Originally Posted by
contango
Still a bit of a blow for the people who do have long commutes and no option other than to take the car. I won't pretend to know statistics regarding how many people live and work in the same urban sprawl and how many live and work in rural areas or have to travel between towns, but I'd hazard a guess that enough people do have longer commutes to render it largely useless to only consider the people who don't.
It's also worth considering that what "most people" do regarding travelling will often produce meaningless results given just how many people do live in cities. My home city (London, England) has a population comparable to the whole of Pennsylvania. Even if over 50% of people do have such short commutes as you have suggested unless the majority is truly huge it doesn't mean a substantial minority can simply be ignored.
While I don't claim to have all the facts... due to the last census, the average commute was determined to be about 12 miles... (click on the first link in my sig below) and this is a significant number that it would indeed change our use of resources and the amount of pollution.
Just getting folks to car pool in LA for the Olympics was enough to make a difference in the traffic patterns for that short period.