Traveling to
Work in Missouri
Missourians' commuting
time to work averages 23 minutes
Recently
released data from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community
Survey provides insight into how Missourians get to work and how
long it takes them to get there.
The average commuting time of the 2,671,219 workers age 16 or older
in Missouri was 23.3 minutes in 2004, unchanged from 2003.
Missourians have a slightly shorter than average commute time
compared to the national average of 24.7 minutes. Workers in New
York have the longest commute time of 30.6 minutes, while North
Dakota workers have the shortest, at 15.4 minutes.
Contributing to Missourians' commute time may be the fact that 36.0 percent of Missouri workers age 16 or older travel outside of their county of residence for work. Missouri ranked 7th highest among the states for the percentage of workers who are employed outside their county of residence and above the U.S. average of 27.3 percent. More than half of Virginia workers (52.6 percent) work outside their home county.
The
majority of Missouri workers traveled to work alone last year. Just
over 82 percent of Missouri workers over age 16 traveled to work by
car, truck or van alone in 2004. On average in the U.S., 77.7
percent of workers traveled to work by car, truck or van alone.
Carpooling by car, truck or van was most popular in Hawaii where
16.4 percent of workers carpooled in 2004. In Missouri, 9.0 percent
of workers carpooled, just below the national average of 10.1
percent. The fewest percentage of workers carpooled in
Massachusetts, at 7.2 percent.
The District of Columbia had the greatest use of public
transportation to work in 2004, with 33.6 percent of workers using
public transportation. In Missouri, 1.4 percent of workers traveled
to work on public transportation, below the U.S. average of 4.6
percent.
Public transportation includes traveling by bus, trolley, streetcar, subway, railroad or ferryboat. It does not include traveling by taxicab.
