MD has the second highest commute time in US, survey finds

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Marylanders are spending more time on the road: the state’s average one-way commute time increased to 31.5 minutes in 2023 – the second longest in the country.

While Maryland’s commute time is still behind New York’s – the state with the longest commute, at 32.8 minutes– the average Maryland commute has increased by more than two minutes from two years prior, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey.

In Baltimore City, commuters typically spent about 29.5 minutes getting to work each way. In Southern Maryland, where many workers travel into the Washington, D.C. region, commute times climbed above the state average. Washington, D.C.’s commuters spent about 30.3 minutes on the road as of 2023.

And commute times have likely only gotten worse in the region as fewer people are working from home. Levels of remote and hybrid work have dropped sharply since the pandemic, especially in the last year after President Trump pushed federal agencies to return employees to the office.

Maryland’s commute challenges are also tied to its proximity to Washington, D.C.. The federal return to work policy has returned traffic volumes to near pre-COVID levels.

The return to in-person work policy urges heads of departments and agencies in the executive branch of government to take necessary steps to terminate remote positions. This requires federal employees to return to work in-person at their respective offices on a full-time basis.

A 2024 commuter survey by the National Center for Smart Growth and the Maryland Department of Transportation surveyed 969 Maryland workers. The findings suggested that the portion of workers with hybrid or remote schedules dropped from 34% to 27% between 2023 and 2024.

Almost three quarters of Maryland workers were fully in-person, and only 20% of Maryland workers were hybrid– a decline from the pre-pandemic rate of 24%.

County-level trends show that commute times are longest in Maryland’s northern and southern counties, including Frederick, Carroll, Harford, Calvert, Charles and St. Mary’s.

Chester Harvey, the director of NCSG’s Transportation Policy Research Group, mentioned that this could be because more people are moving farther from their workplaces each year.

“This trend that we’re seeing, with commute times going up, is consistent with [the idea that] people had moved further from their work – or taken jobs farther away because they could work remotely or have a hybrid schedule. So, we see the average going up as more of them had to go back to work,” Harvey said.

The Maryland Department of Transportation State Highway Administration emphasized the impact of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse, which diverted more than 30,000 vehicles per day – including many commercial trucks – onto I-95, I-895 and I-695. Congestion along these routes has risen sharply.

To address congestion and rising commute times, SHA highlighted several ongoing projects including the I-270 Innovate Congestion Management in Montgomery County, which aims to improve ramp metering and roadways.

SHA is also building a part-time shoulder travel system on I-695 – the Baltimore Beltway – controlled by overhead lane signals. It will address six of Maryland’s top 15 most congested road segments and is expected to save drivers up to 21 minutes on the inner loop and 34 minutes on the outer loop.

Sandra Smith reports for Capital News Service.