Community Corner

How Does Royal Oak's Commute Compare?

A recent report from The Business Journals ranks the daily commute for Royal Oak residents at 208 out of 483 medium-sized cities nationwide.

How has your commute to work been lately? According to The Business Journals, Royal Oak residents don't have it too bad.

According to a statistical report of commute times by The Business Journals, Royal Oak came in 7th among 22 communities in Michigan with populations between 50,000 and 100,000. Among 483 medium-sized communities nationwide, Royal Oak came in 208th.

The study awarded points for all commuters who traveled less than 30 minutes to work, but it subtracted points for those whose commutes were more than 30 minutes, according to the five-year version of the 2009 American Community Survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau.

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The rankings also reflect the ease of travel and the economic self-sufficiency in a given community. The highest scores go to places that have wide ranges of easily reached workplaces. Commutes are defined by how long its takes one to travel to work.

In Royal Oak, the largest percentage of commuters — 42.04 percent — travels 15-29 minutes during their daily commute. Another 27.28 percent travel less than 15 minutes.

Find out what's happening in Royal Oakwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Meanwhile, 23.38 percent travel 30-44 minutes during their commute, while the smallest group, 7.30 percent, makes the longest journey to work, more than 45 minutes.

In Michigan, the medium-sized city with the best commute turned out to be Battle Creek , ranked No. 53 on the national list. Worst in Michigan was West Bloomfield Township, ranked No. 417. Thirty-one percent of West Bloomfield Township residents have a commuting time of 30-44 minutes

Top in the nation on The Business Journals' list was Grand Forks, OK. Nearly 69 percent of Grand Forks residents travel less than 15 minutes on their way home from work.

Of large cities, Detroit ranked No. 194 among 269 cities with populations above 100,000 nationwide. Abilene, TX (population 116,000) had the best big city commute, New York, NY (population 8.3 million) had the worst. 40 percent of the Big Apple's employees spend at least 45 minutes traveling to work.


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