Urban areas had generally lower access to jobs as economic and transportation conditions evolved coming out of the COVID era, according to new research from the Accessibility Observatory at the University of Minnesota. The annual Access Across America (AAA) study uses comprehensive travel data for walking, biking, transit, and auto to analyze the sustainability of transportation options for residents of major urban areas.

“Typically, land use and transportation networks change only gradually from year to year, but 2022 illustrated a much different dynamic,” according to the 122-page report, which was released this month and examines 2022 data, the most recent available. The annual research project has been conducted since 2014.

The greatest reductions in access to opportunity were associated with places where congestion increased the most, according to the report. “These drastic changes measure the impact of the return of traffic, magnified by the difference from unusually high job accessibility by auto during the first 21 months of the pandemic.”

Public transit accounted for an estimated 5 percent of commuting trips before the pandemic, making it the second most widely used commute mode after driving. Walking as a commute is typically very low, making up about 2.4 percent of all journeys to work. While bicycling accounted for just 0.5 percent of all commutes, the overall number of bicycle commuters has increased almost 22 percent since 2010.

Findings of the 2022 study are portrayed in an interactive map, which provides a comprehensive look at job accessibility, highlighting the number of jobs accessible within a 30-minute travel time by different modes of transportation. The full report can be accessed here.