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Unless the self driving cars can make an hour commute be half an hour or less, they'll still suck. All you gain is the ability to read, eat, play games, or even

Unless the self driving cars can make an hour commute be half an hour or less, they'll still suck. All you gain is the ability to read, eat, play games, or even sleep during the commute and no one will be comfortable doing that for a few years.

ocb 10y ago
Additionally, plenty of people already commute long distances in relative comfort without having to drive themselves--it still sucks.
Houshalter 10y ago
I've gotten more than one response saying that, but I don't understand it. I would find it very enjoyable to read, play games, or sleep during a commute. There's not that much I can't do in a car, that I can do on my couch. Much more enjoyable than spending hours focusing on the road. If you move further out of the city, you have much cheaper rent and taxes. Saving that much money would make it totally worth it to spend a few hours in a car everyday.
- alkonaut 10y ago
  Relaxing during a commute seems only marginally better than driving. What makes a difference is if you can work during the commute, so an entire 8h workday will be 2h commute and 6h work. In large metropolitan areas most people will end up spending what they can afford on housing, the choice is just between a 1h commute and large back yard and forest/beach within walking distance, versus the city with short commutes and shops/services within walking distance. You could live in a small flat in suburbia and save a ton, but it doesn't appear to be a popular choice.
  - Johnny555 10y ago
    If your company is ok with you working for an hour or two on the way in to the office, then why not just work at home for an extra 90 minutes until after peak commute hours and zip into the office when traffic is light? Or better, just stay home entirely. Many companies still don't embrace full-time telecommuting (including tech companies like Apple and Google that have unlimited technology resources to make it work), so it's going to take a big paradigm shift for those companies to accept that workers driving in are actually "working" before they get to the office. My company doesn't offer shuttle buses, but of the people I do know that ride tech shuttles, while they do tend to work on the shuttle, it's usually just catching up on emails before they get to the office to do the "real work", and 2 hours on the bus is not equivalent to 2 hours in the office.
    - tamana 10y ago
      Doing email isn't more productive just because you do it in the same place you do "real work" . And techie work is mostly laptop work anyway, the bus is like the proverbial coffee shop.
      - alkonaut 10y ago
        I'm probably about only about 75% as efficient on a laptop as I am with a proper keyboard and large screen. I don't trust developers who work full time on a laptop...
EliRivers 10y ago
I currently take the train. My door to door is the same as it would be if I drove, to within a few minutes. I choose to take the train because I can read, and so I can sometimes drink alcohol. I've been doing this for almost three years. In my previous job, taking the train was a longer journey door to door (40 minutes compared to about 25, or 18 minutes once when I wanted to see how fast I could do it and didn't care about jumping the grass embankment to get off the motorway at the motorway service station). I probably took the train about two-thirds of the time, and drove the remainder. Had that job for about four years. I am but one data point, but I see a lot of other people on the train doing the same thing.

ocb 10y ago

Additionally, plenty of people already commute long distances in relative comfort without having to drive themselves--it still sucks.

Houshalter 10y ago

I've gotten more than one response saying that, but I don't understand it. I would find it very enjoyable to read, play games, or sleep during a commute. There's not that much I can't do in a car, that I can do on my couch. Much more enjoyable than spending hours focusing on the road. If you move further out of the city, you have much cheaper rent and taxes. Saving that much money would make it totally worth it to spend a few hours in a car everyday.

alkonaut 10y ago
Relaxing during a commute seems only marginally better than driving. What makes a difference is if you can work during the commute, so an entire 8h workday will be 2h commute and 6h work. In large metropolitan areas most people will end up spending what they can afford on housing, the choice is just between a 1h commute and large back yard and forest/beach within walking distance, versus the city with short commutes and shops/services within walking distance. You could live in a small flat in suburbia and save a ton, but it doesn't appear to be a popular choice.
- Johnny555 10y ago
  If your company is ok with you working for an hour or two on the way in to the office, then why not just work at home for an extra 90 minutes until after peak commute hours and zip into the office when traffic is light? Or better, just stay home entirely. Many companies still don't embrace full-time telecommuting (including tech companies like Apple and Google that have unlimited technology resources to make it work), so it's going to take a big paradigm shift for those companies to accept that workers driving in are actually "working" before they get to the office. My company doesn't offer shuttle buses, but of the people I do know that ride tech shuttles, while they do tend to work on the shuttle, it's usually just catching up on emails before they get to the office to do the "real work", and 2 hours on the bus is not equivalent to 2 hours in the office.
  - tamana 10y ago
    Doing email isn't more productive just because you do it in the same place you do "real work" . And techie work is mostly laptop work anyway, the bus is like the proverbial coffee shop.
    - alkonaut 10y ago
      I'm probably about only about 75% as efficient on a laptop as I am with a proper keyboard and large screen. I don't trust developers who work full time on a laptop...

EliRivers 10y ago

I currently take the train. My door to door is the same as it would be if I drove, to within a few minutes. I choose to take the train because I can read, and so I can sometimes drink alcohol. I've been doing this for almost three years. In my previous job, taking the train was a longer journey door to door (40 minutes compared to about 25, or 18 minutes once when I wanted to see how fast I could do it and didn't care about jumping the grass embankment to get off the motorway at the motorway service station). I probably took the train about two-thirds of the time, and drove the remainder. Had that job for about four years. I am but one data point, but I see a lot of other people on the train doing the same thing.