10 Cities With Painfully Long Commutes. Do You Live in One of Them?
With the majority of Americans having returned to the office, there’s no doubt that the worst commutes are getting, well, worse.
Using estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau, SmartAsset predicts some workers will spend almost 222 hours driving to and from work. These cities are the biggest offenders for long commutes.Â
Driving People Crazy
To determine where residents have the worst commutes, SmartAsset compared data from the 100 largest US cities to six key metrics:
- Commuters as a percentage of workers
- Average travel time to work
- Five-year change in average travel time
- Percentage of workers with a commute longer than 60 minutes
- Five-year change in the rate of workers with a commute longer than 60 minutes
- Transportation as a percentage of income
1: Stockton, California
Located 90 minutes from San Francisco, Stockton is the worst commute in America. While the average worker has a typical commute of 33 minutes, over 17% of workers have a commute that lasts longer than an hour, the second highest overall. Stockton workers experienced an increase of 6.21% in their commute from 2016 to 2021.
2: Bakersfield, California
Bakersfield follows closely behind Stockton, another California city with a commute that makes for bumper-to-bumper traffic. The increase in travel time grew 10.5% between 2016 and 2021, which pushed it to one of the top spots. On average, Bakersfield commutes are around 24 minutes. It has the highest five-year change in average travel time in the study.
3: Garland, Texas
With 86.1% of Garland workers being commuters, there are bound to be a few frustrations. At 30 minutes long, the city has the seventh-highest commute time, and 9.1% of commuters experience drives over an hour. The average commute time in Garland increased by 2.37% between 2016 and 2021.
4: Glendale, Arizona
Glendale isn’t your place if a lengthy commute sounds like a nightmare. Roughly 1 in 10 workers commute for more than an hour, the 12th highest in the study. On average, Glendale’s commute time comes in at just over 28 minutes.
5: Orlando, Florida
Home to Disney World and Universal Studios, commuters entering Orlando have a lot of traffic competition. Four-fifths of Orlando workers commute to their place of employment, with an average of 26 minutes on the road. On the bright side, less than 5% of commuters spend more than an hour driving to work.
6: Las Vegas, Nevada
Nearly 87% of workers in Las Vegas drive to their jobs every day. As a major tourist destination, their average commute time ranks in the top third of the study at 25.7 minutes. Five percent of workers spend more than an hour on their commutes to work, and the percentage of those who do so increased by 0.8% from 2016 to 2021.
7: El Paso, Texas
Marty Robbins sings about falling in love in El Paso, but commuters are anything but pleased with the lengthy travel times they experience there. Of roughly 678,000 residents, 89.9% of El Paso’s workforce commutes to work. Commuters spend a whopping 14.13% of their median household income on transportation costs in the city and surrounding areas.
8: Baton Rouge, Louisiana
As the capital of Louisiana, Baton Rouge has the 11th-highest percentage of commuters in the workforce, at 90.2%. While the average travel time is just under 23 minutes, more than 6% of workers have a commute longer than one hour. Baton Rouge commuters spend about 12.24% of a year’s income on transportation in the city.
9: Aurora, Colorado
With lower housing costs than Denver, many enjoy living in Aurora, which is located 17 miles outside the capital city. Aurora has the 12th-highest average commute time, at 28.5 minutes. Roughly 6.8% of workers have commutes that last over an hour.
10: Winston-Salem, North Carolina
Winston-Salem, located 30 miles from Greensboro, is among the top ten cities with the worst commutes. With 85% of its workers commuting to the office, Winston-Salem residents spend much of their time in traffic. Transportation costs residents 12.63% of their income, and drivers spend an average of 21.6 minutes on the road. Travel times for the average commuter in Winston-Salem increased by 6% between 2016 and 2021.
Health Is Wealth
Lengthy commutes can cost Americans more than time and money; it can also negatively impact their health. SmartAsset pointed to a Gallup poll that studied the health of more than 170,000 workers. The survey found that adults who commute more than 90 minutes one way to work had an average health index score of just 63.9. People who commuted 10 minutes or less to work had an average score of 69.2
Commuting Consequences
That same health study shows that one in three employees with a commute of more than 90 minutes say they have had a neck or back condition causing recurrent pain in the past 12 months. The figure drops to one in four among those who commute 10 minutes or less. They’re also more likely to have been diagnosed with high cholesterol.
Surprisingly Savvy
A popular reason for workers to commute is that they save money on housing costs in the suburbs versus city living. But commuting isn’t always more affordable. SmartAsset found the average housing cost in many metro areas is higher than in the big cities they’re branched off from. They use Baltimore as an example, where housing costs about $330 more in the metro area.
Depressed Drivers
SmartAsset also said that in happiness studies, commuting ranks at or near the bottom of human activities. According to the survey, commuting alone in a car makes individuals feel isolated and powerless. To make matters worse, being stuck in traffic raises our blood pressure and the risk of obesity.
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