{9395A333-791C-479A-924A-42EEEA147563} eng; USA utf8 dataset EnviroAtlas Coordinator U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Research and Development-Sustainable and Healthy Communities Research Program, EnviroAtlas Geospatial Data Owner (919) 541-3832 109 T.W. Alexander Drive Research Triangle Park NC 27709 EnviroAtlas@epa.gov https://www.epa.gov/enviroatlas pointOfContact 2025-07-23 ISO 19115 Geographic Information - Metadata ISO 19115:2003/Cor.1:2006(E) EnviroAtlas - Commute Time to Work by Census Block Group for the Conterminous United States 2015-06-12 publication US EPA Office of Research and Development (ORD) - National Exposure Research Laboratory (NERL) Research Triangle Park NC publisher US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) originator This EnviroAtlas dataset portrays the commute time of workers to their workplace for each Census Block Group (CBG) during 2008-2012. Data were compiled from the Census ACS (American Community Survey) 5-year Summary Data. The commute time is the amount of travel time in minutes for workers to get from home to work. This value includes private vehicle use, carpooling, public transit, bicycling, or walking. This dataset was produced by the US EPA to support research and online mapping activities related to EnviroAtlas. EnviroAtlas (https://www.epa.gov/enviroatlas) allows the user to interact with a web-based, easy-to-use, mapping application to view and analyze multiple ecosystem services for the contiguous United States. The dataset is available as downloadable data (https://edg.epa.gov/data/Public/ORD/EnviroAtlas) or as an EnviroAtlas map service. Additional descriptive information about each attribute in this dataset can be found in its associated EnviroAtlas Fact Sheet (https://www.epa.gov/enviroatlas/enviroatlas-fact-sheets). This dataset presents the patterns of commute time of working populations. Commute time is a measure of the efficiency of a transportation system and is often influenced by community development patterns, labor market shifts, and technological changes that expand workers' options for where and how to work (ACS, 2011). A high commute time can signify a sprawled region and/or a lack of efficient transit, while a low commute time implies a dense region and/or an efficient transit system. Long commute time contributes to increased air pollution as cars, buses, or trains emit pollutants while moving and sitting idle in traffic, while a short commute time contributes to lower emissions. Commute time has also been shown to affect human health and social relationships. Growing evidence supports the association between vehicle travel time and stress (Frumkin, 2002), obesity (Frank et al., 2004; Lopez-Zetina et al., 2006; Inagami et al., 2006), and diabetes (Pasala et al., 2010). Additionally, long automobile commuting duration could affect quality of life by reducing the amount of time spent with family and friends (Christian, 2012). The overall goal of EnviroAtlas is to employ and develop the best available science to map indicators of ecosystem services production, demand, and drivers for the nation. completed EnviroAtlas Coordinator U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Research and Development-Sustainable and Healthy Communities Research Program, EnviroAtlas Geospatial Data Owner (919) 541-3832 109 T.W. Alexander Drive Research Triangle Park NC 27709 EnviroAtlas@epa.gov https://www.epa.gov/enviroatlas pointOfContact asNeeded Ecosystem Environment theme EPA GIS Keyword Thesaurus Census Block Groups Ecosystem Services EnviroAtlas Environment Environmental Atlas Human Human Well-being Society Sustainability Transportation theme EnviroAtlas Alabama Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas United States Utah Vermont Virginia Washington Washington DC West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming place None https://edg.epa.gov/EPA_Data_License.htm otherRestrictions Use Constraints: None. Please check sources, scale, accuracy, currentness and other available information. Please confirm that you are using the most recent copy of both data and metadata. Acknowledgement of the EPA would be appreciated. otherRestrictions Access Constraints: None. PUBLIC https://project-open-data.github.io/schema/#accessLevel Standard Technical Controls eng; USA environment -128.02839229 -65.20336449 22.7348894 51.6773602 2008-01-01 2012-01-01 true Entity and Attribute Information Entity and Attribute Overview: For more information about EnviroAtlas data, go to https://www.epa.gov/enviroatlas/enviroatlas-fact-sheets. This dataset portrays the commute time of workers to their workplace for each Census Block Group (CBG) during 2008-2012. Data were compiled from the Census ACS (American Community Survey) 5-year Summary Data. The commute time is the amount of travel time in minutes for workers to get from home to work. This value includes private vehicle use, carpooling, public transit, bicycling, or walking. ACS obtained the data through survey questions related to travel; these questions focus solely on commuting and do not ask about leisure travel or other non-work trips. This dataset includes commuting characteristics for workers 16 years and over who were employed during the week prior to the ACS reference week and did not work at home. Persons on vacation or not at work the prior week are not included. Respondents answer questions about where they work, what time they leave home for work, the means of transportation used to get there, the number of workers riding in a car, truck, or van, and how long it takes to travel to work. A comprehensive list of metric creation steps is included in the Processing Steps. The processing scripts were completed using Python scripts. References: American Community Survey (ACS). 2011. Technical Report: Out-of-State and Long commutes: 2011. Frank L. D., Andresen M. A., Schmid T. L. Obesity relationships with community design, physical activity, and time spent in cars. Am J Prev Med. 2004; 27(2):87–96. Frumkin, H. (2002). Urban sprawl and public health. Public health reports, 117(3), 201. Lopez-Zetina, J., Lee, H., and Friis, R. (2006). The link between obesity and the built environment. Evidence from an ecological analysis of obesity and vehicle miles of travel in California. Health & Place, 12(4), 656-664. Inagami S., Cohen D. A., Finch B. K., Asch S. M. You are where you shop: grocery store locations, weight, and neighborhoods. Am J Prev Med. 2006;31(1):10–17. Christian, T. J. (2012). Automobile commuting duration and the quantity of time spent with spouse, children, and friends. Preventive medicine, 55(3), 215-218. Pasala, S. K., Rao, A. A., and Sridhar, G. R. (2010). Built environment and diabetes. International journal of diabetes in developing countries, 30(2), 63. Entity and Attribute Detail Citation: https://www.epa.gov/enviroatlas/enviroatlas-fact-sheets EnviroAtlas Coordinator U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Research and Development-Sustainable and Healthy Communities Research Program, EnviroAtlas Geospatial Data Owner (919) 541-3832 109 T.W. Alexander Drive Research Triangle Park NC 27709 EnviroAtlas@epa.gov https://www.epa.gov/enviroatlas distributor https://enviroatlas.epa.gov/download/CONUS_metrics_FGDB.zip download Download The URL providing direct access to the downloadable dataset. download https://enviroatlas.epa.gov/download/CONUS_metrics_CSV.zip ESRI:ArcGIS API The endpoint of a web service to access the dataset (REST endpoint, WMS GetCapabilities URL, or a SOAP WSDL endpoint). webMapService https://www.epa.gov/enviroatlas/enviroatlas-data information Documentation URL for accessing related documents such as data dictionary, technical information about a dataset, developer documentation, etc. information https://www.epa.gov/enviroatlas information Home Page Alternative landing page used to redirect user to a contextual, Agency-hosted "homepage" for the Dataset or API information dataset Horizontal Positional Accuracy Report Data were collected using methods that have unknown accuracy (EPA National Geospatial Data Policy [NGDP] Accuracy Tier 10). For more information, please see EPA's NGDP at https://www.epa.gov/geospatial/geospatial-policies-and-standards Features represented have not been tested for completeness Features represented have not been tested for completeness Tests for integrity have not been performed. This lineage was generated by the FGDC CSDGM to 19139 transformation Used Summary File Retrieval Tool to download ACS 5-year 2008-2012 data (http://www2.census.gov/acs2012_5yr/summaryfile/UserTools/SummaryFileDataRetrievalTool.zip). 2014-01-01T00:00:00 Downloaded the ACS 5-year 2008-2012 summary file Table B08303 (https://www.census.gov/acs/www/data_documentation/summary_file/). 2014-01-01T00:00:00 Joined the summary file to TIGER/Line Shapefiles using the GEOID. 2014-04-01T00:00:00 The ACS commute times were reclassified into four categories: commute time less than 30 minutes (column 2 to 7), from 30 to 60 minutes (column 8 to 11), from 60 to 90 minutes (column 12), and more than 90 minutes (column 13). 2014-06-01T00:00:00 The percentage of workers in each commute time category was calculated by dividing the number of workers by column 1 (total workers 16 years and over who did not work at home). 2014-07-01T00:00:00 Data quality checking and making corrections. 2014-08-01T00:00:00 unknown 2029-07-23 This metadata was automatically generated from the FGDC Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata standard (version FGDC-STD-001-1998) using the 2024-02-09T11:11:00 version of the FGDC CSDGM to ISO 19139 transform. EnviroAtlas Coordinator U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Research and Development-Sustainable and Healthy Communities Research Program, EnviroAtlas Geospatial Data Owner (919) 541-3832 109 T.W. Alexander Drive Research Triangle Park NC 27709 EnviroAtlas@epa.gov https://www.epa.gov/enviroatlas pointOfContact