Hour-Long Commutes to Work Rank CT 36th in USA; Bridgeport 5th in Extra Travel Time on Fridays

Connecticut is a relatively small state.  Only Rhode Island and Delaware are smaller.  Yet, the percentage of workers in Connecticut who commute for 60 minutes or longer - one way -  to go to work each day is 7.7 percent.  That ranks the state 36th in the nation in percentage of workers commuting an hour or longer each trip to get to work.

Perhaps surprisingly, Connecticut is not among the states with the lowest percentage of workers needing to make an hour-long commutes to get to work each day.  In fact, more than a dozen states have a smaller percentage of long-commute drivers than Connecticut.  The lowest percentages of long commutes are in South Dakota (3.6% of workers), Iowa (3.7%) , Kansas (3.3%)  and Nebraska (2.9%). The study compared 2011 data.

The states with a larger percentage of their workforce making hour-long commutes includes California (10.1%), Delaware, D.C., Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Virginia, Washington and West Virginia.  Connecticut ranks 22nd in population among the states.

Overall, Connecticut’s average commuting time ranked 19th in the nation, at 24.6 minutes, based on 2006-2010 data compiled by the website indexmundi.org.  The U.S. average was slightly higher at 25.2 minutes.  Among the state’s eight counties, the longest commutes – in time, not distance – were in Fairfield County, followed by Litchfield, Windham, Tolland, Middlesex, New Haven, New London and Hartford counties.

The website trulia.com provides graphic representations of travel time from areas surrounding major cities, including Hartford, New Haven and Bridgeport in Connecticut - looking at travel by car, and via mass transit.

A year ago, the Bridgeport metropolitan area was ranked as the 5th worst traffic delay corridor in the country by Governing magazine.  Data compiled for Governing by traffic research firm Inrix shows Friday afternoons are the worst time of the week to drive in nearly three-quarters of metro areas across the country.  For most cities with already lengthy rush-hour commutes throughout the week, time spent behind the wheel is further prolonged on Fridays.

Bridgeport came in just behind Los Angeles, San Francisco, Honolulu and Austin, Texas – and worse than Seattle, New York City, Portland, Washington and Chicago, which all fared somewhat better than the Park City in the Friday-afternoon traffic tie-up analysis done by the publication.    Areas with many workers living far outside a city can experience significant congestion when all flee the office early, the publication noted, citing Bridgeport, which recorded the nation’s fifth-longest Friday afternoon delays, as an example.

For the Bridgeport area, commuters added nearly 10 minutes in delays due to traffic congestion on Friday afternoons.  Boston, by comparison, added just under 7 minutes, New Haven 5 ½ minutes, Hartford just over 4 minutes.  Los Angeles, which topped the list, exceeded 13 minutes in the additional travel time necessary during the peak commute due to the traffic volume.