The latest work access data (journey to work and work at home) has been released. In 2023, transit commuting remained 30% below its 2019 pre-pandemic level, at 3.5%. This is an improvement from 3.1% in 2022. Driving alone was also below the pre-pandemic level, at 69.2%, compared to 75.9%. This was largely the result of the hybrid work revolution, which drove the work from home level to 13.8%, up more than 240% from the pre-pandemic level. The 2023 figure is below the 15.2% level of 2022.
The strongest transit markets were New York, at 23.8% of commuters. No other major transit market exceeded a 10% market share. Before the pandemic, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, Washington and Seattle typically exceeded 10% shares.
Some transit markets in which there were major capital expenditures for rail systems now have shares of 1.0% or less, including Austin, Charlotte, Dallas-Fort Worth and Virginia Beach-Norfolk.
The table below shows data for the 56 major metropolitan areas and national data.
Wendell Cox is principal of Demographia, an international public policy firm located in the St. Louis metropolitan area. He is a Senior Fellow with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy in Winnipeg and a member of the Advisory Board of the Center for Demographics and Policy at Chapman University in Orange, California. He has served as a visiting professor at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers in Paris. His principal interests are economics, poverty alleviation, demographics, urban policy and transport. He is co-author of the annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey and author of Demographia World Urban Areas.
Mayor Tom Bradley appointed him to three terms on the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission (1977-1985) and Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich appointed him to the Amtrak Reform Council, to complete the unexpired term of New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman (1999-2002). He is author of War on the Dream: How Anti-Sprawl Policy Threatens the Quality of Life and Toward More Prosperous Cities: A Framing Essay on Urban Areas, Transport, Planning and the Dimensions of Sustainability.
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