Summer’s ending. The kids are going back to school. Vacations are fading to memory. It’s time to get back to work. But how long does it actually take to get to work?

Too long. Admit it. We’ve all thought about it. How can this commute get shorter? Isn’t there a better way with less traffic or more lanes or fewer red lights or more transit lines or something, anything?

Nope. According to the American Community Survey, odds are your commute is pretty good, and pretty much the same as those of all your neighbors, regardless of where you live in the Inland Northwest, with a difference of just a few minutes.

In Spokane, the median commute time is about 20 minutes. In other words, half of Spokane commuters take less than 20 minutes to get to work, while the other half take longer. It’s the same story for Spokane Valley motorists. And to be clear, if you’re commuting to work, you are almost certainly driving alone in a car, because that’s what 80 percent of us in the region do.

Locally, commuters in Coeur d’Alene have the shortest commute, at 15 minutes or less for half the commuters.

But compared to the rest of the country? We’re golden.

Move to Seattle, and your commute will likely be 25 minutes, a very American story compared to our brief journeys to work. The typical American commuter spends about 25 minutes getting to work. Metro New York commuters have it the worst, with a median commute time of 35 minutes. Just read about the “Summer of Hell” subway riders are experiencing.

According to Emily Badger of the New York Times, we shouldn’t expect our commutes to change. The 20 to 30 minutes we take is human nature, apparently.

“Of course, plenty of workers trek less or much more,” Badger wrote, “but average American commute times have budged only modestly over the last 35 years, since the census began asking about them. International studies have shown similar half-hour patterns. History even hints that the Romans traveled about the same, when most people went everywhere on foot.”

What this means is that as transportation becomes more efficient and faster, our cities will continue to expand. Self-driving vehicles linked to a smart network could avoid gridlock and take you farther. Elon Musk’s Hyperloop, the pneumatic tubelike train with estimated top speeds of 760 miles per hour, will be able to whisk Seattle workers to their lovely homes. In Spokane.

So download your podcasts and make sure your travel mug is full. Your commute’s not changing.

Spokane Tribe building roundabout

A new multilane roundabout intersection at Craig Road and U.S. Highway 2 is being built by the Spokane Tribe of Indians to serve the Spokane Tribe Casino that’s under construction on the west end of Airway Heights.

U.S. 2 is being routed through temporary lanes around the work zone until the roundabout is complete. Eastbound traffic is reduced to one lane and westbound traffic continues to have two lanes.

In the city

Northbound Division Street between Interstate 90 and Third Avenue will be partially closed Monday beginning at 6 p.m. until 9 a.m. Tuesday.

Only two lanes of the arterial will be open to traffic during utility vault repair work. Delays and congestion are expected, especially during the morning commute. The same restrictions will be in place on Tuesday and Wednesday until 6 a.m. the following mornings.

Dredge work to close Spokane Falls Boulevard

Avista will dredge the Spokane River on Friday, Sept. 8, directly behind the Monroe Street Dam. The work will close Spokane Falls Boulevard between Post and Lincoln streets for one day.

‘Z Nation’ filming

Two streets will be closed Monday for the filming of “Z Nation”: Adams between Railroad Alley and First Avenue, and Railroad Alley between Adams and Jefferson streets.

The Syfy show about a zombie apocalypse has filmed in Spokane since it premiered in 2014.

I-90 landscaping hampers Lincoln exit

The I-90 westbound exit for Lincoln Street will lose a lane during the city of Spokane’s landscape work. The $200,000 project is part of the city’s plans to beautify the city’s gateways for motorists.

New passing lanes between Spangle and Colfax

Flaggers and pilot cars are out directing traffic on U.S. Highway 195 while work crews build northbound and southbound passing lanes near Steptoe between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. on weekdays.

The project is part of the state’s “Target Zero” safety plan that aims to completely eliminate traffic fatalities and serious injuries by 2030. The state highway is a rural road with average daily traffic volumes of up to 7,000 vehicles a day. Impatient drivers are common on this route between Spokane and Pullman, creating the potential for head-on collisions, which this project hopes to alleviate.

The plan will add a total of six new passing lanes between Spokane and Colfax.

U.S. 95 gets $65 million in upgrades

A number of projects on U.S. Highway 95 in North Idaho were funded recently by the Idaho Transportation Board. The $65 million in bonds will go to projects between Garwood Road and Sagle.

The projects include a $41 million project to build a new interchange at Idaho Highway 53 and frontage roads to Garwood Road. The bond money will also go to a $23 million realignment and widening of 2 miles of U.S. 95 to the top of Granite Hill.