![2008-08-29 Central Park West in RTP](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/42/2008-08-29_Central_Park_West_in_RTP.jpg)
A reverse commute is a round trip, regularly taken, from an
urban area
An urban area, built-up area or urban agglomeration is a human settlement with a high population density and infrastructure of built environment. Urban areas are created through urbanization and are categorized by urban morphology as cities, t ...
to a
suburb
A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area, which may include commercial and mixed-use, that is primarily a residential area. A suburb can exist either as part of a larger city/urban area or as a separate ...
an one in the morning, and returning in the evening. It is almost universally applied to trips to work in the suburbs from homes in the city. This is in opposition to the regular
commute
Commute, commutation or commutative may refer to:
* Commuting, the process of travelling between a place of residence and a place of work
Mathematics
* Commutative property, a property of a mathematical operation whose result is insensitive to th ...
, where a person lives in the suburbs and travels to work in the city.
The reverse commuter travels in the opposite direction of the regular daily
traffic flow
In mathematics and transportation engineering, traffic flow is the study of interactions between travellers (including pedestrians, cyclists, drivers, and their vehicles) and infrastructure (including highways, signage, and traffic control devi ...
during
rush hour
A rush hour (American English, British English) or peak hour (Australian English) is a part of the day during which traffic congestion on roads and crowding on public transport is at its highest. Normally, this happens twice every weekday: on ...
, and therefore encounters less road
traffic congestion
Traffic congestion is a condition in transport that is characterized by slower speeds, longer trip times, and increased vehicular queueing. Traffic congestion on urban road networks has increased substantially since the 1950s. When traffic de ...
faced by regular commuters. An advantage of this system is the usage of otherwise empty transit capacity: no additional trains or travel lanes are necessary to accommodate people riding or driving from downtown to the outskirts in the morning, and likewise back downtown at night. Train and bus routes may be more sparse in the reverse direction, but the vehicles have to get back somehow for their next journey in most cases. However, track capacity on some railroads (for example, the
Long Island Rail Road
The Long Island Rail Road , often abbreviated as the LIRR, is a commuter rail system in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, stretching from Manhattan to the eastern tip of Suffolk County, New York, Suffolk Co ...
in the suburbs of
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
) significantly reduces or even eliminates reverse commute options. Hence, transit usage can be lower for reverse-commuters than regular commuters. In some cases, reverse commuting has become quite popular. For example,
Metro-North Railroad
Metro-North Railroad , trading as MTA Metro-North Railroad, is a suburban commuter rail service run by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), a New York State public benefit corporations, public authority of the U.S. state of New Yor ...
runs rush hour
New Haven Line
The Metro-North Railroad New Haven Line is a commuter rail line running from New Haven, Connecticut to New York City. It joins the Harlem Line at Mount Vernon, New York and continues south to Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan. The New Haven ...
trains from New York City to
Stamford, CT
Stamford () is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut, outside of Manhattan. It is Connecticut's second-most populous city, behind Bridgeport. With a population of 135,470, Stamford passed Hartford and New Haven in population as of the 2020 ...
and surrounding suburbs to accommodate its many reverse commuters. Low unemployment rates in the suburbs may help to fuel the increase over the past years in reverse commuter ridership.
However, the very reasons commuting makes sense (such as higher employment in the city and lower housing prices in the suburbs) operate against the reverse commuter, so people doing so are less common compared to those going the other way. However, these traditional schools of thought are changing, especially in Southern and Western US cities, where employment options tend to follow a more
decentralized or polycentric model than Midwest or Eastern US cities. For instance, on the
Santa Monica Freeway
Interstate 10 (I-10) is a transcontinental Interstate Highway in the United States, stretching from Santa Monica, California to Jacksonville, Florida. The segment of I-10 in California runs east from Santa Monica through Los Angeles, San Bernar ...
in
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
, there are more vehicles in the morning peak hour heading westbound towards
Santa Monica
Santa Monica (; Spanish: ''Santa Mónica'') is a city in Los Angeles County, situated along Santa Monica Bay on California's South Coast. Santa Monica's 2020 U.S. Census population was 93,076. Santa Monica is a popular resort town, owing to ...
than into
Downtown Los Angeles
Downtown Los Angeles (DTLA) contains the central business district of Los Angeles. In addition, it contains a diverse residential area of some 85,000 people, and covers . A 2013 study found that the district is home to over 500,000 jobs. It is ...
.
An example of reverse commuting can be found in the
Washington Metropolitan Area
The Washington metropolitan area, also commonly referred to as the National Capital Region, is the metropolitan area centered on Washington, D.C. The metropolitan area includes all of Washington, D.C. and parts of the states of Maryland, Virgin ...
. Due to a combination of ample transit infrastructure and the
height limit
Height restriction laws are laws that restrict the maximum height of structures.
There are a variety of reasons for these measures. Some restrictions limit the height of new buildings so as not to block views of an older work decreed to be an imp ...
in downtown, employment options in the area follow a polycentric model, heavily focused in both
Downtown
''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business distric ...
and areas such as
Arlington,
Tysons,
Bethesda, and
Silver Spring. Companies desiring space in Washington often opt for space in Maryland or Virginia because of the great expense of office space downtown. As such, there are many people who live in Washington and work in Maryland and Virginia, either driving, taking
Metrobus,
Metrorail
METRORail is the light rail system in Houston, Texas (United States). In , the system had a ridership of , or about per weekday as of . METRORail ranks as the second most-traveled light rail system in the Southern United States and the 12th ...
, or
carpooling
Carpooling (also car-sharing, ride-sharing and lift-sharing) is the sharing of Automobile, car journeys so that more than one person travels in a car, and prevents the need for others to have to drive to a location themselves.
By having more ...
.
A significant amount of reverse commuting occurs in the
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...
, where many workers live in
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
and work in job centers in
Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo County ...
such as
Palo Alto
Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto.
The city was estab ...
,
Mountain View, and
Cupertino
Cupertino ( ) is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States, directly west of San Jose on the western edge of the Santa Clara Valley with portions extending into the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains. The population was 57,8 ...
. As of 2013, ridership on
Caltrain
Caltrain (reporting mark JPBX) is a California commuter rail line serving the San Francisco Peninsula and Santa Clara Valley (Silicon Valley). The southern terminus is in San Jose at Tamien station with weekday rush hour service running as far ...
during peak hours consisted of about 60% traditional commuters and 40% reverse commuters.
References
{{Reflist
Urbanization
Transportation planning
Commuting