Here's where commute traffic is increasing, decreasing in the Bay Area
SAN JOSE, Calif. (KGO) -- There's some good and bad news when it comes to your commute, the decrease in remote work is leading to a spike in commuters.
Here in the Bay Area, three Bay Area cities were in the top 30 when it comes to worst commutes.
Hayward was number 23 with the average person spending 245 hours commuting annually. Oakland was 28th with an average of 241 hours on the road. And San Francisco was 29th, with 240 hours, that's about 10 days a year.
But there is some good news: according to the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey, while the nationwide average has increased by 2 minutes in the past decade, the Bay Area is showing progress.
When you look at the top ten cities where commutes have decreased from 2012 to 2022, Fremont is first in the nation with drivers saving about 27 more hours per year over the last decade. This means you're saving about 6 minutes per work day.
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At number six, San Francisco, which saw a 17 hour dip.
Rounding out the top ten is Sunnyvale, where drivers shaved off nearly 14 hours in that span.
Santa Rosa, Hayward and San Jose also saw enough decrease to land them among the top-50 best cities.
No Bay Area city was in the top ten when it came to increasing commute times, but residents we spoke with were slow to believe their time was actually being saved.
"I don't know if it's gotten worse over the last year, but it definitely has not gone down. Not even close," Fremont Resident Jennifer Emmett said.
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Metropolitan Transportation Commission Spokesperson John Goodwin, however, was not surprised.
"A lot changed in the Bay Area between 2012 and 2022," Goodwin said. "The biggest thing, of course, was the pandemic and that introduced the widespread acceptance of remote work."
Goodwin says more express lanes and continued emphasis on public transportation likely contributed to lighter commutes as well.
But drivers say there needs to be more solutions to make a truly noticeable impact.
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Goodwin says the biggest solution comes down to solving a decades old problem of affordability in housing.
If workers can live where they work, commuting would be almost non-existent.
Until that time, we wait... in traffic.
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