Detroit has the Worst Commute in the Country, by Robin Runyan

Redfin released a tool last week called the Opportunity Score, which measures the proximity of jobs and public transportation to an address. Not surprisingly, metro Detroit came up first as having the worst commute.

The tool is meant to,

"help Americans find homes within a 30-minute car-free commute to nearby jobs. Opportunity Score assigns an address a rating, from zero to 100, that represents how easy it is to get to nearby jobs without a car. Scores also consider the local population to reflect the fact that places with more people likely have more competition for local jobs."

So we did some digging and came up with some interesting info.

I put in my address, which is in a Detroit neighborhood a few miles out of downtown, and the opportunity score was 84, a "Job Seeker’s Paradise" (YES!!!) But I also know of a few bus lines close by and downtown is only a few miles away.

Entering my old address in New Center had a similar ranking.

Go out further into the University District, and those rankings drop dramatically to 15-19.

Ferndale and Royal Oak ... single digits.

And if you enter some random McMansion in the suburbs, say Rochester, the score comes up as zero, just because jobs and public transportation are not located nearby. Basically, if you live there, you’re driving to work and it’s going to take a while to get there.

So how can such a weird tool be useful to you? It’s meant for people looking for homes near jobs and public transportation. So say you’re moving to the Detroit area and you don’t want a long commute. This tool can help you see which properties are closer to what you need.

This is also another great opportunity to check out the commuter map we ran last month, which visualizes commuters in action and shows us how far people in the city drive to get to work.

And, as always, it sets up a good discussion for the RTA vote this November.

 

 

This article was published by Curbed Detroit.