Transit vs. Cars: Multifamily Housing and Commuting
A.J. Holliday, J.D., Ph.D.
As communities across the country seek to achieve "Smart Growth," important information derived from the most recent Census can help. An NAHB analysis of 2000 Census data on commuting patterns shows that apartment and condo residents are much more likely to live closer to where they work and to use public transportation than those who own or rent single family homes.

The Stereotypes ... and the Facts

The stereotype of commuting is the “Man in the Grey Flannel Suit” model, where the wage earner lives in a detached house in the suburbs and rides the train into the city.  Even if this once were valid, it is no longer an accurate picture of commuting. Today, most commuting takes place amongst the suburbs – not in the city or to the city – and nearly all of it is done by car. However, multifamily and single family commuters have very different commuting patterns. They differ in where they live, where they work, and the kind of transportation they use. Single family dwellers tend to stay in the suburbs, where they almost always drive to work. Although many multifamily residents drive, they own fewer cars and use transit more often than single family dwellers. Moreover, multifamily commutes are more likely to both begin and end within a central city.  

Commuters Love Cars

Data from the 2000 Census allow us to look at household heads and their spouses who commute to work.¹  Most of them (87%) get to work by car (including taxis and motorbikes). Transit – including buses, rail systems of any kind, ferry boats, and any other means of moving more than one person at a time except car pools – only moves 10% of the commuters. The remaining 3% includes people who walk or bicycle to work, or use other alternative methods.

The type of structure they live in makes a difference. Although the majority of  multifamily  dwellers² get to work by car, they are more likely than single family dwellers to use alternate means of transportation (Table 1).

For single-family household heads and spouses who commute, more than 90% commute by car, and the use of transit and other alternative means is nearly negligible. On the other hand, among multifamily commuters, at least one out of eight ride transit, and 7% walk or ride bicycles. A multifamily dweller is over four times more likely to use transit than a single-family resident. 

Compared to structure type, owning or renting makes relatively little difference in the means of commute. In single-family structures, car use is slightly higher for owners,  but in multifamily units it’s slightly lower. Compared to multifamily renters, a somewhat larger percentage of multifamily condo owners than renters use transit. The condo owners are eight times more likely to ride transit than single family home owners. 

Even though transit is relatively more important for multifamily residents, it is still a distant second choice to driving. Four out of five multifamily commuters drive to work, and only one-eighth to one-sixth use transit. A few multifamily residents walk or bike to work. These alternative methods are two to three times as common among multifamily dwellers as among single family, but they are still account for a relatively small share of all  commuters.

Single family homes outnumber apartments and contain, on average, a greater number of commuters. Thus, as Table 1 shows, multifamily structures account for only about 15% of all commuters. Combined with the strong tendency of single family commuters to use automobiles to get to work, this means that across the country as a whole, the majority of commuter traffic on the roads is generated by people who live in single-family structures.

Commuting Patterns: Where Do We Live and Where Do We Work?

With some restrictions, we can isolate where each household is located and the type of housing structure used by each person in the Census data. For the purposes of this article, areas identified in the data that lie entirely within central cities are considered “City” locations, and areas that lie entirely outside a central city but within a metropolitan are were considered “Suburbs.” Areas of mixed type – part city, part non-city – are excluded. 

Within this sample, two thirds of the commuters are in the suburbs and one third in the city. Over half of the multifamily commuters live in the inner cities, however, compared to only a fourth of the single-family commuters.

The jobs are split more evenly than the residences, with only a little over half (54%) located in the suburbs. So jobs are located disproportionately in the central cities, which is in line with the familiar concept of the “bedroom suburb.” 

Although the old stereotypical commute from the suburbs to the city still is common, it accounts for only 18% of all commutes (Table 2). 

Suburb-to-suburb is the most common commuting pattern, consistent with the notion that jobs as well as people have been moving to the suburbs. Most people who work in the central city also live there, instead of in the suburbs. Within-city commutes account for more than a quarter (28%) of all metropolitan commutes. “Reverse” commutes (workers who live in central cities but work in a suburb) are relatively uncommon.

We’ve already shown that the way people travel to work varies with structure type. Table 3 shows that metropolitan commuting patterns also are different for workers who live in multifamily structures. 

Suburb-suburb commuting accounts for more than half the single-family commutes, but less than a third for multifamily. About half of the multifamily commuters both live and work in an inner city. More than half of the single-family commuters both live and work in suburbs. 

How Do We Get Where We’re Going?

Table 3 also shows how people use the different means of transportation to make the various kinds of commutes. Suburb-to-suburb commuting accounts for more than half of all car commuting. 

Transit use is most prevalent in city-to-city commuting, the pattern particularly common for multifamily residents. Almost two-thirds (64%) of metropolitan transit commuting is from one part of the central city to another. Transit commuting characterizes city-to-city travel even more strongly than vehicle commuting characterizes suburb-to-suburb travel. 

Suburb-to-city commuting also accounts for a quarter (26%) of transit usage for work.  This transit includes not only the classic railroad commuting common in places like New York and Chicago, but also the subway or other electric transit systems that have been extended into the suburbs in places like Washington, Atlanta, and San Francisco. Even though the transit lines run in both directions, very few people use transit to go to suburban jobs, whether they are coming from suburban or city homes.

Walking and biking to work are not common choices in general. When they are used, unsurprisingly, it’s almost always for jobs in the same type of area where the workers live. 

Cars Still Rule, But Multifamily Residents Value Public Transit

Automobiles dominate commuting. They are the mode of choice for both single family and multifamily residents. This is unlikely to change drastically any time soon, so it’s important that planning authorities recognize the need to provide road infrastructure that’s adequate to accommodate local traffic flows.

But for those interested in infill development or “smart growth” concepts (such as trying to house workers near their jobs or public transportation), it’s important to notice how sharply workers who live in multifamily buildings differ from those who live in single family homes.

While most single-family workers’ commutes are suburb-to-suburb, multifamily commuters are much more likely to both begin and end their commutes in an inner city. Moreover, one out of eight multifamily commuters uses transit, while only a couple percent of single-family commuters do so. 

Thus, living in an inner city, living close to work, and using public transit all are associated with multifamily development. To some extent, that may be due to previous development practices that built multifamily housing in large cities near employment centers where public transportation was available, rather than a difference in the way residents in multifamily structures behave. 

However, three years ago we reported on multifamily renter preferences using data from the Census Bureau’s 1999 American Housing Survey(AHS).  Among other things, the AHS asked recent movers why they chose a particular neighborhood. The data showed that apartment renters were much more likely to report choosing an area because it was located near their work or public transportation. The commuting patterns in the 2000 Census data are consistent with these preferences.

Planners seeking to design neighborhoods that locate homes, places of work, and public transportation near one another to minimize road congestion should note that living near work and using public transportation tend to go with multifamily housing – based both on what the residents of multifamily housing say, and what they do. 
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¹ The data were described in "Immigration Levels are Key to Future Apartment Demand," NAHB Multifamily Market Outlook, October 2003.

² To focus on the group of greatest interest to most multifamily developers and property owners, we look only at multifamily structures with a least five units. Results were tabulated separately for 2-4 unit structures, but these were not included for ease of presentation. [ return to top ]