PHOENIX — The number of people traveling more than 90 minutes to get to work in the Phoenix metro has dropped by 36% since 2019.
Those people, dubbed “super commuters,” number 29,811 today in the Valley, which is a drop from an all-time high of 46,529 in 2019, according to an analysis of U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey data done by rental search website Apartment List. The data counts those who drive and those who take public transportation.
The study found that the decline in the Valley matched a trend seen in cities nationwide, and the reason for the change is the proliferation of remote and hybrid work arrangements that came with the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
The metros with the most growth in remote workers were the ones with the biggest drops in super commuters, the report found. In Phoenix, the number of remote workers has gone up by 195% since 2019.
That was a lower jump in remote workers than what was seen in more than two dozen other metros. Washington, D.C., for instance, had the highest growth in remote workers, at 412%, and saw one of the largest drops in super commuters, at 57%. San Francisco had a 67% drop in super commuters, and its number of remote workers went up 362%.
