Another reason to #lovelansing: Shorter commutes

LANSING — Each weekday, the number of people in Alaiedon Township more than doubles.

The Lansing suburb is home to fewer than 3,000 residents, but during business hours, the number swells to over 6,000. That's almost entirely because Jackson National Life Insurance Company employs several thousand workers at its Alaiedon headquarters.

At the opposite end of the spectrum is Delhi Township, a suburban community with roughly 25,300 residents. It loses almost 20% of its daytime population as residents flock to jobs outside township limits.

That's according to the U.S. Census Bureau, which tracked a figure called commuter-adjusted population from 2006 to 2010. The statistic is one way to gauge the flow of commuters into and out of cities. It's also a way to quantify which towns are hubs for commuters and which are bedroom communities.

How many commuters come to Lansing, East Lansing?

The ebb and flow of commuters has a pronounced effect in Ingham County's two largest cities.

Lansing's residential population hovers above 110,000, but the city's ranks grow by nearly 29%, or 31,700 people, during business hours.

In East Lansing, the proportional daytime population increase is even larger at 34%.East Lansing had more than 46,700 residents as of the 2010 census.

An influx of commuters does present challenges, Lansing Mayor Andy Schoracknowledged. All those vehicles create wear and tear on the city's chronically underfunded roads, for instance.

Although most do not pay Lansing property taxes, commuters do contribute to the city's coffers. Lansing has had an income tax since 1964 at 1% for residents and 0.5% for non-residents who work in the city. Last year, non-residents paid $16.1 million in Lansing income tax, about 44% of the city's total revenue from the tax.

East Lansing will be implementing that same tax rate on Jan. 1, following voter approval of the city's first income tax. City officials advocated for the tax as a way to share costs among non-residents who use East Lansing services. Non-residents are expected to bring in $4.7 million to East Lansing annually, according to a 2016 study on the feasibility of the income tax.

Michigan State University is East Lansing's largest employer at 11,100 workers

In Lansing, the state of Michigan is the largest employer with 14,390 workers, according to recent data from the Lansing Economic Area Partnership.

"We're the state capital, so we're always going to have a high percentage of commuters," Schor said. 

The mayor noted, however, that the city's residential population has inched upward in recent years — a sign, he says, of Lansing's appeal to newcomers.

Jonathan Wild could be one such newcomer.

The Grand Rapids resident started working four months ago in downtown Lansing for Michigan's Department of Technology, Management and Budget. He likes the job, but dreads driving nearly three hours every day.

"It's really inconvenient — I'm not going to butter it up," Wild said. "I try to keep a positive attitude on things, but it's not fun."

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Too much parking?

A move to Lansing will save him stress and gas money, he figures. He might even be able to walk or take the bus to work and skip paying $120 a month to park in a city-owned garage.

The steep cost of parking, Wild said, is his least favorite part of working in downtown Lansing.

But, Jonathan Levine, a professor of urban and regional planning at the University of Michigan, counters that, in most cities, parking is too cheap and too plentiful. Parking lots are expensive to maintain, especially if they eat up valuable downtown real estate, he noted.

"We have too much parking and it's killing our downtowns," Levine said.

If developers replace parking with housing, the result will be a denser environment that enables people to walk, bike and take public transportation to where they work and shop, Levine said.

"When you have people living closer together rather than sprawl, people have more opportunities to make commute-shortening decisions," Levine said. "If we want people to use transportation alternatives, like biking and the bus, they need to live within a reasonable distance of those options."

More:

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How long are average commutes?

Melissa Soderberg, who now lives in DeWitt after years in Chicago and Los Angeles, admits to missing the walkable downtowns and robust public transportation systems she enjoyed in those big cities.

Nonetheless, Soderberg appreciates the lack of congestion in the Lansing area. She runs a mobile meal business from her home and says deliveries rarely require a drive longer than 20 minutes. 

"If I had to choose right now, I would never trade this convenience for sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic for hours in Los Angeles," Soderberg said.

The average Lansing resident's commute is just 19 minutes, less than the statewide average of 24.3 minutes, according to 2017 U.S. Census Bureau data.

That compares to an average of 20 minutes in Ann Arbor,  26.6 minutes in Detroit, 30.5 minutes in Los Angeles and 34.4 minutes in Chicago.

Across all of Ingham County, the mean commute time is 19.9 minutes, less than the Eaton County average of 22.7 minutes and the Clinton County average of 23.3 minutes.

Qunita Williamson, a director of operations for Blue Cross Blue Shield, considers herself blessed because it takes her less than 15 minutes to drive from her southside Lansing home to her job near the state Capitol.

Williamson occasionally travels to meetings in Detroit or Grand Rapids, and when she does she makes a point to avoid rush hour.

Although most Ingham County residents also work in Ingham County, more than 20% travel to work elsewhere in Michigan.

Maryann Concannon of Okemos takes the Michigan Flyer 70 miles each way to her job at the University of Michigan Health System. The bus company offers discounted fares to commuters, typically capped at $350 per month.

The whole process, which involves riding an Ann Arbor Area Transportation Authority bus from her Michigan Flyer stop to the hospital, takes Concannon two hours each way. The long commute time is worth it, she says, because she avoids parking in Ann Arbor. 

"There is a whole community of us that commute that way," Concannon said. "We look out for each other."

How are people getting to work?

People are more likely to take public transportation, bike, walk or carpool to work in Lansing or East Lansing, as compared to the region as whole, although the vast majority — 76% — of residents in the Lansing-East Lansing metro area still drive to work alone, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

That's a major contributor to pollution and to global warming — a full 27% of the country's greenhouse gas emissions come from transportation, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

"We still are a car culture in Michigan and that will probably remain an issue for anyone in the state," East Lansing Mayor Mark Meadows said. "I do think the younger generation is open to more alternatives. They're more likely to want to live somewhere where they don't need a car."

Although that prediction may prove true in the long-term, the Capital Area Transportation Authority, the bus system that serves the Lansing region, has reported decreased ridership in recent years.

Public transit authorities across Michigan and nationwide have likewise experienced drops in ridership. CATA CEO Brad Funkhouser attributes the decline to factors including low gas prices and the popularity of ridesharing services such as Uber.

Even as public transportation use dwindles, cycling could prove to be an increasingly popular choice among those who choose not to drive to work. 

In Michigan, the number of people who bike to work has shot up 28% over the last decade. 

East Lansing resident Thomas Baumann rides his bike four miles to and from work each day, even in the winter. Baumann, a physicist with MSU's National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory, says there's nothing better than leaving the first bike tracks in early morning snow.

"It's a feeling of much more freedom," Baumann said. "It's a matter of using the best tool for the job. I don't think it's necessary to use thousands of pounds of car just to get to work."

More:

Biking from Lansing's east side to downtown? A new route could make that easier

2017: CATA shelves plans for Bus Rapid Transit

Contact Sarah Lehr at (517) 377-1056 or slehr@lsj.com. Follow her on Twitter @SarahGLehr.