Nathan Yau made a zoomable map of how we commute:
He zeros in on some outliers:
As you might expect, a lot of people take public transportation to work in the New York City area, along with Washington, D.C. In New York county, an estimated 58% of workers use public transportation, and in the former, 38%. In several counties in Alaska, more people use “other” forms of transportation that isn’t a car, van, or truck. I’ll venture a guess that’s it’s something like snow mobile instead.
In San Juan county, Colorado, it looks like carpooling is a bit more common. However, San Juan has a small population and a large margin of error, so it’s tough to say if carpooling really is more common than driving alone. I’m not sure how much I want to trust estimates where the margin of error is almost equal to the rate. Likely an outlier in sampling more than one in reality.
Take driving alone out of the comparison, and the areas where public transportation is most common is more obvious.
You can also look at public transportation by itself to similar effect, but I think the comparisons make the geography more interesting. For example, you see more people working from home in the midwest, where much of the land is devoted to farming. In many areas, people just walk to work.
Play around with the map yourself here.
The Dish 