America’s Most Expensive Commute Cities
It’s often said that the trip to work can kill you. But if you live in Houston, what really takes a beating is your wallet. There, the average commuter spends 20.9% of his annual household costs on getting to work. He’s not alone. Cleveland, Detroit, Tampa, Fla., Kansas City, Mo., and Cincinnati also landed on our list of the country’s biggest cities where transportation eats up a fifth or more of household costs, according to a study by the Surface Transportation Policy Partnership (STPP), a nonprofit research firm, which draws on 2003 Bureau of Labor Statistics data, the most recent available. The study looked at annual transit costs such as gas and tolls, and public transit fare, as well as money spent on car payments and maintenance.
Robert Puentes, a metropolitan policy fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., says, “In Houston, the cost of transportation is the No. 1 household expense, above shelter.”
But that’s in part because Houstonians spend a lower than average proportion of their take-home pay on housing.
And that’s the trade-off.
The percent of household income Houstonians spend on transportation may be the highest in the country, but when combined with the amount residents spend on housing expenses, Houston’s aggregate cost ranks them 14th, with the composite cost equaling 52% of household income.
Transit costs are high because Houston has few policies hindering sprawl, which in turn allows for cheaper housing. In San Francisco, which is much more dense and has more prohibitive zoning laws than Houston, residents rank 22nd in commute costs but fifth in the combination of housing and transportation.
Worst hit by the composite ranking were the residents of Tampa and Miami where housing and transportation costs were the most out of sync with the average household’s income levels. Tampa residents spent 57.7%, while Miami denizens spent 57.5% of their take home pay on the two.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 21st, 2007 at 4:39 pm and is filed under Infotainment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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