An Escort in Every Garage

Much is being made of a new study about squeeze put on "working" families—those making $20,000 to $50,000 annually—by the high cost of transportation and the high cost of housing. As they are priced out of downtown living quarters, lower earners are finding the even the furthest suburbs are no relief: what they save in rent or mortgage they give right back in commuting. "A Heavy Load," by the Center for Housing Policy, "found that the costs of one-way commutes of as little as 12 to 15 miles … cancel any savings on lower-priced outer-suburban homes," wrote The Washington Post.

Fascinating but not surprising is how reactions to the study immediately bumped the problem up to the middle class. "It doesn't just apply to those earning between $20,000 and $50,000," Business Week's Douglas McMillen assured readers. Except for the rich, says McMillen, "moving from the city to the country no longer makes as much sense financially as it used to." The Washington Post article included a case study of a commuting couple in Sterling, Va., where the average income is $89,000.

Other outlets used the study to whomp the burbs over the head about improving their relatively poor public transportation, which theoretically would not only take pressure off the working class's wallets, but lighten traffic as well. DCist has suggestions about "backbone" and "feeder" systems that certainly make sense—as long as we can predict where the commuters are headed.

Since as many workers are now shuttling from suburb to suburb when they go from home to job and back, building traditional burb-to-town transportation lines may end up wasting money. Buses are more adaptable, but still require more density than the outer suburbs provide to be efficient. Perhaps these realities are why, besides stopping the flow of jobs to the suburbs and connecting existing sprawl, the new study's recommendations include reducing the cost of owning a car.