Studies find Pittsburgh transit users have among shortest commuting times
Pittsburgh-area residents who take public transit face the shortest commute time of 10 major metropolitan areas in the U.S. analyzed in the 2019 Global Transit Report.
The report was released recently by Moovit — a mobility solutions company and application that looked at millions of trip requests across the globe in order to study transit trends.
The report found that Pittsburgh commuters clocked an average time of 39 minutes by public transportation (i.e. buses, trains, subways etc.) in a single direction, to or from work. The finding includes the traveler’s total walk, wait and travel time. Moovit’s report also accounted for micro-mobility usage such as bikes and scooters.
The data did not include private car commutes.
Pittsburgh public transit commuters save 17 more minutes than those in Los Angeles, which ranked highest in commute time with an average of 56 minutes. The study compared 10 major metropolitan areas across the U.S., including Miami, which tied for longest public transportation commute, New York CityNew Jersey (54 minutes), Chicago (53 minutes), Philadelphia (51 minutes), Boston, San Francisco Bay Area and Washington D.C./ Baltimore (tied at 50 minutes) and Seattle (48 minutes).
According to Moovit, just 13.1% of Pittsburgh commuters face a one- to two-hour trip to work by way of public transit, and only 2.6% travel any longer than that. Miami had the highest percentage of residents who commute two hours or longer.
Pittsburgh had the most travelers with the shortest commute times, as nearly 46% of people take up to only 30 minutes to get to work by way of public transportation or micro -mobility. Pittsburgh also had the shortest average trip distance.
The report was made of two parts, the first half based on data sourced from tens of millions of trips planned and performed by Moovit users, spokeswoman Sharon Kaslassi told the Pittsburgh PostGazette. Moovit services over 720 million users in 98 countries across the world with its urban mobility app.
The second half of the report was based on user surveys that revealed why travelers do or do not utilize public transportation or micro-mobility options in their area, and what might encourage them to do so. Pittsburghers said the biggest thing that would convert them from their cars to public transit would be accurate and reliable arrival times that stick to the published schedule.
If having the quickest trip to work wasn’t convincing enough, a separate study done by Clever Real Estate released on Tuesday ranked Pittsburgh fifth best out of 30 major metros for commuters to use mass transit.
While it is true that public transportation makes for a longer commute than driving (as it does in all of the metros evaluated by Clever Real Estate), the difference in commute times was the smallest in Pittsburgh, where travelers save only about 25 minutes by car.
Of the 30 metros Clever evaluated, Pittsburgh had the fourth-shortest commute time for mass transit. However, Pittsburgh also was in the top 10 cities for highest mass transit commuting costs per month. Overall, the report said, Americans who commute using public transportation spend an average of about $5,500 less than those who drive.