The Cost of Commuting vs. Living Close
Using Visualized Data to Map Affordability in a Local Community (or Project Area)
Written by Rachel Quednau, Contributor & Communications Specialist at Strong Towns.
Over the last sixty years, as our cities have become more and more spread out, commute times have lengthened. A forty-five minute drive to work is considered normal for many people and with housing costs skyrocketing in many major metro areas, some people turn to homes on the far edges of cities, sacrificing time spent in the car for more affordable housing. As an advocate for walkable, affordable places through my work at Strong Towns, I often encourage people to take a hard look at their transportation costs (both financially as well as time and health-related) and ask themselves how much they are really spending in order to get that house on the edge of the city.
How much additional gas, parking passes and car repairs must residents spend as a result of living in auto-centric areas, and, after calculating that, are they really saving anything with the cheaper suburban house?
With a whole nation of data available to me through mySidewalk, I thought it would be interesting to compare the percent of income the average person spends on transportation in three different places where I’ve personally lived: Walla Walla, WA (where I went to college), Washington, DC (where I lived a couple years ago), and Milwaukee, WI (where I currently reside).
By the Numbers
For a bit of background, the populations of each city vary:
- Washington, DC: 659,000
- Milwaukee: 600,000
- Walla Walla: 32,000
Now, these numbers don’t really tell us the whole story because they only include the number of people residing within the city limits. When we examine the metro areas around each, we get a wider range of numbers. Washington, DC has an extensive network of far reaching suburbs, Milwaukee has several first and second tier suburbs, and even Walla Walla has a couple neighboring towns. When you include all these, their populations are approximately as follows:
- Washington DC metro: 6 million
- Milwaukee metro: 1.6 million
- Walla Walla county: 59,500
A Bigger, Better Picture with Data
Before diving into the data, I assumed that the larger and more populous the metro area, the higher the transportation costs those on the edges. But I wasn’t exactly right.
Here are my observations about each metro area, and then a comparison.
Note: The coloring on these maps is about relative comparison, so an amount that appears dark green on one map may look light green on another when compared with other values on the map.
Washington, DC
This is a pretty standard distribution: You can see that in the central neighborhoods, transportation costs are as low as 9 or 10% of income. As you hover just outside the downtown but still in the city limits, the costs are closer to 12%. Once you get to the suburbs, the costs are between 13–17%. That’s not bad considering the amount of people who drive (see the table below to view a breakdown of commute type), but there’s one really important fact we have to keep in mind when looking at the DC metro area: It’s one of the wealthiest in the nation. So when we’re talking about an individual who lives 20 miles outside the city and only spends 15% of her income on transportation, that probably still amounts to tens of thousands of dollars a year.
RESIDENT COMMUTE TYPE FOR DC METRO
The inner ring DC suburbs are fortunate to be connected via MetroTrain to the downtown. However, for most suburban dwellers, that still does not preclude the need for a car. First, even if a resident was able to commute to work via train, most trips within the suburb (for groceries, visiting friends, etc.) would require a car. Additionally, most suburbs are only served by one or two train stops, which means that unless you live within walking distance of that stop, you’d need to drive to the train every morning. The costs of transportation add up regardless.
Milwaukee, WI
Milwaukee is an oddly shaped city, being much taller than it is wide. This means that many Milwaukee residents are quite far from the downtown job centers, in spite of technically living within the city limits. That has been a real issue for lower income people (many of whom live on the north side of the city), especially since the bus system is fairly inefficient and unreliable. Milwaukee is considered by many to be a city where you need a car (although I’ve gotten by my entire time here without one). The data shows that residents near downtown (a middle to high income neighborhood) spend around 16% of their income on transportation. The rest of the city and some nearby suburbs all spend about 20% of their income on transportation. Finally, as you get out to the exurbs (where I am continually surprised to learn people are willing to commute as long as an hour to get to work in the city) most zip codes have an average allotment of about 24% of income spent on transportation. For some, it is as high as 27%.
Walla Walla, WA
Right off the bat, we can see that the Walla Walla map is very different from DC. In this region, expenses are all a much higher percentage of income than in Washington DC or even Milwaukee. In the heart of the town, we have a few census tracts between 25–30%, but most tracts outside the city have expenses around 30–40% of income. That’s huge. Median household income in this area ranges between about $30–65,000/year, which means residents may be spending $10,000+ on transportation every year. There is hardly any public transit available in this area, which surely plays a role in those expenses. The rural nature of the area might also be a factor; distances between towns (especially between larger towns with more resources, shopping, etc.) are greater than in the Milwaukee or Washington, DC metro areas.
What does all this data mean?
What I see in this data are a few truths: First, the availability of public transit plays a big role in overall transportation costs. The average Washington DC resident probably rides the Metro several times a week, and even suburban dwellers in the region have some access to regional rail or buses. Milwaukee has more limited transit (which is used mostly by low-income people), but nonetheless, it still has some express buses from the suburbs and other bus lines throughout the city, providing some additional options beyond the car. But when we get to Walla Walla — and I can speak to this because I lived there for four years — one can’t get very far without a car. You’d be hard pressed to find someone who commutes to work by bus. Even biking and walking are dangerous because the roads are designed around fast-moving cars.
What’s especially troubling about these data maps is that the poor are hit the hardest. In the poorest census tract in Walla Walla (with median household income around $27,000), residents are still spending 26% of their income on transportation, which amounts to about $7,000 a year. Meanwhile, in the poorest census tract of Washington DC (where median household income is just $15,300), percent of income spent on transportation is about 10, i.e. $1,500 a year.
Where would you rather be poor? In a place with buses, trains, protected bike lanes and safe sidewalks? Or in a place where your only real option is shelling out a quarter of your modest income to own a car?
From my own experience, as a college student and now a young professional, I know that living near a downtown saves me thousands of dollars a year on transportation. My choice not to own a car in any of these cities means I can spend a little more on my housing, and have more disposable income and the option to save — something many of my friends of a similar age cannot afford because they spend so much on their cars.
If one thing’s clear, it’s that living farther from the city center means you’ll be spending a lot more on transportation costs, most likely, in the form of a car. What’s also clear is that, while middle and high income people may be able to reasonably choose to factor a personal vehicle into their budgets, poor people are stretched dangerously thin by this expense and, in an unwalkable, un-transit connected area, they have little alternative.
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About Strong Towns: Strong Towns is a national media organization whose mission is to advocate for a model of development that allows America’s cities, towns and neighborhoods to grow financially strong and resilient. Strong Towns’ daily content (including articles, podcasts, live events and videos) reaches an audience of more than 70,000 readers and listeners per month. Learn more at http://www.strongtowns.org or, read more of their work here.
About the Author: Rachel Quednau serves as Communications Specialist for Strong Towns, a national nonprofit working to strengthen financial resilience in America’s towns and cities. Rachel is a Midwesterner currently living in Milwaukee, WI. She draws from her experiences living in New York City, Washington, DC, Walla Walla, WA and Minneapolis, MN to help her build better places wherever she is. One of her favorite ways to get to know a new city is by going for a run in it.
