I don't understand the purple bar at all. Traffic is worse in the middle of the night? That seems unlikely. So what does it mean? People who get jobs requiring them to work night shifts or super-early-morning shifts tend to live farther from their jobs?
This graph proves that walking is faster than driving or taking public transportation! This discovery will solve all our traffic congestion problems, not even to mention making a huge dent in the global warming crisis. Hurray!
Also, lumping the 3:00-3:59 hour in with "midday" means that all those people caught stuck behind school buses are counting against noon-time traffic.
Although lunch hour traffic can indeed such. Probably the lightest time for midday traffic is 1:00 to 3:00.
All the Census Bureau drew from that chart was "This trend suggests that many workers who depart for work relatively early may do so to compensate for long work commutes" - nothing about which times are more congested. (Also the obvious, that public transportation takes the most time and walking takes the least.)
Their binning is just bizarre, right? 4 pm to midnight is lumped together, but every hour between 5 am and 9 am is separated? I don't get it.
5: True. Perhaps it was the post, and the way congestion is almost-but-not-quite invoked that got me so confused.
6: I assume the bins are according to congestion?
Which doesn't quite make sense, either. There is absolutely no reason to lump 4 pm to midnight.
6: Maybe the number of people who commute between between 4 pm & midnight is roughly equal to the number that commute each hour between 5 am and 9 am.
The "Percent of Delay by Time of Day" plot in the Urban Mobility Report linked from the post you link is a lot clearer and closer to what you would expect to see.
From my limited sample (2), it seems to be true that people who commute in the middle of the night are also people who commute insanely long distances. This is because i. it just takes that long to go so far and ii. if they're going to be driving four hours anyway they'd prefer not to do it in heavy traffic.
10: It's actually less, going by their table. I guess the point is that this is the time people leave home for work, not the reverse.
But if 12 were the explanation I would expect the purple bar to be way longer than the others, not just a little longer.
I just noticed this little aside in the Urban Mobility Report:
And the 4.8 billion hours of delay is the equivalent of more than 1,400 days of Americans playing Angry Birds - this is a lot of time.
Also from the Urban Mobility report:
Think of what else could be done with the 34 hours of extra time suffered by the average urban auto commuter in 2010:
- 4 vacation days
- The time the average American spends eating and drinking in a month
14: Well, I would guess that some who fall in this group are travelling long distances while others just start work at an odd hour. And it averages out into somewhat longer commutes than averages at other times.
I don't know why it's universally so difficult to get people who publish graphs to include at least a sentence or two trying to explain the obvious weird features in the graph.
Wow, it's after noon. Time to be less procrastinatey.
16 : The time the average American spends eating and drinking in a month
Wow! Think how much fatter and drunker Americans could be if they didn't have to spend so much time commuting!
the obvious, that public transportation takes the most time
This is obvious, but not always emphasized, and is which is why cities that rely very heavily on public transit also have the longest commute times (NYC has the longest commute times in the nation). Of course a longer public transit commute is more pleasant than a shorter solo drive, to some people's taste.
From Exhibit 5 of the report, delays are significantly worse in the late afternoon/evening, so I really don't get what restricting data to people heading towards work accomplishes. Most people start work in the morning?
Public transportation is a total prisoner's dilemma.
This is obvious, but not always emphasized, and is which is why cities that rely very heavily on public transit also have the longest commute times (NYC has the longest commute times in the nation). Of course a longer public transit commute is more pleasant than a shorter solo drive, to some people's taste.
That's true, I suppose. But I think part of the reason it's not emphasized is that they are very different ways of spending time - you can do any number of other things while on public transit - and therefore it feels more like a commonsense tradeoff than an imposition to the average user. That's all my loosey-goosey theorizing, of course; and who knows to what extent it hurts adoption of public transit.
This is obvious, but not always emphasized, and is which is why cities that rely very heavily on public transit also have the longest commute times (NYC has the longest commute times in the nation). Of course a longer public transit commute is more pleasant than a shorter solo drive, to some people's taste.
This is totally backwards. NYC has the longest commute times in the nation because it has roughly 10 million people trying to get to work in the same 10 square miles. The commutes are as short as they are because there is such good public transportation. What do you think the average commute would look like if everyone in Manhattan drove?
which is why cities that rely very heavily on public transit also have the longest commute times most people who are up-do-date with The New Yorker.
trying to get to work in the same 10 square miles
It's that point, of course, that is decisive (and drives the public transportation infrastructure). Chicago has longer commute times than LA, with a smaller population but different urban architecture.
What could be some of the "other means" of transport? Biking of course, but there have to be more, or they would just say that.
24: There's more to it than that, and I'm getting stuck on formulating it. But a municipality with everyone driving an hour to work every morning would be kind of broken in a way that everyone spending an hour on mass transit isn't.
Also, the graph design makes it incredibly hard to compare either hours or transport modes. And Tufte tells us that the purpose of all data visualisation is comparison.
27: Segway, roller skates, roller blades, snowmobike, skis, horse and buggy, teleportation device, time machine, etc.
"snowmobike" was a typo, not my latest invention.
27: I knew people who road their boat into boston harbor every day. And, let's see, are taxicabs "other"? (Or "carpool"? Or "public transportation"?) Some people also ride horses.
Work from home? Is that in "other"?
There's more to it than that
More to what than what? I don't disagree with your second sentence, but I can't figure out what exactly this is referring to.
I'm not sure if Heebie is taking issue with the design of the graph or the muddling of the underlying data. The first can be dealt with by fiddling with the binning or axis vs. series classification, but the point that they don't have distance factored in ruins the whole thing. Also, who is walking to work between midnight and 5 am?
Also, who is walking to work between midnight and 5 am?
Trash collectors with recent DUIs and 3rd shift nurses.
I was wondering the other day how many people in the country have a *swim* commute. 0? 10? 100?
Maybe "other" is actually "refuse to answer."
27: If they broke out time machine as a separate category, would the values be negative?
I'm not sure if Heebie is taking issue with the design of the graph or the muddling of the underlying data.
Me neither.
35: More to it than just that NY is so dense that of course commute times are long. A municipality with no mass transit that was dense enough to make hour-long driving commutes standard is conceivable (it'd be much less dense than NY, but denser than most driving cities), but I think people would hate it in a way they don't hate the mass transit commute.
There are branches of a boat rental company 0.5 miles from my house and 0.2 miles from my work, and they offer one way rentals, I've thought about kayaking home some day.
The top of the graph says "For ... defintions, see [url]." I tried to go to the url to find an answer for 27, but I don't see the definitions anywhere. The data is much more helpfully presented in table format there, though.
43: There is another solution to the one way boat problem.
42: of course, I don't disagree with that at all. My point was just that people aren't necessarily be choosing between a longer public transportation commute and a shorter drive (as Halford indicated). Where you have decent public transportation, that's often not true even for individual cases; it's never true in the aggregate.
I actually proposed doing that with strollers- I do daycare dropoff every day now, I take the kid there via bike then continue to work. Babysitter picks up at 3 and needs a stroller to get him home. I've been bungeeing an umbrella stroller across the bike, behind my seat post in front of kid seat but it's not the safest thing in the world since my bike is then ~4 feet wide. For now I've convinced my wife to drop the stroller off in the morning on her way to work since she leaves an hour before me, but I suggested dropping off 5 strollers on Sunday evening and having one come home each day.
I think people would hate it in a way they don't hate the mass transit commute.
Right, but that goes to the pleasantness point -- there's a pubilc transit/private car tradeoff between total transit time in the commute and (for some people) pleasantness of the commute.
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Yglesias is getting close to just saying "Assume a spherical welfare state" in some of these explanations of how capitalists deserve everyone's gratitude.
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Where you have decent public transportation, that's often not true even for individual cases; it's never true in the aggregate.
Rarely true in individual cases. In the aggregate, it's true only if you assume that urban architecture is static, which, of course, if you've invested already in the urban architecture it sort of is. It would be very difficult to maintain the same commute times in Chicago with no public transit and everyone working exactly where they are now, but the dynamics of land use would change without the public transit. The tradeoff question arises when you're designing new kinds of urban space, and there there generally is a time/pleasantness tradeoff.
47: Could the babysitter manage the stroller from the end of the day to when they pick the kid up? Maybe a spare umbrella stroller?
48: Yes, sort of, but I think it's more than just pleasantness -- if everyone were driving that long every day it'd be erratic and unreliable or something. I can't quite pin down what I'm thinking, just that it wouldn't work somehow.
I live 6 miles from my office, all on city streets. It's 10-15 minutes, depending on how I hit the lights.
True should be "not true" in the first two sentences there, I think. Or something.
I live three miles from my office, but I could take the interstate if I wanted to.
It's a prisoner's dilemma/tipping point thing. If enough people take public transportation, then some people can get a really great car ride to work. If too many people start driving themselves, it sabotages things for everyone.
You mean have her keep the stroller overnight during the week and bring it to pickup each day? I imagine that would be annoying for her.
Also, who is walking to work between midnight and 5 am?
Bakers! I know one who walks from Cambridgeport into Brookline just before 5.
Jammies has, at times, attached little straps so the folded stroller can be worn as a backpack.
Can't you just buy her a stroller, to keep and use until she's done with you (or, hell, kepp afterwards to)? That seems easier than buying 5 for yourself, and transporting all of them around.
pwned by LB, I think.
The ACS questionnaire includes an "other method" box. The definition for the report probably includes that and bicycle and maybe also ferryboat (unless that's public transportation) and taxicab.
In my case the public transport commute takes longer [about 45 - 50min longer] and costs more money [about 20-30% more].
re: 51
Certainly when I drive out of London in the morning the commute the other way looks impossible. The traffic jam I passed this morning was over 10 miles long.
Driving would be the absolute slowest way for me to get from my house to my office. Public transportation would be second slowest. Then walking, then biking.
If you got a Segway, could you come close to the biking time?
My commute is about 8 miles and takes about 25 minutes in morning traffic.
Driving would be the absolute slowest way for me to get from my house to my office.
Slower than by boat?
Public transit would probably take 40 minutes for the same distance. It would be a lot cheaper, though.
Someone has surely already mentioned that between 12 and 5 there are also fewer trains/buses/subways. If I wanted to go four stops on the subway, it would take me 10 minutes during rush hour, but I could wait on the platform almost an hour in the early morning.
Mine is about 22 miles and takes me 30 minutes.
Unless I carpool. My carpoolmates have terrible route-evaluation skills. I cannot fathom why they go the ways they go.
64: roughly 19 miles an hour, for 25 minutes? That sounds horrible.
It sounds worse than public transit for 40 minutes.
I think I could take an inner tube to work -- have to drive a little over a mile down the hill to the creek, and then walk 2 blocks, at the other end, to my office. Wearing a bathing suit to work might put me out at the end of the casual distribution, but someone has to be.
I'm going to try this next July.
Does the creek freeze over? That could be fun.
If there was a cable car station near my office, I could take a cable car to work, if there was a cable car station near my house.
It's pretty bad, but it's way better than being on the bus for 40 minutes. Not only faster, but more comfortable, I can listen to music, place calls without bothering people, comment on Unfogged, etc.
And biking is way more fun than either the car or the bus, but I just haven't gotten in the habit.
Sally's swim team just ate my bike commute. I'm going to have to start running in the mornings instead. Feh, I really don't enjoy running.
You can't listen to music on the bus? You can comment on unfogged while you drive?
I'm going to have to start running in the mornings instead.
You could just give sloth a try.
I bet I could talk some teenaged boys into trying it!
74: I carry rocks to throw at windows of cars that don't yield to me in the crosswalk because the driver is typing on a phone.
I have to stay in good enough shape to remain intimidating to the children. Once they realize I'm weaker than they are, they're taking me out.
79 -> 72. They don't need to be talked into 78.
55: Sounds like more of a stable equilibrium to me. There are people with routes unusually poorly served by transit, who have to drive. I, being a perfectly selfish rational actor, drive when and only when it is faster than taking the metro - which takes me off the roads exactly when they are most congested. If traffic or parking got materially worse, I would take the metro more. If the metro got worse, I would drive more.
77 -- not without earphones, no, and yes I can comment from the car, albeit illegally. It's way more comfortable to be in your own car seat, with a stereo and ability to make private phone calls, then to be on a crowded bus. Definitely nicer, not to mention way more convenient. And the bus commute would add at least a 1/2 hour per day.
I sort of liked commuting by subway in NYC for the first few months I lived there; exciting seeing other people, etc. Then it got REALLY old and exhausting and was REALLY long -- at least 40 minutes door to door.
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Why are the people in my stats class arguing about subtle distinctions in breastfeeding? I blame unfogged.
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Sounds like more of a stable equilibrium to me.
It's not, because when sufficiently many people drive, the city stops developing its public transit system. It becomes chronically underfunded and no one plans thoughtful routes or uses it to address problems of congestion.
What are subtle distinctions in breastfeeding? Cup size?
Why are the people in my stats class arguing about subtle distinctions in breastfeeding?
R/bert P/arker is branching out?
83: And there's lock-in in the other direction as well -- if something happened that made the subway much slower than it is now, I'd hate my life a lot, but it'd make me move before it made me drive to work -- driving from Inwood to Wall Street twice a day seems insane.
86: Ah, I was thinking short-term and you were thinking long-term. I do agree that in the long term there's something of a collective action problem, but that might better be addressed by building out the system and hoping for induced demand, than somehow getting everyone to ride even on trips where it doesn't make sense.
85: Maybe you could redirect the conversation toward an examination of sexual violence in George R.R. Martin novels.
87: how much pumping, how much baby-holding, in hospital or at home... then I stopped paying attention.
Someone was saying you could only breastfeed in the hospital or while not holding the baby?
93: No, in the hospital, a nurse feeds the baby.
Out of the hospital, your Indian manservant holds the baby while you breastfeed it.
My bus-commute provides me with the bulk of my reading time. Even more importantly, it has given me the central metaphor for my as-yet-unwritten semi-autobiographical novel or memoir. Every evening P. gets on the bus to Graceland, but gets off before it gets there and goes home. The book will end with P. finally taking the bus all the way to Graceland, probably to buy something at Target.
They just latch on, right? You don't need to hold on to a leech.
When they call something the football hold they need to specify running back not quarterback.
It's insanely difficult to get a decent spiral on a baby.
96: "Next time -- next time I will get off at Willoughby!"
My bus-commute provides me with the bulk of my reading time.
Here, the bus company actually advertises this as a feature.
For now I'm liking my 20-minute walking commute much more than my previous 10-minute (but occasionally 45 minute) driving commute. We'll see how I feel about it in the winter.
Just reading about reading on a bus starts to give me motion sickness.
The last time I heard someone discuss varieties of breastfeeding, the conversation mainly consisted of one woman talking about how outlandish it was that one person she knows was still breastfeeding a child that was 10 months old. This outlandish person was described as having an equally bizarre plan for the child later on, involving "unschooling".
When they call something the football hold they need to specify running back not quarterback.
They should also be cautioned to observe the "excessive celebration" rule if they make it into the endzone with the baby.
103: I can never read in a car, sometimes read on a bus (long distance is better, in town is worse), usually read on a train, and always read on an airplane. I don't understand why my inner ear, or whatever, thinks these are such dramatically different things.
103: Sorry, Blume!
It's so long ago I can just barely remember this, but 14 years ago when I first started riding the bus to work, I thought that reading on the bus would give me motion sickness. After a week or two of being bored, I decided to try reading, and realized I didn't get motion sickness. As far as I know, I still can't read in a moving car.
The problem I have now with reading on the bus is that sometimes I fall asleep and miss my stop. An alternate ending to my book has P. falling asleep on the bus and waking up in Graceland.
They should also be cautioned to observe the "excessive celebration" rule if they make it into the endzone with the baby.
I, still, can't read in a moving car,
because I get slammed against the back window.
The worst part about reading on the bus is when the person holding the book doesn't turn the pages fast enough.
Even if I could drive, and traffic and parking weren't an issue, I'd still take public transport for the aforementioned reading time reasons.
That's a better ending. The first ending is a bit too Raymond Carver.
113: Thanks for the advice! But, why Presidential?
Noted during the symposium I'm at today- a commonly used cell line derived from foreskin is named BJ.
113: Because I'm Raymond Carver.
117: You're alive? You mean I could have been masturbating to you all these years?
No, I'm dead, of course. I'm doomed to haunt the Earth until no one ever writes a story that sounds too Raymond Carver. Then my soul will be granted release.
119: Darn!
Bummer for you too -- it doesn't look like your soul will be granted release anytime in the near future.
20-25 minute commute, 8 of which is walking to the subway. I've never tried driving it during peak hours, but $15 a day for parking is really quite a lot of disincentive. It's hard to do much reading, but it's a good commute length for podcast-listening.
My commute is a 5 minute walk, most of which is before I leave my building.
If I drove, it would be more like 10-15 minutes.
If it's raining, or I don't have a walk signal, sometimes I will "take the metro" by using the entrance tunnel with exits on both sides of the street, which saves me up to 30 seconds.
My old commute was a 15-30 minute walk to the metro, followed by a 45 minute ride including a transfer. I could read on the train at first, but I
I miss college, where I could get from my dorm room to class in literally under a minute.
Paragraph 2 should have finished:
I could read on the train at first, but I eventually was worn down by the hassle of the commute and couldn't concentrate on the train anymore.
I have a 15 minute commute, that involves picking up two people, and leaving at 12:30 AM. My drive home takes about 20-25 minutes, as there is traffic at 9 am. It's a reverse-reverse commute, as I live in the urban core, and commute to a streetcar suburb.
I swam home on my bike in a downpour at 3am this morning, does that count as "other"?
my husband is noble and takes the kids to school in taxi, then continues along in the same direction via public bus till he gets to the university shuttle at the law faculty campus, and then takes that shuttle to work. he listens to podcasts and claims to enjoy it just fine. he appears to be telling the truth since I have proffered alternatives. I take a taxi to work every day, 16 minutes with no traffic, max 30 with jam on the pan-island-expressway. we can't afford a car in narnia, and I'd be scared to drive here (on the wrong side of the road).
I walked to work this morning, as it was a beautiful, cool fall morning. Then I had eggs and potatoes. Now I don't want to stab people.
125: woohoo! Go four season bike commuter!
I have to drive to various courts in a suit so my commute is by car. Plus, I have to shuffle my daughter around before and after school.
My son walks to school now. I am jealous.
When I worked in NYC for a summer, I walked from Washington Square Park area down to the US Attorney's office for the Southern District of NY (near Wall St?). I loved the walk.
It would take me like 20 minutes to walk to work. Who has that kind of time?
The few times I've driven on the wrong side of the road -- USVI, London-Stonehenge -- it was a total hoot. And only intermittently terrifying. I suppose one gets used to it in a week or two.
Now that I'm not toting a laptop back and forth, I should really start biking more often. Tomorrow.