Commute time
By: J. David Chapman/September 5, 2019
How long are you willing to commute to work from your home every day? This is something that we study because it affects the price of real estate and where we build homes and commercial buildings.
What makes this question interesting for developers and planners is that changes in technology affect the method of the commute, which affects the time spent commuting. No matter the method of commuting (walking, biking, streetcar, automobile, train, bus), we know from research performed by Cesare Marchetti in 1994 that people have always been willing to commute for about a half-hour, one way, from their home each day.
Known as the Marchetti Constant, the principle has profound implications for city planning, urban life, and suburban development. It is determined by accessibly and the reasonable speed of transportation to reach their destination. The value of land in the urban context is partially determined by transportation options available to the urban core. This pattern has repeated itself as new mobility modes have appeared. This implies, correctly, that as the speed of the transportation technology increases, the physical size of a city can grow and occupy more land.
The average one-way commute time in America metropolitan areas today is about 26 minutes. Obviously, this takes into account many different types of transportation sources.
I spend a lot of time in London. The City of London was built on a walking model and is, by no accident, 1 square mile in diameter. Ironically, I can walk anywhere in the city center within a 30-minute walk. As horse and carriage travel became more prevalent, the diameter of the city grew. In the 1840s, rail made it possible to commute to London from boroughs within the 30-minute time frame.
Slower than the steam railroads, but faster than horse carriages, streetcars and bicycles could cover about 4 miles in a half-hour. Suddenly, the city itself was no longer limited to a few square miles, and development grew exponentially. While a walking city was only 2 to 3 miles in diameter, a streetcar had the possibility to change the diameter of the city to 50 miles. So, next time you commute to work, time your drive, ride, bike, or walk, and think about Cesare Marchetti and time your journey.
J. David Chapman is an associate professor of finance and real estate at the University of Central Oklahoma (jchapman7@uco.edu).