Garland drivers have the third worst commute in the United States, according to a recent report.
The report from the financial services website SmartAsset analyzed data from the 100 largest American cities. It used six metrics relating to commute time and cost to rank the daily commutes of each city.
The six metrics used to determine these results were the percentage of workers who commute, the average travel time to work, the percent of income spent on transportation, the percent of workers with commutes longer than one hour, how the average travel time has changed over the past five years, and how the percentage of workers with commutes longer than one hour has changed over the past five years.
Garland ranked behind only Stockton and Bakersfield, California, which took first and second place, respectively.
“The majority of workers in Garland, Texas, are commuters (86.1%),” wrote Anja Solum, a personal finance expert at SmartAsset. “And they average the seventh-highest commute time (roughly 30 minutes).”
“About 9.1% of commuters, however, experience drives over one hour (12th-highest),” continued Solum. “Overall, the average commute time has increased by 2.37% between 2016 and 2021.”
Another Texas city, El Paso, joined Garland in the top 10, ranking in seventh place. Dallas and Houston tied for 23rd place.
The average commute time in Dallas was found to be 25.7 minutes, and the commute time was found to have decreased by 3.8% over the past five years.
In Dallas, 5.8% of workers have a commute longer than one hour, and the average cost of transportation was found to be 9% of an individual’s income.
Arlington ranked No.33, with an average commute time of 26.1 minutes, which has decreased by 4.4% over the past five years.
Transportation costs likewise take up 9% of Arlington residents’ income, and 5.4% of workers in Arlington have a commute longer than one hour.
A complete ranking of all 100 cities, along with more information on the SmartAsset study, can be found here.
The Dallas Express asked the City of Garland if anything is being done to alleviate the severity of this problem.
Dave Timbrell, transportation operations administrator for the City of Garland, told The Dallas Express that the City is “consistently” working “to improve traffic flow through street-widening projects, surface repair, intersection bottleneck improvements, traffic signal retiming projects” and “transit options offered by DART.”
“Though it is not clear from the study, we expect that the nearly $2 billion currently being spent to reconstruct [Interstate] 635 is a contributor to longer delays presently,” he continued. “But it will ultimately provide very needed capacity improvements to this major freeway which will lead to less delay for commuters upon completion.”
I live in Garland, not seeing that. Dallas, Houston, Frisco, Rockwall, Royse City has to be worse.
Poor road planning! DFW has been dealing with this issue for some time now. Central Expressway was always the joke starting back in the 80’s with the traffic and poor planing road construction. Now with the influx of people coming into DFW and road construction, LBJ is now the new joke. By the time they finish LBJ they will have to start again.
Since we are on the subject of traffic, to all that choose to text and drive, please put the phones down when behind the wheel. For those of us that ride motorbikes, we are the ones who are most vulnerable to those who choose to break the law! Kids with their new license, it’s a privilege to drive, be responsible. To the people from Mexico, this is the USA, follow “our”safety laws or get off the roadways because your driving is not acceptable here in the great state of Texas!
Everyone please be safe on our motorways, congestion is beyond belief and the roadways are atrocious.
Dallas is like California ! All you see are red brake likes, lot more people moving here! The garland traffic on 635 is a nightmare. There is no extra room for more lanes but to double deck or go make an underground tunnel. Call me Tex dot.😂