What Drives in the Suburbs Stays in the Suburbs

Last year, the Washington, D.C. blog DCist took satisfaction in a report that said suburbanites in Virginia and Maryland had the longest commutes in the nation, and were quick to give the news an anti-suburban spin. "When local media … discuss our countless transportation and traffic problems, it is often to be described as D.C.-Metro or Washington-area congestion," DCist wrote. "However, statistics indicate that something along the lines of Va./Md.-Metro area congestion might be a more appropriate description." They are right, of course: suburban drivers are clogging theirs. "The extreme commutes of Prince George's and Montgomery residents suggest that many of them are traveling to jobs in other suburbs rather than in the District," says a Washington Post piece cited by DCist.

But this doesn't mean traffic problems are restricted to the suburbs. (Memo to DCist: Hell hath nothing on a summer Friday afternoon rush hour in Washington, D.C. proper.) Nor do suburbanites cause all traffic woes. A recent study of traffic congestion in New York City showed that most of the cars in the urbanites' path, it turns out, belong to other urbanites. According to regional traffic experts, "more than half the drivers who crowd into Manhattan each workday come from the five boroughs," the New York Times reported last week, graciously registering their shock that suburbanites are not to blame. "'There’s a lot of myths, and when you look at the data, the myths go pop, pop, pop, one by one,' said Bruce Schaller, a transportation consultant."