Reducing Work Commutes Not Easy In Some Cities, Study Suggests

I live in Atlanta, and I have no reason to doubt it's ranking in this study.

http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/lesscommute.htm

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Shorter work commutes are one way to reduce gasoline consumption, but a new study finds that not all cities are equal in how easy it would be to achieve that goal.

Research suggests that Atlanta and Minneapolis may be the U.S. metropolitan areas that would find it most difficult to reduce the miles that workers commute each day.
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The best way to reduce commuting miles by 3 percent depended on the circumstances of individual cities, according to O’Kelly. In a few cities, a big gain came from reducing the drives of “extreme commuters” – those who commuted long distances to work, sometimes more than 100 miles.

For example, in Atlanta, 95 percent of commuters have commutes of 30 miles or less. But the remaining 5 percent drive as far as 121 miles to work.

“If you take away the 5 percent of most extreme commuters in a city like Atlanta, you can save quite a bit,” O’Kelly said. Still, in most cities the biggest savings came from making relatively small adjustments in more average commuting lengths.

O’Kelly said the results show that how cities are developed can play a key role in how easy it would be to reduce driving.

“Long average commutes are a byproduct of how our cities are laid out,” he said.