Where do we Live and Work?

In the past, we have talked about transportation and the importance of having a good transportation system that can get people where they need to go in a timely and efficient manner. One of the main reasons to have such a transportation network in our modern times is simply to get people to and from work!

Where people live and where they work has the largest impact on transportation networks today. Cities all over the country deal with peak traffic hours, which, interestingly, is the hour just before offices open and just

after the offices close. Where people live and where people work creates what we call commute patterns. Commute patterns help planners identify where new roads need to be and what roads need to be improved. Locally, in Elizabethton and Carter County, we use data that show us the relationship between where people live and where they work.

In Elizabethton in 2011, there were just over 4,700 people over the age of 16 employed that lived in Elizabethton. 72 percent of them commuted to work outside of Elizabethton while the remaining 28 percent actually worked in Elizabethton.

In addition to those who lived and worked in Elizabethton, an additional 8,000 people commuted to Elizabethton daily to work. To put this into a little perspective, twice as many people commuted to Elizabethton to work than the entire workforce that lived in Elizabethton.

This information makes clear that Elizabethton is a regional employment center just like Johnson City, Kingsport, and Bristol – more people are coming here to work than leaving Elizabethton to work.

Now that we have some numbers, let’s look at where they’re coming from. Unsurprisingly, approximately 1,500 of Elizabethton residence commute to Johnson City to work. Next, is Kingsport with just over 300 and third is Bristol with 170.

Interestingly, the most people commuting to Elizabethton to work are from Johnson City! Almost 750 people commute to Elizabethton from Johnson City to work on a daily basis. Just over 230 people commute from Kingsport to Elizabethton and 227 people make the short commute from Hunter to work in Elizabethton daily.

What do you think? Now that we have this data, what do we need to do to improve our transportation systems? What more do we need to do to make Elizabethton a bigger player in the employment market for upper east Tennessee? Let’s talk about it!