Photo by Photos by Chip Py

On any given workday, there are plenty of people in the region that climb into their cars and drive to work. But according to numbers from the U.S. Census, there are also a lot of folks that use public transit.

The Washington Business Journal reported yesterday that the Washington area ranks third in the country in the number of people who use public transit, coming in behind only New York and San Francisco.

On a daily basis, 399,415 of the region’s commuters use public transit to get around, coming in just under 14 percent of all commuters. New York exceeded 30 percent, while San Francisco hit 14.6 percent. We ranked ahead of Boston and Chicago.

Last September the Texas Transportation Institute found that traffic in the region is worse than anywhere else in the country, and on a yearly basis we waste 74 hours, 37 gallons of gas and almost $1,500 staring at headlights in front of us.