Linda Byers used to give herself 45 minutes to drive to the Caltrans office in downtown Sacramento from her home in Elk Grove, and she often got to work 15 minutes early.
But the morning traffic on Interstate 5 and Highway 99 got noticeably worse last year, and now Byers schedules an hour for the drive. Last week, with school back in session, even that wasn’t enough.
“Now I’m really late,” said Byers. “Thank God I have an understanding boss.”
Many state workers living in the greater Sacramento area share Byers’ frustration. Bay Area transplants and other newcomers are growing the region’s population and housing prices are pushing people farther from the city as unemployment remains low. As a result, drive times are increasing for all commuters.
Average commutes in the region climbed to 27.6 minutes in 2017, and the number of “super-commuters” making one-way trips of 90 minutes or more ticked upward, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.
State workers, making up about 11 percent of the regional population and working shifts that often require them to travel to and from downtown offices during rush hours, are slightly more affected than the average commuter, according to a review by The Sacramento Bee of Census data.
About 20 percent of state workers living in the greater Sacramento area commute at least 45 minutes each way for work, compared to about 15 percent of all workers in the region, according to Census figures from 2013 through 2017. An uptick in workers compensation claims is suggested to be a product of the long commutes.
And while about 24 percent of workers in the region enjoy a commute of less than 15 minutes, just 18 percent of state workers had a commute that short.
Growing concerns over commutes are reflected in state worker surveys, interviews and in a contract the state’s largest union recently reached through collective bargaining with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration that increased a mass transit stipend.
New state offices under construction downtown are being built with alternate commutes in mind, too. They include features such as bicycle storage, showers for cyclists and designated parking for carpoolers.
Still, the new perks might not be enough to ease the pain of a long commute, at least not in the near future and there's no end in sight for the work injuries
The drive from Elk Grove, long a real estate solution for state workers, increasingly is extending into the 45-minute territory, according to workers who live there.
“It has gotten a lot worse,” said Tunisha Grant, 46, who commutes from Elk Grove to West Sacramento. “When I first started you could probably get to work in 20 minutes. Now it’s 30, 40 or 50.”
About 12,000 state workers lived in Elk Grove in 2017, making up about 16 percent of the town’s working population, among the highest in the region, according to The Bee’s analysis.
The smaller communities of La Riviera, Rosemont, Vineyard and West Sacramento followed, each with state worker populations between 13 percent and 16 percent. Roughly 31,000 state workers live in Sacramento, about 14 percent of all workers.
Read more here: https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/sacramento-tipping-point/article234556102.html#storylink=cpy
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