The 5 Most Improved Commutes in the Country

In these areas, getting to and from work has become less of a hassle.

Boston may have bad weather, bad drivers and a bad accent, but it's one of the only places in America where "commuting" isn't a four-letter word. Boston is one of the only cities to improve both its rail and road commutes since 2000.

Granted, this came at a cost. Boston's Big Dig--which put the city's highways underground and extended rail service--cost a dizzying $22 billion. But Bostonians got what they paid for (even if the project sprung leaks, took 20 years and won't be paid off until 2038), as the Big Dig increased road capacity at the seventh-best mark in the country and the number of Bostonians using public transit rose to 11.2% from 9% in 2000, the fourth-biggest jump in the nation.

"Of course, if every city put their freeway underground, they'd probably go bankrupt," says Wendell Cox, principal of Demographia, a St. Louis-based demographics and transit research firm. "It'd make the $700 billion TARP program look like a piker."

In other words, improving commuters' lives doesn't always require drastic measures. Right behind Boston--and for much less money--are Milwaukee, Cleveland, San Francisco and Seattle, where investments in roads and transit have eased commuting.

While these cities might not qualify as the best American commutes, improvements to infrastructure have each one moving in the right direction. Los Angeles, for example, ranks sixth, not because it's easy to drive in L.A., but because improvements to train routes and road construction have been more quickly implemented than in other cities.

Behind the Numbers

To establish our list of most improved commutes, Forbes rated the 60 largest U.S. metropolitan areas by two measures. First, we looked at how many lane miles of roads have been added to metropolitan areas since 2000 relative to the increase in traffic flow. This data, from Demographia, the U.S. Federal Highway Administration and the Texas Transportation Institute, illustrate where road construction outpaces demand.

Second, we assessed improvements to public transportation systems using ridership data from the U.S. Census and American Community Survey. The more people who use public transit, the better that system meets individuals' commuting needs.

However, most cities developed one option over the other. Atlanta, for example, ranked fourth in highway improvement, but 30th in improving public-transportation usage, putting the city well off our top 10. Since the goal of improving a commute is less congestion on the roadway, our list favored those cities that expanded highway lanes and encouraged commuters to use public transit through improvements in service or reach.

In St. Louis, which ranks seventh on our list, the Page Avenue extension added 10 lanes to one of the metro's busiest commuting corridors. Along with other construction, it improved lane miles, relative to traffic flow, by 12% since 2000--the biggest improvement in the nation. Public transportation ridership stayed even over that time.

Falling Behind?

Other cities have introduced considerable developments, such as Houston's Katy Freeway, which added between four and six lanes over a 23-mile stretch, or Dallas' Area Rapid Transit extensions throughout metro Dallas. But neither of those cities made our list since those projects have only recently been completed and the change to the system hasn't yet appeared in statistics.

What's more, usually during construction projects of such scale, the systems become more clogged, worsening commutes before they improve.

"Traffic patterns change due to construction and it means having to adjust the traffic signals or freeway operations also," says Tim Lomax, a research engineer at the Texas Transportation Institute. "It might be that you see no effect when you are in the middle of a bigger construction program."

But these projects are not solely designed to make commuting less stressful; the true motivation is increased productivity. There's a productivity loss when it takes workers longer to get to work, and the problem is more pronounced for low-income workers, who often commute over longer distances.

Research from the Brookings Institution, a centrist think tank in Washington D.C.; the Progressive Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C., research firm affiliated with the Democratic Leadership Council; and the National Science Foundation has concluded that productivity increases and poverty decreases when commuting speed improves, as it makes more opportunities accessible. Put simply, wider roads and better infrastructure for mass transit result in thicker wallets.

Given the current state of the economy, that's good news for the cities on our list.

America's 5 Most Improved Commutes

1. Boston, Mass.

© Darren McCollester/Getty Images

• Improvement in road construction versus traffic since 2000: 4% (7th best)

• Commuters using public transit in 2000: 9% of metro residents

• Commuters using public transit in 2007: 11.2% (4th best increase)

• Traffic delays, per commuter, per year, due to congestion: 46 hours

2. Milwaukee, Wis.

© Corey Hengen/iStockphoto

• Improvement in road construction versus traffic since 2000: 7.7% (3rd best)

• Commuters using public transit in 2000: 4% of metro residents

• Commuters using public transit in 2007: 4.27% (13th best increase)

• Traffic delays, per commuter, per year, due to congestion: 19 hours

3. Cleveland, Ohio

© AP Photo/Mark Duncan

• Improvement in road construction versus traffic since 2000: 3.6% (8th best)

• Commuters using public transit in 2000: 3.4% of metro residents

• Commuters using public transit in 2007: 3.9% (10th best increase)

• Traffic delays, per commuter, per year, due to congestion: 13 hours

4. San Francisco, Calif.

© Shutterstock

• Improvement in road construction versus traffic since 2000: -0.7% (17th best)

• Commuters using public transit in 2000: 9.4% of metro residents

• Commuters using public transit in 2007: 13.6% (3rd best increase)

• Traffic delays, per commuter, per year, due to congestion: 60 hours

5. Seattle, Wash.

© AP Photo/Elaine Thompson

• Improvement in road construction versus traffic since 2000: 1.6% (13th best)

• Commuters using public transit in 2000: 6.7% of metro residents

• Commuters using public transit in 2007: 7.45% (7th best increase)

• Traffic delays, per commuter, per year, due to congestion: 45 hours