DC-Area Commute is Second Longest in Nation, Census Bureau Says

Workers in the Washington metropolitan area have the second-longest commutes in the nation, according to new data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The average travel time to work in the area was 34.5 minutes in 2011, according to numbers released by the bureau Tuesday. The longest commute time was found in the New York City metro area, with average commutes of 34.9 minutes—24 seconds longer than the DC area.

The national average one-way commute time to work was 25.5 minutes.

The Washington area also had the highest rate of out-of-state commuters among its resident workers, at 25.2 percent, followed by Maryland at 18.3 percent.

"The District of Columbia is a job center for all of its adjoining counties in Maryland and Virginia," said Brian McKenzie, a Census Bureau statistician and author of the brief, in a statement. "No other state's workforce exceeded 20.0 percent in its rate of out-of-state commuters."

In 2011, about 8.1 percent of U.S. workers had commutes of 60 minutes or longer, and nearly 600,000 full-time workers had "megacommutes" of at least 90 minutes and 50 miles. Workers in DC showed the highest rate of long commutes, with more than a quarter traveling 60 minutes or longer to get to work, notably higher than of any other state, according to the bureau.

The figures come from the U.S. Census Bureau's annual American Community Survey.

A separate study released in February by the Texas Transportation Institute found that traffic congestion in the Washington metro area was the worst in the country.