Americans' commutes aren't getting longer

• About one out of five workers with hour-plus commutes use transit
• Roughly 14%25 of Chicago workers face a daily commute of an hour or more
• 27%25 of workers commute outside their county of residence for work

About 8% of workers in the USA have commutes of an hour or longer, and nearly 600,000 full-time workers endure "megacommutes" of at least an hour-and-a-half and 50 miles, according to new U.S. Census data on commuting.

The national average, one-way daily commute is 25.5 minutes, and 4.3% of the nation's workers work from home. The data is from the U.S. Census Bureau's annual American Community Survey for 2011.

On average, it took no longer to get to work in 2011 than it did in 2000, said Alan Pisarski, author of the continuing series "Commuting in America," who attributes the stagnancy to economic woes.

He said, "9.8% unemployment does wonders for congestion."

According to the Census, about one out of five workers with hour-plus commutes use transit. Only 61% of workers with long commutes drove to work alone, compared with 80% for all workers who work outside the home.

"The average travel time for workers who commute by public transportation is higher than that of workers who use other modes," said Census Bureau statistician Brian McKenzie. "For some workers, using transit is a necessity, but others simply choose a longer travel time over sitting in traffic."

The long commute has become a staple of American work life: The Census released detailed data for 24 metro areas; in one-third of them, at least 10% of the workforce has commutes of an hour or more.

One of them is Chicago, where roughly 14% of workers face a daily commute of an hour or more. "There has not grown up around Chicago the kind of (close-in) cities (with jobs) that you might see in other places," Pisarski said. "The jobs are often higher-paying in the city. I have relatives who commuted from Milwaukee, Wis., to Chicago."

More than one in four workers — 27% — commute outside their county of residence to work.

Among the 24 metros:

—San Bernardino County, Calif., has the highest percentage of carpoolers, at about 16% of the workforce. "Drivers (there) have a lot of incentive to carpool," said Jim Bak of the Kirkland, Wash.-based congestion tracking firm INRIX. "Besides sitting at the confluence of several traffic-choked freeways, the 20-mile stretch of the Riverside Freeway that runs through (the county) perennially ranks among the 10 most traffic-choked roads in the country."

The county also has the highest percentage of hour or more commutes: 15%.

—Washington, D.C. has the second-highest percentage of transit riders, its 40% behind only Manhattan's 59%. "Not only does Washington, D.C., rank among the 10 worst traffic cities each year, but it's also among the 10 most expensive to park, costing drivers on average $260 a month," Bak says.