe for change is communication about transit. According to Mobility Lab’s key highlights of the 2019 State of the Commute findings, Awareness of commute information advertising was highest among respondents who…were over 55, were non-Hispanic white, and had higher household incomes.” This suggests that transit messaging is received by those who might need it least, that community outreach needs to be broader and more creative. Indeed, Mobility Lab has previously discussed the need for outreach beyond the traditional approach that draws the same few, relatively privileged people. Local officials should get out to where people ride buses, attend community events, and elicit feedback from a broad spectrum of the public.
Telework is another area that has seen huge changes, reducing car trips and congestion, yet employees are ripe for even more. As of 2019, 35 percent of the DC region “teleworked at least occasionally,” almost double 2007’s 19 percent. Yet there is still incredible room for growth in telework (and reduced congestion). Employees who do not telework but believe they could successfully do so total 771,000. The increase in telework is very promising and “will have effects throughout the region,” said McGraw.
Indeed, air quality mitigation is a huge benefit of providing alternatives to driving alone, said McGraw. People using diverse transportation “are able to have a happier, healthier life,” she added. The benefits Arlington is experiencing can be spread throughout the region. It just takes public awareness of the problems and potential highlighted in the State of the Commute report, along with the political will to change.