Commentary: Cars remain king - and a key to economic opportunity By Adie Tomer and Joseph Kane November 2 at 3:00 PM While more Americans are relying on alternative modes to get to work every day, cars still define most commutes. Over time, these high driving rates not only reflect a development environment that continues to promote vehicle usage - despite recent shifts toward city living and job clustering - but also call into question how well our transportation networks offer access to economic opportunity for all workers. This is especially important for those workers without cars. The most recent 2013 Census numbers shed additional light on their commuting habits, showing how more than 6.3 million workers don't have a private vehicle at their home. That's equal to about 4.5 percent of all workers, compared with 4.2 percent in 2007. Yet, zero-vehicle workers still do quite a bit of driving. Over 20 percent drive alone to work - meaning they find a private car to borrow - and another 12 percent commute via carpool. Both rates jumped between 2007 and 2013, defying national trends toward less driving. This paints a discouraging picture about transportation access across the country for a segment of commuters who must expend extra effort to simply get to work. Metropolitan data underscores the breadth of this problem. Transit-rich metropolitan areas New York, San Francisco, Chicago and Washington face a better commuting environment than many other markets. Nearly 180,000 car-less workers lived in greater Washington in 2013, the fourth largest total in the country. The majority of those workers - 55 percent - use transit to get to work every day, with another 18 percent either walking or working from home. This unquestionably reflects the strong transportation alternatives in the region, especially in the core and inner-ring suburbs. Still, even in Washington, car-less households in the suburbs could only reach 38 percent of jobs in the region by a transit commute of 90 minutes or less, according to a 2011 analysis. Other large metropolitan areas such as Dallas, Detroit and Riverside see over half of their zero-vehicle workers using a car to drive to work. Driving rates jump to over 70 percent in metropolitan areas such as Birmingham, Ala.; Jackson, Miss.; and Provo, Utah. Across 77 of the 100 largest metropolitan areas, at least 40 percent of zero-vehicle commuters drive to work. These commuting habits confirm prior research. Our work has found that nearly all zero-vehicle households live in neighborhoods with transit service, but those routes only connect them to 40 percent of jobs within 90 minutes. On the flip side, the Urban Institute found vehicle availability can improve economic outcomes for housing voucher recipients, especially in terms of neighborhood choice. Little wonder then that many car-less commuters find a vehicle to get to work. The big goal for policymakers at all government levels is to improve access to jobs, for all workers and across all transportation modes. With many workers facing limited job access without cars, it's clear why the automobile is still the mode of choice. Recent automobile and transit models by researchers Andrew Owen and David Levinson verify it. Maps from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology show the car winning on long city commutes; imagine if those maps spread through the whole metropolitan area. But these advantages also push households to take on the added expense of vehicle ownership, an especially large burden for lower-income households. To address this inequity, we need to shift how we plan transportation investments and urban development. Planners and engineers need to think less about mobility - how fast we move - and more about access - how many destinations we can reach. Grounded in the daily experience of commuters, this perspective can help meet the needs of workers and employers, better tying together regional economies. Adie Tomer is senior research associate and associate fellow for the Brookings Institution's metropolitan policy program. Joseph Kane is senior policy/research assistant for the metropolitan policy program. This column was adapted from a post on Brookings" the Avenue blog.