I drove on the freeway on a weekday, for two hours, yesterday, so it is timely to report on another study on the cost of commuting. This one, by Clever Real Estate, lists the top 50 cities in terms of the basic auto commuting costs, and the time spent at the average salary of each city. The costs exceed those of a previous study by about $2,500 to $3,000.
With the list, there was a very disturbing number for the average commuting mpg, which is only 21.1 mpg. The average mpg on the CAFE standard course has moved up from 25 to 26 mpg.
Paul Krugman has been discussing life expectancy in different regions of the country. This survey showed that the percent in poor of fair health varies, with the South having 19%, the Midwest 15% and the Northeastern at 15%, and the West 16%. Krugman associated this with the states that have not embraced state dependent Medicaid.
The Western states have an average fuel and maintenance costs from $1200-1250, Southern states are $1300-1350, North Central states are $1150-1200, and Northeastern are $1200-1250.
The national average cost of commuting is $6,449, and uses up 200 hours a year.
We list the top cities including enough to contain the California cities, the time to work in minutes, and the yearly cost, rounded off:
Washington, D.C. 37.04 $12,016
San Jose, CA 31.05. $11,853
San Francisco, CA 32.46 $11,377
New York, NY 35.47 $10,569
Seattle, WA 30.70 $10,132
Boston, MA 30.66 $9,716
Baltimore, MD 31.66 $9,206
Phoenix, AZ 28.40 $9,190
Denver, CO 31.34 $9,056
Sacramento, CA 26.63 $9,006
Richmond, VA 30.95 $8,690
Riverside, CA 32.00 $8,666
Los Angeles, CA 29.15 $8,651
Houston, TX 30.91 $8,609
Atlanta, GA 31.73 $8,583
Minneapolis, MN 27.82 $8,462
Dallas, TX 30.37 $8,333
Hartford, CT 25.13 $8,159
Chicago, IL 29.97 $8,108
Detroit, MI 29.28 $8,043
San Diego, CA 25.70 $8,021
Las Vegas, NV 24.50 $8,050
These 22 cities include all those with a cost over $8,000 a year, ordered by cost. There are 6 California cities in the top 50, at ranks 2, 3, 10, 12, 13, and 21.
We had previously reported a similar cost of commute study by Lending Tree, which also included smaller California cities. We compare the costs of the Clever and Lending Tree estimates for the six California cities.
City Clever Lending Tree Difference
San Jose $11,853. $8,782 $3,071
San Francisco $11,377 $11,719 -$342
Riverside $8,666 $6,079 $2,587
Sacramento $9,006 $5,694 $3,312
Los Angeles $8,651 $6,108. $2,543
San Diego $8,021 $5,769 $2,252
Except for San Francisco, the added costs of gas and maintenance run from $2,252 to $3,312, including differences in data sources. There isn’t much difference in commuting time between the two estimates.
