The Post Surveys Area Commuters

The Washington Post reports (registration required) on area traffic and it is bad news as usual:

Washington area residents spend far longer getting to work and find themselves in daily traffic jams three times as often as commuters elsewhere, according to new local and national polls by The Washington Post.

Half of the region’s commuters spend 30 minutes or more traveling to work, or an hour each day to get to their jobs and back home. Even when compared with commuters in other major urban areas, the surveys suggest that Washington residents spend significantly more time on the road.
One big reason that drives are longer here is because traffic tie-ups are far more frequent. Nearly 6 in 10 commuters say they get tangled up in traffic jams at least once a week. And more than 1 in 4 — 28 percent — said they encounter serious tie-ups every day, compared with 9 percent of commuters nationally.

In spite of increasingly long and frustrating commutes, the survey found that Washingtonians remain addicted to their cars. Three in four area commuters drive to work alone. Carpooling is no more prevalent here than it is elsewhere in the country. Metro is widely admired but largely bypassed, a boutique transportation system that serves a hard-core constituency but is viewed by most commuters as inconvenient.

For Frederick commuters public transportation can be inconvenient. For example: I would have to drive about 10-15 minutes to a Marc station, then take an hour train ride, and then a 15 minute bus ride to my work. That is almost an hour and half commute or three hours a day. Driving, I spend about an hour and a half a day unless their is a bad traffic jam.

How is your commute?