Think Traffic In Wilmington Is Getting Worse? So Does U.S. Census

WILMINGTON, MA -- Rochelle Mcconologue and her husband live in Wilmington, 1.7 miles from his work. Some days it takes him 15 minutes to just cross town. And he may be one of the lucky ones. The U.S. Census Bureau released figures Thursday showing Wilmington residents aren't just imagining that things are getting worse.

According to the Census bureau Wilmington residents had commute times to work of 30.8 minutes in 2016, up from 29.1 minutes in 2015 and 28.3 minutes in 2011. That extra minute-and-a-half on your drive to work might not seem like much, but consider two trips a day, five work days per week and 50 work weeks in a year. That 1:30 means Wilmington commuters are spending an extra 750 minutes -- or 12.5 hours -- per year in traffic than they were five years ago.

And Wilmington residents aren't alone when it comes to spending time in the car. In Massachusetts, average commute times were 29 minutes in 2016, up 2.83% from 2015 and 4.88% since 2010. Nationally, the average commute time was 26.6 minutes in 2016, up from 25.9 minutes in 2015 and 25.2 minutes in 2010.

Earlier this fall, Wilmington Patch asked residents about their commutes, and the response was overwhelmingly similar to what Mcconologue had to tell us about her husband's drive to work: commutes that used to take 15 minutes now take more than an hour, and people are increasingly turning to back roads and heading to work at odd hours to avoid traffic.

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Patch file photo.

Dave Copeland can be reached at dave.copeland@patch.com or by calling 617-433-7851. Follow him on Twitter (@CopeWrites) and Facebook (/copewrites).