The Cost of Sprawl

The study’s a few years old but I doubt that the stats have improved. You might want to take a look at the ranking of metropolitan areas by how much on average is spent annually on gasoline. The table also includes miles driven per driver, gallons per driver, and percent of family income that the expense represents.

Culled from the table here are the urban areas with the 20 highest average miles driven per driver:

Rank Urban Area Miles driven per driver daily
1 Atlanta, GA 65.2
2 Birmingham, AL 64.7
3 Jacksonville, FL 61.3
4 Pensacola FL-AL 60.6
5 Orlando, FL 60.4
6 Nashville-Davidson, TN 58.5
7 Raleigh-Durham, NC 58.3
8 St. Louis, MO-IL 55.1
9 Cape Coral, FL 54.7
10 Indianapolis, IN 54.2
14 Little Rock, AR 52.4
12 Tampa-St. Petersburg, FL 52.0
16 Kansas City, MO-KS 51.9
11 Albany-Schenectady, NY 51.8
13 Charlotte, NC-SC 50.6
15 Louisville, KY-IN 50.3
17 Beaumont, TX 49.5
18 Detroit, MI 47.7
19 Memphis, TN-MS-AR 47.7
20 Tulsa OK 47.6

It looks to me as though these places are most susceptible to sudden spikes in the price of gasoline, particularly in #1 Atlanta where fuel prices are a whopping 11.8% of the average income for a family of four. California’s major urban areas have average driving distances are in the 43 mile region and, while they’re all in the top 20 of the “pain at the pump list” and Los Angeles residents pay 10.7% of their income for fuel, higher incomes prevent them from being even higher. Relatively more compact Chicago is #62 on the list with an average driving distance of 37.9.

I wonder if the irony of California and Florida’s large populations, longer driving distances, and their opposition to off-shore drilling are lost on them.

In an interesting example of how actually looking at the data can change what you see when I extracted this list of largest average driving distances something leaped out at me: how many of these are rural-urban commutes. I strongly suspect that people are driving from their homes in rural areas to their jobs closer to the urban center. This suggests that encouraging rural economic development might be one way to reduce driving distances and, consequently, gasoline consumption.

7 comments… add one
  • PD Shaw Link

    I think the prominence of Florida tourism creates a different pattern than say St. Louis, a hollowed-out city with relatively poor public transportation. A place like Pensacola is a service center for beach and near-beach properties, extending at least 100 miles in either direction. If the city was more dense, that pattern would still exist.

    I think the more politically explosive figure is Gasoline Consumption (per capita), which shows that a lot of rural states are hit hardest by gas prices:

    http://www.statemaster.com/graph/ene_gas_con_percap-energy-gasoline-consumption-per-capita

  • These are urban area figures rather than city limits figure, PD. That means that the St. Louis figures include the suburbs of St. Louis and St. Charles counties where there’s been substantial economic growth. I’m quite sure the commuting there is from rural to (relatively) urban. 40 years ago I knew a chap there who commuted daily from Bowling Green to St. Louis and he was far from unique.

  • sam Link

    I was surprised Boston didn’t make the top 20. Here’re the stats from the linked article:

    32 Boston MA-NH-RI $4,117 2.3 45.0 7.3 %

    I suspect the percent of income figure is lower because incomes are, on average, higher than in other places. And this seems to be the case for the other locales in Boston-DC corridor.

    The distance driven figure sounds about right. I know my wife drove about 50 miles round trip daily from our home on the NH border to downtown Boston. On a good day, 1.25 – 1.5 hour commute, when it snowed, well, when it snowed you could figure on doubling the time, at a minimum. But then you burned less gas, I suppose, because you had to move a much lower speed. 🙂

  • From my experience commuting in and out of Boston from Chicago I know that there are quite a few tax refugees commuting from New Hampshire to their jobs on Route 128. I suspect that they’re boosting Boston’s averages a bit.

  • PD Shaw Link

    Dave, I understand that these aren’t city limit figures, but they aren’t metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) either.

    For instance, the Alabama gulf coast is in the Pensacola urban area, but not its MSA. Uban areas are based on contiguous levels of population density, while MSAs are based upon degree of economic and social integration to the core area. In other words, the coastal areas of Florida are densely populated, but you may travel far up or down or away from the coast for work, services or goods. I believe this is unique.

    So I guess my main point is that Florida is sui generis and may be over-represented in the chart.

  • I wonder if the irony of California and Florida’s large populations, longer driving distances, and their opposition to off-shore drilling are lost on them.

    Opposition to off-shore drilling in Florida has crumbled lately. Beyond the high price of gasoline are two other factors – (1) the 2004 and 2005 hurricanes showed that the oil rigs in the Gulf are fairly safe; and (2) people who moved to Florida in 2000 consider themselves old-timers. These newer residents have no idea that there’s been long-term opposition to off-shore drilling until it comes up in the papers. It’s news to them and they’re not that beholden to the old-line opposition.

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