National website ranks Helena as worst commute in state

Published 4:34 pm Friday, February 19, 2016

: Findthehome.com ranked Helena as having the worst commute among any other city in Alabama, in data complied from 2010-2014. (File)

Findthehome.com ranked Helena as having the worst commute among any other city in Alabama, in data complied from 2010-2014. (File)

By GRAHAM BROOKS / Staff Writer

HELENA–Nobody enjoys sitting in traffic, and recently a national website called Findthehome.com ranked one city for every U.S. state that has the worst commute time.

For the state of Alabama, Findthehome.com ranked Helena as having the worst commute among any other city in Alabama, which won’t come as a surprise to the majority of Helena residents.

It is well known that trains are the number one issue for Helena residents and their commutes, as trains tend to clog major roadways in the city and it only worsens during rush hour.

Findthehome.com used data from the American Community Survey to find a city in every state with the longest average commute time. The data from ACS is a five-year estimate taken from 2010-2014 and excludes populations with cities under 15,000 people.

Helena came in ranked as the worst commute in the state of Alabama and No. 24 on the list of 50 cities nationwide with an average commute time of 31.4 minutes with a population of approximately 16,752.

Last March, Helena Mayor Mark Hall and former Helena Police Chief Doug Jones penned a letter to representatives of CSX Transportation Inc. detailing their frustrations with trains stopping and blocking crossings for an extended period of time.

A portion of the letter read, “Over the course of the last year alone, we have had issues with trains blocking the crossings on Alabama State Highway 261 over 30 times. Highway 261 is a major north/south route through the heart of our city with thousands of vehicles traveling it every day and blockages of this frequency and duration are unacceptable.”

To view the full list of cities with the worst commutes, visit Places.findthehome.com/stories/10535/worst-commute-drive-state.

Findthehome.com is a residential real estate search engine with details on 105 million for sale, of-the-market and foreclosed properties, according to website information.