COMMUTING : 40 Minutes Is the Time to Beat

Today’s final “Jeopardy” category is “Time” and the answer is “40 minutes.”

An excellent but wrong guess is “What is the average time of possession this year for Rams opponents?”

The correct question is: “What’s the median round-trip commute for Southern California’s work force?”

The Times poll also found that 41% of 1,075 workers spend less than 30 minutes commuting each day. About one-third (34%) said their commutes took from 30 minutes to one hour, while 14% reported logging between one and two hours per day on the road. Five percent said their commutes exceeded two hours, and 4% said they didn’t commute at all.

Believe it or not, 2% said they didn’t know how long it took. (How’s that for a positive outlook, good mental health--or shellshock?)

For those interested in such things, the median Southern California commute plays no favorites: It’s the same 40 minutes regardless of gender, race or income.

Unless, that is, you live in Orange County, where commuters spend two minutes less each day in traffic.

Despite efforts to promote car pooling, Southern Californians still can’t quite get the hang of it. Residents who drive to work alone declined only slightly (from 84% in 1989 to 80% in 1991), while ride sharing, walking and riding the bus to work stayed about the same.