Originally Posted by
chgoeditor
I'm a she, actually
Post updated
Originally Posted by
chgoeditor
I was referring to data like that contained in
this article, that shows there has been a steady increase in the number of Chicago residents making the reverse commute. That said, I was incorrect in saying that the number of commuters doing a reverse commute from Chicago is greater than those doing a regular/traditional commute. This Census chart seems to show there are still
more people commuting in than commuting out in Chicago. (Though I'm not sure who the "non-workers" are.)
Those census numbers are probably too broad since they don't break out by mode. ie, transit use is going to be much higher for traditional commuters simply because that's how our transit system is setup. The percentage of reverse commuters using transit is much lower. If you took purely auto commuters, I'm guessing the numbers would be much closer.
Anecdotally, listening to traffic times gives some idea as well. With the exception of the Kennedy reversibles, all the other expressways have the same capacity in and out. My impression over time is that the traditional is generally a lot higher on the Ryan, but fairly similar on the Stevenson, Ike, Kennedy and Edens. There also seems to be a morning/afternoon split on it. When I occasionally have to do a reverse commute, it's usually fairly smooth in the morning, but terrible getting back into the city in the afternoon.