Florida has grown rapidly only since World War II. Many of its large cities are also young. Dade County (Miami) had a population of 935,047 in 1960 and 1,937,094 in 1990. During the same period Broward County's population (Ft. Lauderdale-Hollywood) grew from 333,946 to 1,255,488, and Orange County's (Orlando) from 263,540 to 677,490. Unlike the older cities of the north, Florida's cities experienced their major growth during the automobile age and as a consequence are far less compact than many other U.S. cities. The private automobile is the dominant means of commuterÊtransportation, and the vast majority of those who commute do so alone.
Most cities with over 50,000 inhabitants have a bus system. City buses typically serve a small number of low- income or aged people and operate on a route frequency of one bus per hour and no night service. Miami has the most complex public transit system including a modern overhead light railway that runs from Hialeah to Dadeland, via the downtown. A lighter gauge system that covers the downtown connects with it.
The percentage of commuters who use the automobile is over 80 percent everywhere in the state except in Monroe County. In Key West many people walk or ride bicycles to work. In counties with large central cities commuters are more likely to drive alone to work than commuters in less populated counties. Travel time to work is longest in rural counties on the periphery of large cities, for example: Liberty and Wakulla counties near Tallahassee; Baker, Bradford, and Clay counties near Jacksonville; and Walton County to the east of Pensacola.
