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A generation that's driving less, and what that means for Boston
By adamg on Wed, 05/15/2013 - 7:38am
WBUR interviews Wendy Landman, executive director of WalkBoston on the implications of people who just don't want to drive as much as their parents.
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Comments
No car = low expectations
Cars and repair especially cost so much more and the economy just isn't keeping up.
Saying that we're happy without a car is nothing but a self-serving explanation though. All the stuff you need a car for is still too far to walk to.
These sort of earthy crunchy coping mechanisms always work the same way: we know you can't do the things you used to do, but they weren't that important anyway.
What do you need a car for?
Medium to long range trips out of the city. Like going to the mountains. For the few times a year that I do that I am happy to rent and/or share with someone.
Carting heavy objects around. Again, not something that happens often in this day of easy shipping. Taxi or ZipCar works.
I'm sure others have other reasons but that about sums it up for me.
And even plus using a taxi for convenience every so often doesn't add up to anywhere near the cost of owning, maintaining and storing a car year-round.
So why bother? Even when I did own a car I realized I was only driving it a few times a month, after I started walking to work and to the grocery store. Occasionally I got worried that I was letting it sit for too long; might be bad for the tires.
I think an increasing number of people are facing similar circumstances.
Depends on what you like to do
In fairness, lifestyle comes into play here, and there are a lot of things you can't do without a car.
If you're a city person and live for everything a city has to offer, that's great. Most likely, you rarely need a car, and can easily get by with something like Zipcar when you *need* a car. It's a great way to live if that's what you like.
On the opposite side of the spectrum, there are some people that are outdoors oriented and need a car to explore their pursuits. It's tough to ski, hike, mt bike, kayak, rock climb, surf, windsurf/kitesurf, camp, etc. without a car. As much as I like riding my bike, I like to ride other places than roads within a certain radius of my home, and that requires going places by car.
Besides, not everybody lives/works in the city where there are transportation alternatives available.
That's what you need a car for.
Not as tough as you might think.
There are several group events which charter buses. I've seen these offered for skiing, hiking, and beach visits. I'm sure there are plenty of others.
It just takes a bit of planning to not have a car.
living car-free
At least for me that hits the nail on the head. I take the T to work most every day, live in a walkable neighborhood (if you step over the trash and dodge the Eastie skunks at night) but still maintain a car. It's an expense I wish I could do without, but I'm just too disorganized. It's Saturday, let's go to NH. Let's go visit my parents in the burbs. Let's pick up a load of crap at the supermarket. There's just a lot of things that aren't particularly thought out because I have this car that I can jump in and just go do some of the things that I need to do, when I finally decide that I'm going to do them. It's probably all possible with a zipcar account (although they need better ZipCar locations in Eastie for it to be more convenient for me), but that would force me to get more organized and no fucking way is that happening. Not on my watch!
When my last car finally died and I was considering not buying a car, my father said "well, it's not like you can NOT have a car." There's definitely a generational thing here. Ironically he's reaching the age where he cannot have a car...which must be horribly traumatic for him.
No, there are places you
No, there are places you really can't get without a car, at least without major contortions and lots of lost time - most especially if you have pets you like (or need) to tote around. I grew up in northern NH, my dad's still there, my sister's in central NH, and we're up at one or the other place most weekends. Plus since my sister got horses last winter I make nearly weekly mid-week day-trips to her place. We have cats, one of which is 21 and currently getting syringe-fed (I've been saying for 6 years he won't be around much longer, so I should stop saying it, but I think it's true now), another with a twice-daily inhaler for asthma, so on any overnight trip they go with us. Once or twice I've taken the bus (but then need someone else with a car to pick me up) but for the vast majority of trips it's our own car, or stay home.
Absolutely
That's why I think it's important to consider transportation costs in addition to housing costs when deciding where to live. And not just work trips but most other trips too, which are often determined by lifestyle. If you're camping every weekend then it makes sense to have a car; you will probably have to cut back in some other area to afford that. But if you're only camping/hiking once a month, like my friends, then maybe you just share someone's car. And if it's just a few times a year, it's probably cheapest to just rent if nobody you know owns a car.
Oh the places you can go
Without a car.
Sometimes, our family car leaves town for as much as a week. That's when I take my bike to the commuter rail, take the train to Gloucester, and ride to the kayak outfitter and rent a nice seagoing yak and spend some quality time with the ocean, eat a nice seafood dinner, and head home via rail.
Or I will take my bike out of town and ride from the end of a commuter rail line.
And, yes, I have attached a body board to a bike, rolled up the wetsuit on the back, and gone surfing without a car. The Hamptons are only a few miles off the end of the Newburyport line.
Or ride to the ferry to Provincetown. Now there's a train to the mid-cape too.
The Downeaster boards and unloads bikes at Woburn, Wells ME and Portland ME.
Last summer, my son and I rode all the way to Portsmouth, NH. We rode back to Newburyport and took the train back. When we took younger brother to camp in NH after the Gentleman of the Road concert, older brother took the Amtrak from Portland ME to Boston on his own, and rode home from North Station.
So, while it is nice to have a car available for excursions, there is a lot to do without even renting one. My husband and I have loaded the bikes up, taken them on the commuter rail to places like Plymouth, and then biked 25 miles to a rented yurt on the cape. Or head to Lowell and bike to a campground in NH. It isn't uncommon for one of us to have the family car with the stuff and bikes and kids head out early, and have the other come from work on public transit with a bike and ride the final 20-60 miles to join up.
Absolutely right
There's a ton of stuff you can do without a car. No argument there.
There's a lot more stuff stuff you can't do. Or can't do within certain time constraints, or can't do within the constraints of other transportation. Theoretically, you don't need a car to go anywhere, but time constraints and logistics come into play. It's great kayaking in Gloucester, but it also gets old quick . Doing stuff in different/new places is what makes doing those things more enjoyable. That's all I'm saying.
You can still do those things
You just need to rent a car, and many car rental companies have weekend deals. Sure, if you are going away every single weekend, or live in an area without public transportation, a car makes sense. But it is possible to do all the activities you mention, in areas inaccessible by the T, without owning a car. I've done it for 20 years.
You have to take into
You have to take into consideration one's daily work commute.
You have to understand that not everyone one has the convenience of easy access to public transit, walking or biking. What about those whose commute is suburb to city (or vice versa) or suburb to suburb.
You have to figure transport into location choices
If you already own a home and are settled in and moving isn't an option, what you say is true.
If you are able to move, or planning to move, or sick of commuting, it is a very good idea to factor in whether or not you want to be dependent on a car. Also good to think about how much commuting by car or driving in general you are up for BEFORE you start looking for homes and apartments.
My household has been "car light" for much of the last 25 years. That started with an intentional decision to move closer to our jobs and get rid of a car.
That led to being in an area where a lot of jobs were accessible by transit or bike or combinations thereof. As we changed jobs over the years, having access to a variety of ways to get to a lot of different jobs has been very useful.
When we bought a house, we figured in our commuting preferences. People thought we were nuts and relatives didn't get why we didn't buy a big place further out and just drive drive drive all the time. We knew that wasn't for us.
This turned out to be a very lucrative choice too, even though we were told horror stories (ill-founded) about the school system. Now people are so keen on living in inner-ring neighborhoods that every house that goes up for sale sparks a bidding war. Our neighbors are increasingly families with young kids (and one car) who left Cambridge or Somerville for a bit more space.
Meanwhile, friends who live in 495-land and closed the same day in 1998 on a 60% larger house that cost about $25,000 more than ours have not seen nearly the recovery from the recession (which, in our area, was a very small drop). Gas was $1.25 a gallon when we bought - that has a lot to do with the renewed interest in living close in. They need to have two cars in good working order to live where they live, and will likely buy another when their teenage child reaches driving age.
Every dollar we don't spend on those second and third cars goes toward our retirement and college educations for the kids. The more valuable house gives us more retirement options, too. Between the added home equity and the cost of vehicles, we come out over $200,000 ahead of them at this point.
Cars cost a lot of money. Your money, your choice.
This Post About Choosing Location Reminds Me
This post about your choice to live closer to work reminds me of another possible factor of the Millennial Generation. Unlike the older generations, we still at the age of being transient and can choose where to live. It's a logical idea that we may choose to live by being near where we work or do things. This less driving and even less gas overall.
This also reminds me of another factor. Unlike previous generations, we went to college in much larger numbers and proportion (for better or worse as we see to our debt and outcomes). In this case, it means the experience of the "campus life". Thus the place we eat, sleep, school (so equivalent to work and many jobs are still on or near campus), extracurricular activities, social life and etc are all in biking distance at most. It stands to reason after that experience, it would reflect that many post-college may like to set our lives to approximate that as possible.
Right on
When I decided to buy a condo in Boston, I decided that since the vast majority of places I might consider working are T-accessible, I would pay more for proximity to a train stop. This turned out to have been the right decision.
Now, I *completely* agree that there are things you can't do without a car. However, I ran the numbers. It costs me less than a quarter as much to rent a car for a full weekend as it used to cost me for car insurance alone. I can buy a T pass, rent a car for two weekends a month (with full insurance coverage), maintain a Zipcar membership for large shopping runs, and take cabs home two or three times a month and still come out ahead in terms of cold hard cash.
There's a mindset in my parents' generation that anyone who is anyone simply must own a car for reliable transportation. And once you have that mindset, you wind up making bad decisions because of the fallacy of sunk costs: you *must* own a car, so instead of considering the total cost of car ownership, you only consider things like the cost of gas and tolls.
So sure, yeah, I agree - there are things you can't do without a car. However, owning a car is not the only way to accomplish those things.
Cruising
Cruising for chicks.
Progressives should be for more cars
Less cars is a sign of less wealth and less potential wealth. If you have a car your employment opportunities go up exponentially.
I would hope that those who claim to be for the people would see that power and mobility are good, not bad, and look at how our economy is poorly serving most people. Having bad/few cars is just one example.
Instead I'm reading a lot of excuses. Progressives should know the truth: if the economy was good, all these happy carless people would go get cars.
I disagree
People are much more interested in living in cities now, and value the things city life has to offer- including the fact that most everything that you want or need is easily accessed by walking, biking or taking the T.
There's a reason that real estate in the city and close suburbs is much more expensive- people want to live where there's a lot going on, not where they have to drive to get everywhere.
If there are convenient other options, and a car is an expensive hassle, why bother? Yes sometimes you need to move a couch, but is it worth maintaining a giant pickup all the time when you can just rent a zipcar?
Bullshit
I didn't need a car for years after I got to Boston; I inherited one two years after moving here, but barely drove it for another 6. That was when I started getting gigs on 128 and had to do the reverse commute from Somerville.
Even now, with a kid, I only put 3K miles per year on my car.
If you're single, childless, and live and work in town, a car service like Zipcar is going to cover 90% of what you do that requires a car. And a rental (for weekends in Vermont) will easily handle the rest.
Sheesh. Not everybody wants to live in a 4K sqft McMansion and drive down the driveway to their mailbox.
Zipcar
Married, not single, but we do live & work in town, and yes, Zipcar suits our needs just fine - as a matter of fact, even for weekend road trips. (Since gas & insurance are included in Zipcar rates, the costs ends up being pretty comparable.)
We've been Zipcar members for 7 years now, and remain very happy with the decision to go that route. We spend $2500 to $3000 a year on Zipcar, which makes us pretty heavy users, but that's still about 1/3 of what it costs to own a car in the city.
Cars = good sex and babies
When it got really hard to support a kid, that's when everybody decided it wasn't that important to have kids. Do you see how this works?
Don't want to grow up and have a car? Just don't have good sex and make babies, that's the solution I'm hearing here.
Car = Grown up?
Not these days. Plenty of ways to be grown up and not have a car. Like buy a house with what you didn't spend on a car.
1965 Called
They want their old people think back.
We have one car for three drivers. It goes 8K miles a year, even with carpool commuting.
Every time it needs a repair, new tires, brakes, etc., it costs as much or more than a really good bike. That, and the fact we don't drive a lot, means that we only have one of them.
Our neighbors noted from across the way that IF a family of four, which did not have both adults working in the same place less than two miles away like they do, could do with one car for so many years, maybe they should think twice about replacing one of theirs.
So they decided to try the one car thing and see how it went. That was four years and some pretty nice vacations ago. In that four years they have saved about $30K in car payments, $4K in insurance costs - even before you get into the cost of gas and maintenance.
Cars are expensive, and young people realize that and are paying off their student loans instead of taking on another $30K of debt. They use zip car and rentals to get where they need to be.
Hardly "low expectations". I'd call that GOOD SENSE!
1965 Calling Again
Having been around during that time - I was eight, and lived in a middle-class Dorchester neighborhood - I can tell you that it was the norm for families in and around Boston to have only one car. Those that didn't have one car were more likely to have no car than multiple cars.
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
You know how transit got cut in the early 70s?
Families may have had only one car in 1965, but transportation planners and auto companies had big plans for those families.
Big plans to force them all in to cars one way or another.
My family had only one car
My family had only one car until 1992. Of course, by the time we became a two-car family we were far from the norm. The situation was made possible because my father walked to work.
My husband and I are a happy no car family. The hassle of parking, the expense of insurance and repairs, and the convenience of transit for most everywhere we need to go make this possible. When we absolutely need a car we have ZipCar.
Car lovers shouldn't worry
MassDOT continues to design street projects for huge amounts of projected car traffic growth. See Figure ES-3 in the report which shows how out of touch these projections are.
Growth?
That sounds more like they're trying to finally accommodate current traffic to me.
That said, this reality isn't really surprising. Now if they'd demolish the stupid regulations upholding the taxi cartels we could probably see ownership drop even more if those prices were allowed to fall too, likely pressuring things like ZipCar as well. Maybe a subway that ran till after bars close, or even a B line that was wholly underground instead of going through traffic, making things suck for subway riders and drivers alike... one can dream?
Still, I know plenty of people without cars who would like to have one. It's better for MassDOT to prepare for growing populations than not. Maybe proportions drop, but if overall populations rise it will still likely mean more cars.
Overall transportation in Boston simply leaves much to be desired, regardless of what mode you take.
How much more of your current
How much more of your current neighborhood are you willing to sacrifice to "accommodate current levels" and how do you know that after losing those homes, businesses and walkable places that it will be enough?
Been to Allston?
Well, maybe I'm biased considering I think most housing in Boston is also fairly awful and would love to see it razed and rebuilt (pipe dream), but I don't consider accommodating traffic more efficiently as "sacrificing my neighborhood and walkable spaces".
People rail on the big dig (rightfully due to costs) as being only for "evil drivers" but it certainly had a massive improvement on the neighborhood and walkable aspects of downtown.
I just don't see why the assumption accommodating traffic diminishes the "neighborhood" is so matter of fact. If people are able to get where they are going faster, it means happier people. Less honking, people stuck in huge traffic jams, cars in the middle of the road when the crosswalks go white, less of a nightmare trying to find overnight parking, more demand for businesses in the area.
I mean, have you ever tried having someone from out of town come visit you in some of these places? They usually have nowhere to go due to the necessity of so many permit parking areas.
If there were more parking garages built, and we'd have the ability to change most street parking lanes into traffic lanes - not affecting the overall structure of the city much. I also imagine that jammed traffic makes it more dangerous for things like bikers as drivers are frustrated and making sudden moves to get out of their current situation.
Too many people want to say "driving is evil! let's make it suck more and more!" but that isn't going to change reality here. People are going to drive, and the efficiency gained for drivers will not necessarily mean things are worse off for non-drivers.
Have I been to Allston?
I live there.
And yes, "accommodating traffic" will make things worse off for people on foot.
There is only one fundamental way to increase capacity on the streets (without applying road pricing) and that's to widen the number of travel lanes. Everything else is just minor tweaks.
Even if you don't bulldoze the neighborhood, you still make life much more unpleasant for locals. Here's what life is like next to Cambridge Street, which has been widened out:
Despite this widening, the road is still massively congested. And the street is deadly for pedestrians (and cyclists).
Now I know of some people who dislike Allston and therefore want to bulldoze it and turn it into a highway on-ramp (sadly, I think some work at BTD). But I'm presuming you're not like that.
The reason why building more parking garages is a bad idea is several-fold: first, parking garages attract more traffic, but then you have to widen the roads to accommodate that traffic; see above. The second reason is that it takes away land/floor space that could have been for productive uses; this deadens the surroundings. The third reason is that parking garages are expensive to build; most drivers don't seem to realize that this infrastructure isn't free, structured above-ground parking is about $25,000 per space, underground is closer to $50,000. How much are you willing to pay for those garage spaces? Or will the community end up subsidizing it? Before taking such drastic steps, how about applying some market pricing to the existing parking supply, in order to use it more efficiently?
It's not about drivers being "evil"; it's about the very real costs that all this automobile infrastructure imposes on the community. We dedicate almost all of our public land to driving. We have dead zones fronted by parking lots. We deal with fumes that often become thick enough to be visible in Allston. We are forced to accept that some people will be killed by cars from time to time, such as last week.
We need cars and we need some automobile infrastructure but we cannot let it get out of control. We spent so much of the last 60 years trying to build more and more highways and parking lots and all it did was make things worse. There has to be a limit, or it just overwhelms the neighborhood.
"That sounds more like
"That sounds more like they're trying to finally accommodate current traffic to me."
The state is bleeding maintenance money from overbuilt 1950s highways and now downsizing a lot of overbuilt infrastructure designed for traffic which despite 60 years of growth never materialized.
Car vs. rent
I have friends who live in all sorts of environments (rural, suburban, urban) and I've done the calculations on my own to figure out what works best for my budget.
If you need to be in or near a city, it's cheaper to live in a walkable area with mass transit than it is to live in a less-walkable area and own a car. Urban rent + subway pass + Zipcar membership is decidedly more affordable than suburban rent + car + what's the gas cost now + emergency repairs!!! + insurance.
There's just no point in sinking all that money into something that's going to break and cost you even more money, unless you need it.
Car costs
and if you're doing the calculations put in there parking and tickets, which along with those emergency repairs can really be killers. If you really want to push some fence sitters off into the no-car yard, then make parking around here just a little bit more annoying and expensive.
Depends on the car
My 13 year old Civic has only even needed normal tune ups.
It's small and easy to get around the city in, great on gas mileage, and the most expensive repair was just the timing belt / water pump replacement when it was recommended and a new exhaust every 6 years or so due to new England winters. It's never been garaged and has no rust otherwise.
Cars can be very expensive, but it's usually because of the owners picking style over substance. There's plenty of smart choices for a city car.
I've also seen plenty of city people with Chevy Tahoe's trying to find parking, bitching about gas prices, and generally looking pretty stupid on their few mile treks from A to B.
Generational Change vs Sour Grapes
I am open to speculate based that the forces that getting the Millennial generation to drive less is economic or generational.
For the former, one can view that the debt loads, unemployment/underemployment of our age group vs when they was our age, and cost of living indicates a possible sour grapes factor. We can't afford cars, so we think of all the negative qualities we can list to say we never wanted them in the first place.
For the latter, a genuine desire to set up a life where everything is just walking/biking/transit distance. Setting up a life where home, work, shop, dine, hobbies, entertainment, and generally anything daily life is all within non-driving distance.
For the former, I think it is reasonable to speculate that there are some who are operating on sour grapes. When only looks at the challenges of our generation (or some of my friends), many just can't really afford a car and its expenses. Some do start exposing how they never really wanted it, damage of cars to society, and the environment - especially the environment.
The latter, I think is the more true driving point. Mainly because if you make a thought experiment of removing a variable. In this case, let's say the economy is doing better and many of us are not coming with debt loads rivaling mortgages and/or jobs that pays at levels we can build to our future. I suspect, though perhaps less pronounced, that there would still be articles like the above where we seem to be driving less. For the desire to live near the stuff we do is the larger factor.
---
That said, I will write here that having a car is useful. But they keyword is "having". The value is not having to drive all the time by obligation of distance of destination or the world set up for cars. The value is to have the option when driving is superior. Those moments like trips to places outside Boston or a friend's gathering that is later in the night and you know you can find parking easily while driving in with only 5 mins versus a half-hour on the train. Even in daily life, if the commute by driving is faster or need to flexibility to go multiple places, then it is good to have a car. But again, the keyword is "have". And use it only when it is useful of its speed and location flexibility - all still means less driving.
Because why not try and just live near as many of the the things we do.
Gave up a car for environmental reasons around 1990
Except for a couple of years when the kids were quite small and I had to drive a lot for my job (and the per mile reimbursement more than paid for it), we never really went back to being a two car family.
Cost was only one factor. The other is that we are in far better physical shape than when we were in our 20s. We biked through the Loire valley in France last fall, and wondered what the hell we were thinking when we drove around Napa and Sonoma on our honeymoon 22 years before.
Another is that our subsequent decisions to live in places where we have a lot of transport options has reinforced the lack of "need" for a second car.
Being "outdoor" type of people, walking and biking suits us asthetically as well.
We also taught the kids solid road cycling skills and transit navigation skills - and now that they are teens they don't even want to learn to drive because they don't see the point.
Then there are the phones - we can instantly coordinate who is going where and how and meet up and converge at T stations and restaurants and all of that.
We also coordinate with our neighbors, which reduces the use of vehicles overall.
Once you are used to being car-light or car-free and make the decisions that enable it over time, having a web of flexible arrangements for getting around becomes second nature and preferable to constant "what do I do with this two-ton thing"?
too much soapbox for me,
too much soapbox for me, thanks!
Did you say Soapbox?
Beep beep - your ride is here!
Definitely a generational change, but also
limited to middle class, urban white people. Poor American-born blacks and hispanics, along with immigrants, still very much want a car. When you have taken the train and bus your whole life growing up (as I did, we were too poor to afford a car, didn't get a license until I was 19), the freedom of having your own car and not being stuck on the 22 or 23 bus and the Ashmont branch is incredibly liberating.
Been to NYC?
I see plenty of diversity on wheels there.
While some may "want" a car, not having a car does involve some skills that they do have and can use to get ahead.
I've met non-white, non US-native people who want a car, but who understand that they are best putting that want off because they also want to own their home or own business.
Yes, many times
and the vast majority of the people on bicycles, just like in Boston, are 20-39 white people and 14-18 year olds. When you grow up taking the bus, walking and biking everywhere, yeah you know how to do it, but it does not hold the same appeal as it does to people in your socioeconomic group.
ZipCar?
Did Zipcar ever fix their insurance loopholes?
They used to just insure their property, so if you got into an accident you were up the river for any medical bills or property damage.
I looked into them, but you'd need to buy your own insurance, which wasn't much less then having your own car outright... so there was no savings potential to getting rid of my car.
Not sure how the state allowed that.
Zipcar insurance
is a $300,000 "combined single limit" to cover liability and property damage. PIP is the state minimum. There is a deductable of $750, that can be waived for a fee per year.
Been car-free since 2007,
Been car-free since 2007, live ten minute walk away from Ashmont Station - I can reach most of my family via the T. Occasionally borrow the wife's car to get groceries. What I save in parking, insurance, repairs, tickets and gas goes straight to the 401K. However, we have no kids - I think having a family makes a car more necessary. At the same time, I think the 'white flight' bubble is starting to collapse back toward the city, the 2 hour commute to and from is starting to be too much for people. The only reason people still do it IMHO is the perception of better schools in the ex-burbs. With more charter schools in and around the city, more people may opt to start raising more families in the city again.
This is very much a
This is very much a generational thing as others have mentioned. I own a car and really only have it in Boston since I moved here 8 years ago because it was paid for before I moved here. If I did not already own one, there's no way I would have bought a new one. I probably use it once a month or less and only when I need to go somewhere outside the city that I can't get to easily by transit. Even with that said, it definitely is an expensive luxury. The cost of insurance, parking, maintenance and gas still adds up to at least $2000 dollars a year. For something that I use so infrequently, it probably would be worth it for me to just sell it (and rent out my parking space to someone else!)
Commuting to the burbs
I am a Boston resident, who you would call a reverse commuter.
I would love to mass transit to work. Unfortunately, I'm one of those people who's company is located in a lifeless office park in the burbs. No mass transit, no sidewalks, just box shaped office buildings and parking lots the size of several football fields.
I don't like it, but for some fields, the jobs are in the burbs, not trendy districts in the city. So the car is mandatory.
Well, you live in the city,
Well, you live in the city, which already marks a big shift from 30 years ago. You're just stuck commuting to a place that you don't like which was designed in a past era when planners were ripping apart cities. You would prefer for your job to be in a walkable place. That's part of the generational shift they were talking about. Perhaps eventually your job will move to the city. Or it will move close to an outlying subway or commuter rail station. Or maybe it can't move but the employer might run shuttle buses (such as the ones that have been so successfully deployed from SF to Silicon Valley sprawl).
Even though you need the car, you probably use it much less because you live in the city. Work trips are only 20% of all trips, overall. And when you do use it, perhaps you don't go as far. So that's a decline in miles driven.
"Move to the city"
I think you underestimate how unlikely this is. As a reverse commuter myself, these companies are likely _never_ moving into the city. Its simply too expensive to do so, and there's too limited real estate.
I'd kill for my company to be located in Kendall, but the cost of doing so simply means it will never be seriously considered in the first place.
I'd imagine that 90% of my driving is simply going to work every day, occasionally driving out of state to visit my parents back home. When I go into the city, I take the T usually despite having to pay much higher fare than people who really strain the system day in day out (and should pay higher fares than they do).
It's not that we want to work far out, its that we don't have much choice. The city needs to consider our needs too.
Even if you're stuck in this situation
You are driving less in general, as you wrote, and that's what the article was about.