Spare some grace for the other drivers on your next morning commute: They may have been on the road much longer than you.

Commuters in Alabama’s four largest cities are driving to work from farther afield, according to a Huntsville Times analysis of federal data and interviews with large employers. And the trend – evident in 10 years’ worth of the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Surveys — could have implications for everything from highway construction funding to the debate about which metro area is really the state’s biggest.

The data, based on estimates from the ACS 5-year surveys completed in 2015 and 2020, shows: