Commute Times Go Down As Some Go to the Suburbs

The San Francisco Chronicle reports:

More commuters in the Bay Area and California are spending less time getting to and from work because of the growth of jobs in the suburbs, according to a study released today by the Public Policy Institute of California.

Residents of the five most populous counties in the Bay Area spent a few minutes a day less, on average, traveling to work in 2004 than they did in 2000, said the report by the nonpartisan research group.

Commuters in the East Bay counties of Alameda and Contra Costa saw some of the biggest drops in travel times in the state, and those living in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties were close behind.

Across California, the median commute time also dropped 9 percent between 1990 and 2004, the report said.

The primary reason, according to the report's author, policy analyst Elisa Barbour: The number of suburb-to-suburb and city-to-suburb commuters increased more than any other type, according to U.S. Census Bureau surveys in which people state where they live and work and how long they travel between the two places.

"We are increasingly seeing the suburbanizing of jobs," Barbour said. "It has been even more rapid than residences. That job decentralization has a moderating impact on commute times.''

As more jobs leave the cities,so will the city dwellers.The law of diminishing returns even applies to commute times.