This is not that common, comparatively speaking.

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“The view of the bay is part of the pay.”

We’ve all heard that, or some version of that, when people describe life in Humboldt County. The job market can be rough. In terms of salary, benefits and opportunities for professional advancement, the county can seem like a bad bet.

But man oh man, the quality of life!

A couple of days ago we took a look at what recently released data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s annual American Community Survey can tell us about local folks’ earnings. Bottom line: they kinda suck, but — bright side! — they suck for men and women just about equally. Nowhere in the state do the men’s terrible wages exceed the women’s terrible wages by so little.

So how about that quality of life? How do we measure that? Well, how about we look at the amount of time we have to spend getting to our awful jobs?

Humboldt County, it turns out kinda rules, here. On average, Humboldters have among the shortest commute times in the state. See the table below, which lists the five California counties with the shortest average commute times, along with the state and national averages.

[Please see yesterday’s post for some notes about the American Community Survey, along with some of its limitations. For instance: Only 40 of the 58 California counties are considered, here.]

JurisdictionMean travel time to work
(minutes)		Margin of error
(minutes)
Shasta County18.8±1.3
Humboldt County19.4±2.1
Butte County19.7±1.1
Santa Barbara County20.1±0.9
Imperial County20.5±1.5
USA26.4±0.1
CALIFORNIA28.9±0.1

Source: “Commuting characteristics by sex.” 2015 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates. Link.

We spend an average of just 20 minutes or thereabouts getting to work. Compare that with Contra Costa County, the worst commute in the state: Your Walnut Creekites and Danvillains and their brethren spend nearly double that — 37.4 minutes — traveling through their suburban hellscape to get to their ghastly (but higher paying) places of work.

How do we get to work? The American Community Survey has some stuff to say about that, too:

Means of travel to work
(Humboldt County)		% of totalMargin of error
(percentage points)
Car, truck or van78.7%±3.0%
     Drove alone69.3%±3.2%
     Carpooled9.4%±2.4%
Public transportation 
(excluding taxicab)		2.8%±1.8%
Walked7.2%±1.7%
Bicycle2.2%±1.0%
Taxicab, motorcycle or other means1.1%±1.1%
Worked at home8.0%±1.7%

Ibid.

Do those drive-to-work numbers seem low to you? They seem low to the rest of America, too. Overall, the survey says, 85.6 percent of Americans get to work by car, truck or van. Humboldt County’s numbers are even lower than California as a whole — 83.9 percent of Californians get to work in a private vehicle. Humboldt’s low numbers, comparatively, aren’t even within the margin of error.

Why should this be? Aren’t we filled up with rugged backwoods folks with 4x4s? Maybe — but we’re also walk to work in far greater numbers than any county but San Francisco. We walk to work way more than the state or national averages:

JurisdictionMeans of transportation to work
— WALKED		Margin of error
San Francisco County10.4%±0.9%
Humboldt County7.2%±1.7%
Napa County4.8%±1.2%
San Luis Obispo County4.8%±1.3%
Santa Barbara County4.8%±1.0%
USA2.8%±0.1%
CALIFORNIA2.7%±0.1%

Ibid.

My own guess, here, is that Arcata particularly factors large, here, what with its high student population. But the truth is that Humboldt County is blessed with so many human-scale towns — Arcata, Ferndale, Fortuna, Trinidad, Rio Dell/Scotia, Garberville, even Eureka, really — that a disproportionate number of us are blessed to live within walking distance of our workplaces.

Strangely, we don’t bike to work all that much, though. We’re seventh on the list of bike-to-work counties, way behind state leader Yolo County (home to bicycle-mad Davis) and numerous other college-anchored counties (Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Butte).

More pictures of Humboldt through the American Community Survey looking glass to follow!