Hopefully, most readers are familiar with the term “consumer sentiment.” The metric not only measures what the average consumer is feeling but it can also be an indicator toward the situation for the broader economy. A new metric could be coined “commuter sentiment.” Commuter sentiment measures not only how long commutes are (it’s the Atlanta Regional Commission so, not good!) but also how hard people are trying to change that and how successful they are at doing so.
The latest edition of this survey from the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) shows commuters have settled into what the ARC is calling “a new normal.” The good news is that commute times are an average of five minutes shorter, getting a boost from telework, hybrid schedules and flexible work hours. Perhaps not surprisingly, access to these options varies widely by income and occupation – think working a retail or food service job and how that would work with telework. Among households with earnings above $200,000, 73 percent occasionally telework, compared to at most 51 percent for lower-income households.
Please subscribe or log in to view the rest of this story.
