Poll Finds Most Dont Commute Far

By Daniel Merkel, ABCNEWS.com

NEW YORK, Dec. 8 For all the griping about gridlock, most working Americans dont have to travel all that far to bring home the bacon: They report an average one-way commute of 22 minutes, just a minute more than it was 10 years ago.

In fact almost eight in 10 working Americans spend a half hour or less getting to work each way, including 47 percent who travel 15 minutes or fewer. Only 16 percent commute more than a half hour, including only two percent more than an hour.

Surprisingly, these figures havent changed much in the past decade: Telecommuting hasnt pushed them down, traffic congestion hasnt pushed them up, and neither of those has made any significant change at the extremes.

The better the job, the farther people are willing to travel to get there. People travel longer to work at full-time jobs than they do for part-time jobs. And income is the strongest factor. Almost three in 10 people making over $75,000 travel more than a half hour to work, compared with only 15 percent of those making less.

This ABCNEWS.com survey was conducted by telephone Dec. 1-5, 1999, among a random national sample of 692 adults who work full or part-time. The results have a four-point error margin. Fieldwork by ICR-International Communications Research of Media, Pa.