The number of Americans who travel more than 90 minutes each way to work, known as “supercommuters,” increased 23 percent between 2010 and 2015, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts. Curbed, an online news aggregator on homes, neighborhoods and cities, cites numerous studies that tie these growing commutes to the lack of affordable housing near jobs. Rising rents and an increasingly tight housing market are forcing lower and middle-income Americans to live farther away from where they work. But the article notes that what they save in housing costs often gets eaten up by increased commuting costs and stated that “the problem of affordability requires providing better transportation and housing options.” See how average commuting times stack up in North Carolina by county.
