It's the Suburbs, Stupid
When local media, including this site, discuss our countless transportation and traffic problems, it is often to be described as D.C.-Metro or Washington-area congestion. However, statistics indicate that something along the lines of Va./Md.-Metro area congestion might be a more appropriate description.
Eric Weiss, the Post's new transportation reporter, has kicked off his duties with articles exploring several recent studies on commuting trends across the region and the nation. He reported last week that the potential savings on housing prices in farther-out suburbs could be outweighed by the cost of commuting and living in a spread-out landscape that requires a car trip for the smallest errand. He followed up today, pointing out that Virginia and Maryland have, on average, the nation's greatest proportion of lengthy commutes. While the District may be the geographical center of the region, it seems that Virginia and Maryland are closer to the center of the problem.
Photo by jtowns
Traffic and congestion have long been associated with cities; the downtown traffic jam is a recurring image in pop culture and literature alike. However, a major study called Commuting in America III looks at commuting trends around the country and leaves us with some interesting statistics that give us the impression that the issue of traffic needs to be decoupled from urban areas.
Notable to our area, Virginia boasts the highest percentage of residents who live and work in a different county, and Maryland comes in a close second. Local residents also have the second highest percentage of commutes that exceed 90 minutes one-way, second only to the New York-New Jersey-Connecticut region. As Weiss points out in his article today:
Of the 12 counties with the highest percentage of long commutes, the region had three: Prince William, Prince George's and Montgomery. The extreme commutes of Prince George's and Montgomery residents suggest that many of them are traveling to jobs in other suburbs rather than in the District.National statistics back up the idea that this problem revolves much more around suburbs and exurbs than it does urban centers. For instance, between 1990 to 2000, about 64 percent of the growth in U.S. commutes was between suburbs. Meanwhile, traditional city-to-suburb commutes accounted for only 14 percent of growth, actually falling a percent in its overall share. Of the nation's 20 fastest growing counties, several of which are in Northern Virginia, 15 are more than 30 miles from an urban center.
As DCist editor emeritus Ryan Avent suggested last week, to combat the catch-22 of high housing costs versus high commuting costs, the region should invest in expanding both "backbone" and "feeder" transit service, and the city should look at improving both the average price and density of its housing supply. Both of these are extremely worthwhile ideas that should be pursued; however the new data suggests that this approach is only half the battle.
Metro does a fairly good job moving commuters in and out of the city, and the District has begun to succeed in increasing the number of area residents that live in its higher-density urban setting. The city also has several local projects on the docket to improve transit within the city, including reformed bus service on the busiest routes and new streetcars along the burgeoning H Street NE corridor.
Suburban counterparts to these examples are much harder to find outside of the semi-urban hubs along Metro lines that have existed in some cases for decades. Ideas such as Arlington's push for streetcar service along Columbia Pike are the exception, not the rule, and are made more difficult by the perennial lack of available funding. Yet this is just the type of project that is needed to begin to address the increasing amount of commuting that occurs around a major city, rather then into or within that city. Steps should certainly continue to improve District housing policy and Metro. However, represenatives of our suburban neighbors (to the west, for example) must begin to recognize that suburban problems must be solved in the suburbs.