Super Commuting

A new report from NYU's Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management details the rise of the "super commuter" - someone who commutes from one metropolitan area to another. The report is summarized in an article in the Atlantic Cities. This map shows "non-local labor sheds" for major U. S. cities.

The stars are the commuting destinations while the graduated circles represent the home areas of commuters from outside the region. I like the gratuitous inclusion of Puerto Rico at the bottom right of these maps.

According to the study, these commuters tend to be younger people with modest incomes and may be making these commutes to take advantage of more affordable housing. Many of them probably don't need to show up in the office more than a couple of times a week. Two of the top super commutes are Houston to Dallas and Dallas to Houston. Sounds like a recipe for a house swap reality show.

I grabbed this image directly from the report as a typical detail of one of these areas - in this case Chicago.

 The darker reds represent larger percentage increases. While Detroit had the largest percentage increase, it is still coming from a much smaller number of actual commuters,. Cities such as Champaign and Saint Louis had higher absolute increases. I don't know why Milwaukee is so much smaller than the other cities when it is so close by - better job market there?

Spying on Those You Care About

My wife is flying through thunderstorms from Philadelphia to Fort Myers, Florida. I just got a free iPhone app called "Flight Aware" so I can see where she is. You can also see the thunderstorms moving out to sea.

I can also see what kind of air traffic she'll be up against in the area.

And take look at the airport area to see how much more traveling she needs to do from the airport. This is almost as cool as Passur's live airport monitors!

UPDATE - she made it! Thank you airline industry!

Unexploded Vacation

This week I am on vacation on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques, a former U. S. Navy bombing range. Thanks to the protests of the local residents we can now enjoy it without fear of an air raid. The beaches are excellent but be careful of unexploded ordnance.

Map of the Week-Recycled Africa

Anouk Zijlma is a travel writer who has lived in Africa and writes about it for About.com. She made this 4 foot high map of Africa from recycled tin cans. Her description follows:
 

The cans I used were specific to each country. I took into consideration team soccer colors, exports, favorite beers, and many of my personal experiences. The best oranges I ever tasted growing up came from South Africa. Nigeria drinks more Guinness than Ireland. Botswana exports diamonds and Zimbabwe exports flowers. The ocean was created from hundreds of Pepsi cans. All the cans are washed, cut and then nailed into wood. The only tools I needed was a hammer, small nails, a National Geographic map for accuracy, scissors, carbon paper and a friendly recycling plant.