More commuters hit the road alone

DENNIS CAMIRE, GANNETT NEWS SERVICE

Originally published August 20

WASHINGTON -- Fire Chief Margene McCoy of Shreveport, La., sits alone in his car every day, sharing the road with a bunch of people just like him.

About three out of four people drive by themselves to work, recent numbers from the Census reveal.

That's more than were making that lonely commute 10 years ago. In fact, nationwide, 13 million more people drove alone to their jobs in 2000 than in 1990.

Now about 76 percent of commuters are going it alone, up from 73 percent in 1990.

In Louisiana, 4 of 5 people drive to work alone. About 85 percent of Alabama residents, more than in any other state, ride alone.

The survey found that commuters -- undaunted by more traffic congestion, record gas prices and summertime ozone alerts -- increasingly abandoned carpools and took to the road alone for drives to work that are getting slightly longer.

In McCoy's case, the driving alone comes from living 40 miles away from work, in Ringgold, La.

"Gas prices are coming down some, but it's just a fact that it doesn't make any difference how high the price gets," McCoy said. "You still have to go to the same places you have to go no matter what it costs."

Transportation experts say sprawl -- the continued dispersal of housing and workplaces -- is among the top reasons behind the rise of drive-alone commuters and a corresponding drop in those traveling to work in carpools. Now about two in 18 people carpool; in 1990, it was two in 15 people.

That drop occurred even though the mean commute time, the middle point for the whole country, increased by almost two minutes to 22.4 minutes.

Though the amount of time is not large, between 1980 and 1990, the mean commute time went up by about 40 seconds.

Despite a rising emphasis on the environment and millions of taxpayer dollars spent to encourage public transit, ridesharing and carpools, the number of additional commuters driving alone in 35 states exceeded the number of new workers the states added over the decade.

"Partly, it's a reflection that we are continuing to build our communities in a way that driving is about the only way to get around, and people are continuing to move farther and farther from work," said Barbara McCann, who is the spokeswoman for the Surface Transportation Policy Project.

Steirkven Polzin, director of the transit research program for the National Center for Transit Research at the University of South Florida in Tampa, said studies show a systematic trend for the past several decades of people moving to solo commuting for a wealth of reasons -- speed of getting to work high on the list.

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