For workers driving to their jobs, Atlanta is

For workers driving to their jobs, Atlanta is America’s most expensive metropolitan area, at least as measured by the cost of gasoline, says a study by Sperling’s Best Places. Because of long distances between home and work and the region’s serious highway congestion, a typical two-commuter household in the Atlanta area consumes 3.3 gallons of gasoline per day, which totals $5,700 a year, based on gas prices as of May 9. In the nine other metro areas with the most expensive gasoline commuting costs, the annual prices to households were calculated as: Birmingham, $5,464; Orlando, $5,404; Jacksonville, $5,360; Pensacola, Florida, $5,173; Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, $5,066; Nashville, $5,033; Los Angeles, $4,890; Cape Coral, Florida, $4,890; and San Diego, $4,739. The report is posted online at: www.bestplaces.net/docs/studies/gasstudy.aspx