DALLAS — No one likes a long commute to work, but a study shows that Texas has a growing amount of residents that commute more than 90 minutes every day.
Although the number of “super commuters,” or commuters that drive more than 90 every day, in Dallas County is low, the population has grown 27 percent in the span of eight years, according to a study from Apartment List. The study examined growth in the super-commuting community between 2009 and 2017.
The Dallas Business Journal compiled a list of Texan counties from the DFW, Austin, San Antonio and Houston areas that experienced the most growth in its super-commuting population from years 2009 to 2017. You can take a closer look at the counties here.
About 2.9 percent of workers across the United States are super commuters, but some Texas counties have a higher rate than the national average.
Overall, San Antonio and Houston markets have experienced some of the greatest growth in their super-commuter populations.
Kendall County, which includes San Antonio, ranked No. 1 for experiencing the most growth in the category, and has more than tripled its super-commuter population. A total of 4.8 percent of Kendall County’s workforce is super commuters.
Bandera County in the San Antonio-New Braunfels area ranked No. 2, and has more than doubled its super commuters in the span of eight years with 6.3 percent of all of its workers surveyed in the category.
Only two counties in the Dallas-Fort Worth area ranked in the top 10 of the list with Kaufman County and Parker County ranking at No. 7 and No. 9 respectively. Kaufman County experienced a 95.8 percent increase in its super-commuter population from 2007 to 2017, though only 4.6 percent of its population make the long trek to work.
Apartment List’s Housing Economist Chris Salviati said he found that people are taking these longer commutes because it’s a more economical option, but some people are having to do take these commutes because of the kind of industry they’re in.
“When we break this down by occupation, it’s folks in the drilling and mining industries that actually have the highest rates of super-commuting,” Salviati said. “There’s a couple of areas in West Texas, and then along the Gulf Coast drilling region in northeast Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi.”
Apartment List compiled its list using Census Bureau’s American Community survey that samples about 3 million households nationally. The study looked at county-level data in 2017, which is the most recent year that’s currently available. The 2017 data is a five-year estimate, Salviati explained, therefore individuals were sampled between 2013 and 2017.
