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Commuting

These U.S. Cities Have the Worst Commute Times

By
Tom Huddleston Jr.
Tom Huddleston Jr.
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By
Tom Huddleston Jr.
Tom Huddleston Jr.
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March 3, 2016, 9:25 AM ET
New York City: Top Travel Destination
Photograph by George Rose—Getty Images
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If you feel like your daily commute keeps getting longer and longer, apparently you’re not alone.

Commute times in the 50 largest U.S. metro areas jumped 3%, to 27.2 minutes, between 2009 and 2014, according to a new report from online real estate marketplace Trulia. The report, which analyzes data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2014 American Community Survey, also ranks which cities’ residents have the best and worst daily commutes.

Which city has the worst commutes? Well, New Yorkers may be known for rushing around, but it still takes them longer to get to work than residents in any other U.S. city. New York City workers have to navigate daily commutes averaging almost 35 minutes each way, which is more than 14 minutes longer than the city with the country’s shortest average commute. Buffalo, N.Y. takes those bragging rights with an average commute of just over 20 minutes each way.

Trulia notes that, generally speaking, larger metro areas see the worst commute times while residents in smaller cities with “less population density and road congestion” spend much less time on the road between home and work.

Here are the 1o U.S. metro areas with the longest average commute times:

  1. New York City—34.7 minutes
  2. Long Island, N.Y.—33 minutes
  3. Washington, D.C.—32.8 minutes
  4. Newark, N.J.—31.1 minutes
  5. Chicago—30.8 minutes
  6. Boston—30.4 minutes
  7. Oakland, Calif.—29.9 minutes
  8. Riverside-San Bernardino, Calif.—29.8 minutes
  9. Baltimore—29.4 minutes
  10. Atlanta—29.2 minutes

Behind Buffalo, the metro areas with the shortest commute times are Columbus, Ohio (21.8 minutes) and Hartford, Conn. (22.3 minutes).

As Fortune reported last month, any hopes that a recent increase in a tax benefit for workers who commute by mass transit might reduce traffic in major cities were dashed by a TransitCenter analysis that found the added benefits still don’t outweigh a parking subsidy for people who would rather drive to work.

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By Tom Huddleston Jr.
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