Editorial: Long, winding road

Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2006 | 7:30 a.m.

If America's workers are to be less dependent on driving to work alone, immigrants and commuters 55 and older may be the populations to watch, a new study suggests.

The report, "Commuting in America III," written by Virginia transportation expert Alan Pisarksi and released Monday by the Transportation Research Board, shows that immigrant workers who have lived in the United States five or fewer years were more likely to carpool, walk, ride bicycles or use public transit to get to work than they were to drive privately owned, single-occupant vehicles. Likewise, the study shows, workers 55 and older were more likely to walk to work or to work from home. About 4 million Americans now work from home, surpassing the number of those who walk to work.

The Transportation Research Board is a division of the National Research Council, which is one of the National Academies. The academies are private, nonprofit organizations that provide advice to Congress about technology, science and health policy. The commuting report was based on U.S. Census data. Previous installments were released in 1987 and 1996.

Job markets that are moving out of the cities and into the suburbs also are driving commuting trends. More workers are commuting from homes in one suburb to jobs in another than are commuting from suburbs to big cities. Still, Americans' commutes are longer than ever, with most leaving home between 5 a.m. and 6:30 a.m. and traveling for 60 to 90 minutes each way.

Whether those immigrants who start out using public transit and carpools remain loyal to those modes or switch to driving alone, like most other Americans, remains to be seen. And it is difficult to determine whether working from home will increase among younger workers.

What remains clear is that most Americans still choose to make long drives alone each morning and evening. We need to do better. We need to do more to make public transportation more accessible and give people incentives for using car pools.