Howard County Population Stays the Same Throughout the Day

New figures belie the soul-crushing traffic around Howard County each morning: most people living in the county don't actually leave the county for work. 

Between 2006 and 2010, Howard County's population changed by less than one percent during the day, according to new data from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey. During that time period, adjusting for traffic coming in, Howard County's population lost just about 550 people per day to commuting. 

The information is part of a new project called "Journey to Work," that the bureau released to help community leaders know how their county's daytime population differs from the resident population for transportation and disaster relief planning, the bureau said in the project's introduction.

This is the first time the bureau has released this type of data based on the yearly community survey rather than the once-a-decade census.

So who's clogging the roads during rush hour? About 30,000 people are leaving Carroll County and more than 46,000 are commuting from Baltimore County. 

The difference in who commutes may be related to this: In Howard County, there are an impressive 100 jobs per 100 residents; not as many people need to travel for work.

But in Carroll County, according to the report, there are just 65 jobs per 100 people, meaning more people have to commute to find jobs. And although Baltimore County has close to 90 jobs per 100 people, its population of about 817,000 means there are still plenty of people who have to leave the county for work.

Read the entire report online.

Editor's note: The headline of this article has been changed for clarification.