Commuting Constant

Disclaimer: this post is going to geek-out on some travel/transportation related concepts that I find interesting.

I used to live 3.8 miles from work. It would take me about 10 minutes to get there. I now work in Bountiful, which is an 11.1 mile distance. Despite being 3 times farther, it only takes me 20 minutes to get there (by car, by bus is a whole different story). The reason behind this is speed. My route to Myriad was by local streets, dotted with lots of stop lights and a speed that rarely went over 35. The route to Bountiful, though, has a large chunk of highway where I can cruise anywhere from 50-60 miles per hour.

This concept of speed has allowed people to live farther from where the work, but without largely increasing their commute time. When travel was mostly done by walking, people needed to live close to where they worked. When cars came along, that same 20 minutes once used for walking could be spread to a farther distance since the car could travel faster. With freeways and increased speeds, the distance is now increased even more, allowing housing to be built farther away.

I remember learning this, but it was cool to have it applied to rel life and verify it. :)