Andreas Dress for Unsplash
Dallas residents who leave a little later for work typically enjoy a quicker commute, a study released late October shows.
While the world was spiraling in 2020, at least those who had to drive to an in-person job enjoyed less congested travels. For those who have returned to offices in Dallas, the drive in during conventional hours is typically slow going again in 2022. Still, the data show commute times on average and across the country are faster than they have been in a decade.
A study by software company Yardi Kube looked, city by city, at the best and worst times to commute, based on data from the U.S. Census. Those who are afforded a little wiggle room could benefit by postponing their trip by just a few minutes, the researchers say.
Here in our metropolitan area, drivers leaving for work between 8:30 and 8:59 a.m. experience a shorter commute time (about 20 minutes average) than those leaving during 8 and 8:29 a.m. (25 minutes).
In Dallas today there are about 519,980 commuters total, according to Census numbers.
Dallas has two equally busy timeslots, 7-7:29 a.m. and 8-8:29 a.m., the study revealed.
If you can avoid driving between 7-8:30, do, because during that time, the researchers say, about 193,121 people are headed into work on our city’s streets and roadways.
We could save some 22 hours per year of drive time by traveling during lighter hours, even within the busy 6-10 a.m. slot, when most of the workforce drives.
There are far fewer people working traditional in-office hours today — and many more working from home or hybrid — than there were during the coronavirus pandemic.
Nationwide, close to 28 million people were working remotely in 2021, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, up from less than 9 million in 2019.
In 2021, the average one-way commute time was at its lowest in ten years, with 25.6 minutes, a 2-minute drop from pre-pandemic levels.
“Given the urban sprawl in Dallas, TX, a long commute time is expected,” the authors note. “In fact, most workers, about 70,000, travel to work between 8:00 and 8:29 a.m. While having a car is not necessarily a must in what is considered one of the best cities to live in Texas, choosing to leave for work between 8:30 and 8:59 a.m., when there are less than half commuters on the road, can save workers in Dallas over 22 hours per year.”
Read the full results and methodology here.
