DOWNTOWN — Chicagoans spend more than 503 days out of their lives commuting to and from work, according to a new report.
That’s more than a year’s worth of life stuck in traffic, sitting on the L or taking the bus. The data comes from a report by EducatedDriver.org, which used census data to figure out how long the average worker is spending on their commute depending on where they live.
The report found Chicagoans spend about 64.4 minutes commuting per day, adding up to 503 days lost to commuting over the course of a lifetime. (Of course, the massive traffic on Lake Shore Drive could make things worse).
In comparison, people in Los Angeles lose 475 days of their life to commuting and people in Houston lose 461 days (data for New York wasn’t available through the report). Chicago’s the 13th-worst area in the country for commute times, according to the report, but it falls far short of the worst city: The people of East Stroudsburg, Pa. spend 603 days on commuting.
Overall, workers in the United States spend an average of 52 minutes on their commute every day, adding up to 408 days over a lifetime, according to the report. That means people in Chicago spend about 95 more days of their lives commuting than the average worker.
The report calculated the commute time by estimating that most people will work 250 days per year over the course of 45 years.
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