Most Americans still have to commute every day. Here’s how that experience has changed

Uma estória interessante sobre o tempo de viagem entre casa e emprego, bons gráficos dinâmicos

By Lydia DePillisEmma Goldberg and Ella Koeze Nov. 6, 2023

The average American commute is about 27 minutes. While people in many industries were able to start working from home during the pandemic, recouping their travel time, nearly half of U.S. workers kept devoting a good chunk of their day — sometimes an hour or more — to being in transit.

Pandemic-era commuting has widened several divides: between those who can work remotely and those who can’t, and between those who drive and those who use public transportation. The decrease in travel by those able to work remotely has changed the nature of commutes for everyone else — streamlining rush-hour traffic, for example, but making trains run less often.

For some, it has been a mixed blessing. Take Torie Hargreaves, whose commute used to be brutal, often double the 27-minute average. As a nurse at a hospital in Minneapolis, she would leave home shortly after noon, and it could take up to an hour to wind her way up Hiawatha Avenue to the sprawling campus, past construction sites and other bottlenecks.

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