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About 53 percent of readers responding to The Peekskill Daily Voice’s poll on commuting said they travel an hour or more to get to work. About 41 percent said it takes 10 to 30 minutes. A national survey found the average one-way daily commute for workers throughout the country was 25.5 minutes, with one in four commuters working out of their county. The U.S. Census Bureau released figures on commuting from the American Community Survey last week.
Peekskill reader Jeffrey Packard, who works as a video editor in Norwalk, is one of the “mega-commuters.”
“(It takes) a little over an hour taking the back roads through Bedford into (Connecticut),” Packard said on The Peekskill Daily Voice’s Facebook page. “Even though it’s only 40 miles away, it’s quicker than taking 9 to 287 to 95. Especially in rush hour. Beautiful drive.”
Reader Evelyn Costoso Detres is less enthusiastic about the trip.
“(It’s) just about an hour commute,” she said on the page. “However what sucks is the money I have to pay to travel to NYC.”
People who commute by public transportation were more likely to have longer commute times, and New York had the highest rate of long commutes, according to the American Community Survey.
"The average travel time for workers who commute by public transportation is higher than that of workers who use other modes," Brian McKenzie, a Census Bureau statistician, said in a statement. “For some workers, using transit is a necessity, but others simply choose a longer travel time over sitting in traffic.”
WNYC put together a map of average commuting times throughout the area. Peekskill residents surveyed average about 34 minutes, nearly 10 minutes more than the average commuter. About 2 percent of all those surveyed were “mega-commuters,” with average commutes of 90 minutes or more.
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