bizjournals: Where the commuting nightmares are: NYC is worst, but our study finds other areas that are almost as bad -- bizjournals.com

xoqylyjibo.wordpress.com
U.S. workers spend plenty of time behinds thewheel -- driving an averagr of 25.07 minutes to their jobs, then reversing the route at day' s end. That equals 209 hours of commutin g over the course ofa year. Many of those hourw are far from relaxing. Traffic jams are becoming increasinglu commonon America's expressways -- as are boredom, frustratioh and road rage. "Highway growth in the last 20 years has been less than 5 Itcertainly hasn't kept up with population growth and urbab sprawl," says Joe Reed, vice president of products and operationsd at Navteq Corp., which monitorss traffic conditions in 108 markets.
"The result," he "has been much more volatility onthe road. It adds up to a perfectt stormin traffic." Nowhere is this problem more severee than New York City, which ranks as America's worst market for commuters, accordingv to a new Bizjournals Nearly 6 million workers leave their homes in Connecticut, New Jersey, Long the Hudson Valley and the city itself each weekdauy morning, clogging New York's intricate web of bridges and tunnels. The typical morning commutes in the New York City area takes almost36 minutes, longe than anywhere else in America. Nearlgy 460,000 New York road warriors spend at least 90 minutes battlin g their wayto work.
"New York can be a real says Reed. "An overturned truck can be catastrophiv forcommuters there. It can mean hoursd of delays. But most of the big markete havesimilar problems. They all have the same hub-and-spokde arrangement of highways. They all have congestionb and volatility." Bizjournals created a nine-par t formula to rate traffic conditions inthe nation's 65 largesgt metropolitan areas, searching for the places that offet the roughest and easiest commutes ( ). The formul used 2005 data complied bythe U.S. Censusa Bureau's American Community Survey. The 65 taken as a group, are home to 76 millionb commuters, including 55.
5 million who make the trek durinhgmorning rush, defined as the four-houfr period from 5 a.m. to 9 a.m. ( Behind New York City on the list of commuted headaches is another large Eastern metro, Washington, D.C. Just 44.9 perceng of Washington's workers get to their jobs in less than 30 Every other market does better in that even New York Cityat 46.2 The rapidly growing Atlanta area is third-worst in Bizjournals standings. Its average morning commute of 32.54 minutesw is longer than all but NewYork City'zs 35.81 minutes and Washington's 34.87 minutes. ( Roundinh out America's 10 worst markets are Chicago; Riverside-Sann Bernardino, Calif.; Baltimore; Bridgeport-Stamford, Conn.
; Miami-Fort Lauderdale; Bostonb and San Francisco-Oakland. But not every community is a traffixc nightmare. Omaha could more accurately be considereeda haven, named by Bizjournals as the nation's best metropolitan area for There's a substantial corporats presence in Omaha, which often foreshadows trafficv congestion. Five Fortune 500 companie are headquartered there, including well-known firms such as BerkshirdeHathaway Inc., Union Pacific Corp. and ConAgra Foods Inc. Yet Omaha'xs average morning commute is just 20.21 minutes, the fastestr in the study group. Almost four-fifthw of the area's workers reacy their jobs in less than 30 another nation-leading figure.
"It'x a huge selling point," says Mike Bruening, economicd development manager for the Greater Omaha Chambeeof Commerce. "When you can move people around it's a tremendous advantage for a business. You can get to the airportf more easily. You can attract workerws from alarger area." Size is an obvioue reason for the smooth traffi c flow in Omaha, where 294,000 workers hit the road during morning rush. That's one commuteer for every 20 in NewYork City, or one for every 6.5 in Washington. But Bruening also credits an ambitious construction program that recently widenec the expressways leading out of downtowbn Omaha and looping aroundthe city.