Charlotte NC Drive Times 2011

8/6/2019 Charlotte NC Drive Times 2011

1/24

CharlotteDrive Times


2/24CharlotteDrive Times2

We thank the ollowing companies or their support o the

Charlotte Chambers economic development eforts.

PLATINUM SPONSORS

SILVER SPONSORS

BRONZE SPONSORS

Charlotte Chamber Economic Development www.BOOMcharlotte.com330 South Tryon Street, Charlotte, North Carolina 28232 U.S.A. | 704.378.1300 | twitter.com/cltecondev

ARTISTICIMAGES, INC.

ROBERT DERECTORASSOCIATES

CARLSON REALESTATE COMPANY

LESCORESTORATIONS

HP ENTERPRISESERVICESPIMCO

THE AD ARTCOMPANY


3/24CharlotteDrive Times

Each day, more than 150,000 individuals drive to work inMecklenburg County from outlying communities. These commuters

amount to nearly 30 percent of the total Mecklenburg workforce.

Research has shown that the typical worker prefers to have a commute

time of less than 30 minutes for optimization of the work day. For this

reason we have chosen the largest, and most popular, work areas of

the city and commissioned the University of North Carolina Charlotte

to develop drive time studies of these areas. The following maps

indicate the 15-minute and 30-minute drive times for these areas.

For the commuter, this will provide inormation on areas o thecommunity where one can live and work or minimum commutetime. For the employer, it will provide signiicant inormation on the

labor pool available rom speciic sites within the community. Forexample, the total population or these 16 dierent areas (30-minute

commute zones) range rom 621,000 to nearly 1.2 million people. Tcan be an important actor in a relocation decision.

It is important to note these geographies have not been createdby a computer model. These are actual drive times at peak traic lWe welcome your input on this project.

Tony Crumbley, CCRVice President, ResearchCharlotte [email protected]

Copyright 2011 by Charlotte Chamber of Commerce. All rights reserved. No part of the publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any

form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage or retrieval system, withoutpermission in writing from the Charlotte Chamber. The information in this publication is carefully gathered and compiled in such a way as to

ensure maximum accuracy. The Charlotte Chamber cannot, and does not, guarantee either the correctness of all information furnished them

nor the complete absence of errors and omissions. Hence, responsibility for same neither can be, nor is, assumed.

330 S. Tryon St., Charlotte, NC 28202(704) 378-1300 | twitter.com/cltecondev

BOOMcharlotte.com

Overview

Photography by PatrickSchneiderPhoto.com

Design by Andrea Ware

PatrickSchneiderP

hoto.com

1/


4/24CharlotteDrive Times4

Access to a suitable workorce is a signicantlocation actor or a business, and the lengtho the drive to and rom work is an equallyimportant consideration or employees,especially since gasoline prices haveescalated so much recently. Trac congestionis a major determinant o a work sites relativeaccessibility. With a mean commute timeo 28 minutes, Charlottes trac problemsare no worse than they are or other citieso its size and obviously are not as bad as

cities like Atlanta (35 minutes), Washington,DC (41 minutes) or other larger cities, its stilla concern or many businesses and theiremployees. The trip downtown may berapid because most cities have a radial roadnetwork that ocuses on the city center or itmay be diminished by increasing congestionon that network. Currently over one-quartero Charlotte-Mecklenburgs workers commutein and out daily rom another county, a dailyebb and ow o over 150,000 commuters.

Studies have shown that access or mostpeople is measured in driving time ratherthan in simple distance. Driving time is nota major concern or most workers or a tripo 15 minutes or less or even or as much as30 minutes, and most Charlotte area driverstravel less than 30 minutes to work. Beyondthat distance, however, in the Charlotte area,driving time to work does become a issue orsome people.

In addition to time-distance rom a site,the size o the workorce within a given

driving distance o a work place is aunction o the number o people wholive within that distance. The area romwhich an employment site can draw itsworkers is reerred to as a Labor Shed. Inorder to determine the extent o somerepresentative Labor Sheds in Charlotte-Mecklenburg, the Research Departmento the Charlotte Chamber o Commercecommissioned a study that was carried outin the Department o Geography and Earth

Sciences at UNC Charlotte. Sixteen sites inMecklenburg County were chosen or stuand the major routes that radiate rom eacwere identied. Teams o drivers let sitesat 5:15PM on a normal workday aternoonand each driver was instructed to drive withe trac ow along the designated routeLocations reached ater 15- and 30- minutwere recorded. Temporary construction anaccident delays were noted and accounteor. The resulting points were plotted on a

map and boundary lines were interpolatein between them by examining the roadnetwork. The resulting Labor Shed boundagive a general picture o how ar a typicaldriver can go within 15- and 30- minutes oan average day ater leaving each site duthe aternoon rush hour. In act, variationsthe weather, accidents, or road constructioprojects will cause these times to vary, as wthe driving habits o individuals. Thus, thestravel time boundaries do not representevery travelers experience on every day b

are simply a rough approximation o relatitravel times.

The resulting drive time boundarieswere then overlaid on Census Tract mapsor Mecklenburg and, as appropriate,surrounding counties. Nielsen, Inc., (www.nielsen.com) a national company thatprovides detailed demographic data, wascontracted to provide estimates o thepopulation and the number o householdresiding within each Census Tract in 2010,as well as statistics on the occupational

employment o residents who live in eachCensus Tract. Geographic InormationSystems (GIS) technology was used to ovethe Labor Shed boundaries on Census Tramaps in order to extract the data rom witeach one. The use o GIS allowed the precproportioning o the data rom tracts thatwere cut by the Labor Shed boundary lineThe ollowing maps show the Labor Shedboundaries and the associated table showthe population, households and the num

Charlotte-Area

Labor Sheds


5/24CharlotteDrive Times

o residents who were employed in a rangeo occupational categories within the 15- and30- minute Labor Sheds in 2010.

The statistics show that, while there aresubstantial diferences among the various

locations, there is a large pool o potentialemployees to draw on rom each o thelocations. Furthermore, it would be amistake to regard any o these numbers asexact with regard to a specic employerbecause the occupational categories arebroad and the Labor Shed boundaries areapproximate. Nonetheless, the maps andthe accompanying tables provide a useulmeasure o the relative employee access toeach location.

The employment statistics are for

occupational categories, irrespective of whatindustry a person is employed in. For example

a CEO is grouped together with other CEOs in

the Executive, Administrative, Management

group while a secretary is placed in an

Administrative Support category, along with

all other secretaries, even though the CEO and

the secretary work for the same company.

The occupational groups reported with eachmap reect diferent levels o responsibility

and education. The Executive, Administrative,Management group includes all top-levelbusiness executives. The Proessional/Technical group is comprised o nancialspecialists, computer and other scientists,architects, engineers, lawyers, physiciansand the like. In the Basic Services group aresecurity guards, ood servers, and building &grounds maintenance personnel. The Sales/

Related and Oce/Administrative Supporgroups include salesmen and secretaries/receptionists, such as the CEOs, respectiveThe Blue Collar category covers constructilaborers, actory production workers,mechanics, truck drivers and other similaroccupations.

The statistics displayed with each mapmeasure varying levels o accessibility and

population. At both the 30- and 15-minutelevels, the I-85/I-77 site ofers access tothe greatest population, household andemployment numbers. The act that thisintersection is relatively close to the mostdensely populated part o the city is a actits high totals. This is true or the employmtotals in the various occupational categorias well, except that the Whitehall BusinessPark ofers greater access to Blue Collarresidents within the 15-minute zone.

At the other end o the spectrum, Exit 30 o

I-77 (Davidson) generally has the smallestnumbers within both its 15- and 30-minutboundaries. This reects a combination orush hour congestion on I-77, the relatively

low density o population in northernMecklenburg County and restricted accesacross Lake Norman..

Alfred W. Stuart, PhD, Professor Emerit

Geography, UNC Char

Harrison S. Campbell, PhD., Associate Profe

of Geography, UNC Char


6/24


7/24


8/24


9/24


10/24


11/24


12/24


13/24


14/24


15/24


16/24


17/24


18/24


19/24


20/24


21/24


22/24


23/24

330 South Tryon St., Charlotte, N.C. 28232 | 704.378.1300 | www.BOOMcharlotte.com

BOOM,


24/24

SeaSonSof

Charlotte

Seasons o Charlotte, is a hard-cover photographybook scheduled or release this year as a joint efort by theCharlotte Chamber and Patrick Schneider Photography.

For more than three years, Patrick Schneider hasbeen ocusing his photojournalistic eye on Charlotte.Hes captured lie throughout Charlotte, rom events toenvirons, sports to spectacles, industry to individuals and

so much in between. Today, Schneiders body o work (towhich he adds new images daily) is the largest and most-comprehensive collection o contemporary Charlotteimages.

To learn more about Seasons o Charlotte and toorder an advanced copy, please email Andrea Ware [email protected].

THE DEFINITIVE PHOTO TOUR OF CHARLOTTE

Charlotte NC Drive Times 2011

Documents

Transcript of Charlotte NC Drive Times 2011