• Growth in extreme commuting seems to coincide with the region's economic booms and accompanying housing crises. In 2000, 3.4 percent of Bay Area commuters traveled 90 minutes or more to work.
• The rate fell to about 2.3 percent in 2010 but is on the rise again. In 2020, about 4.6 percent of Bay Area commuters were extreme commuters.
• Region-wide, in 2020, Native American workers are most burdened by excessive commutes, particularly Native American males.
• Contra Costa and Solano County workers have the highest rates of extreme commuting at 9.1% and 7.1% respectively, while Santa Clara and San Mateo County workers have the lowest at 3.1% and 2.1% respectively.

Following World War II, government policies and investments in housing and transportation facilitated the development of wealthy suburbs in the Bay Area, which were connected to core city jobs via commuter rail systems, and highways. At the same time, disinvested low-income communities and communities of color in the urban core were largely reliant on chronically underfunded public transit systems. The geography of opportunity in the Bay Area has shifted again as higher-wage jobs in the tech sector, concentrated in the inner core parts of the region, have driven up the price of housing. Low-wage workers are being pulled to the outer parts of the region by lower housing costs, or they find themselves pushed out through direct and indirect displacement. Yet in those communities, public transportation systems are not as robust. These housing, land use, and transportation challenges are contributing to extreme commutes overall and wide racial, income, and gender gaps in extreme commuting.

Strengthen places: Policies to reduce extreme commutes

• Organizations: Urban Habitat; TransForm; Metropolitan Transportation Commission
• Reports: Race, Inequality, and the Resegregation of the Bay Area
• Data: Vital Signs Dashboard