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If you feel like your drive to work has gotten longer recently, it’s not just you. 

 shows that the return of traffic after the height of the pandemic has led to fewer jobs being reachable within 30 minutes by car — and it’s happening in cities across the country, according to the University of Minnesota’s Center for Transportation Studies. 

Eric Lind from the center explained that this reduced “job accessibility” is due to a shift in habits during the pandemic and reduced public transit service.

“When COVID-19 was really in effect, there was a lot of opportunity for people to reach things driving. They could get places faster than they used to be able to,” Lind said. “As the number of people who took advantage of those opportunities increased, we saw that [job] access declined.”

Although the Twin Cities also saw lower job accessibility in 2022, it does stand out from the pack for accessibility relative to its size.

“In Minneapolis-St. Paul, the regional economy judged by the size — the number of jobs — is about 14th in the nation,” Lind said. “But if you were to set out and try to reach as many jobs as you could in half an hour, you'd actually be able to reach the sixth most in the country.”

To hear more about the research, click play on the audio player above. 

Tom Crann

Host

Ngoc Bui

Author

If you feel like your drive to work has gotten longer recently, it’s not just you. New research shows that the return of traffic has led to fewer jobs being reachable within 30 minutes by car.

Twin Cities stands out nationally for ‘job accessibility’

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