Solo Commuting Up Despite High Gas Prices

Gasoline prices soared 46 percent during the decade from 2000 to 2010, raising expectations of increased carpooling and mass transit use. But a new report instead shows a continued growth in the number of Americans who drive to work alone.

Solo commuting now accounts for 76.5 percent of the nation’s workers, up from 75.6 percent in 2000. That’s the highest this figure has ever been since it was first measured in 1960, according to the 2010 American Community Survey conducted by the Census Bureau.

While 97.1 million Americans drove to work alone in 2000, 104.8 million did so in 2010.

“In view of the much higher gasoline prices that prevailed in 2010, it might have been expected that driving alone would lose market share from 2000,” the New Geography website observed.

“But this did not — despite many media and academic claims that it would or was already taking place — occur.”

In 2000, 12.2 percent of workers — 15.6 million — used a car pool to get to work. Those figures dropped to 9.7 percent and 13.2 million by 2010.

Furthermore, mass transit systems saw only a small gain in overall usage, from 4.6 percent of workers in 2000 to 4.9 percent in 2010. In 1960, 12.1 percent of workers used transit.

“Only an 8 percent increase in the transit market share occurred at the same time as gasoline prices increased a real 46 percent (adjusted for inflation),” New Geography noted.

A Brookings Institute report pointed to one significant reason why mass transit usage remains low: Less than 10 percent of the jobs in major metropolitan areas can be reached within 45 minutes using mass transit, compared with a 21-minute median commute time for solo drivers.

The percentage of Americans who work at home, 4.3 percent in 2010, is expected to surpass the percentage using mass transit before the year 2020.