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Extreme Commuting
- fredley 9y agoI must admit this is something I do not understand the appeal of. I have a 15 minute walk as my commute, and one of the things holding me in place right now is the inability to contemplate sacrificing this luxury. I used to do a ~40 minute commute, and I hated it - 1.5 hours of my day I considered wasted. I appreciate many of these extreme commuters can get some stuff done during their commute, but what's the point of having a nice place to live if it's quite so far away? I find it hard to see any benefit in these lifestyles over staying central Monday to Friday and commuting home for the weekends. You're not getting anything back by going home every night.
- ido 9y agoyou're getting to see your family, if you have one! Although I agree that if I was in such a situation I would do whatever I can to find another solution ASAP.
- fredley 9y agoAre you though? If you factor in 4 hours of commuting minimum on top of an 8 hour work day (generously low), plus 8 hours sleep, you end up with 4 hours of quality time as an absolute maximum. If you have young children, this time is unlikely to coincide with waking hours anyway!
- nsgi 9y agoHow does 2x40min add up to three hours?
- islanderfun 9y ago40min with good traffic?
- Dreami 9y agoMaybe he/she's having lunch at home
- dijit 9y agoPublic transport? I used to go to college less than 30 minutes drive away, but I did not have a license or money to drive (Europe) and public transport took 3h in real terms to do that journey. Sometimes it is not economical to have a car (lack of parking, excessive costs etc;)
- mikewhy 9y agoDo people really measure their commute time using a method of transportation they don't use?
- dijit 9y agoAmericans I've met have certainly done this. Americans tend to measure distance in "time" which doesn't work when you're dealing with alternative transport methods. For instance someone told me the Philadelphia is "just 3 hours away, so it can't be that far" when I asked him how long it took by train. (it took 5hours in the end)
- dsr_ 9y agoAmericans frequently cite long distances by time: the assumption is that you are taking a car and that the traffic is whatever they perceive as normal. For very long distances, this correlates to 50-60 miles per hour. For trips inside an urban area, it's rarely accurate to the nearest 10 minutes.
- TeMPOraL 9y agoWow, some pretty extreme disconnect. 30min of driving vs 3h of public transportation? What was the route? In European cities, I'm used to at most 2x the difference, and sometimes it's actually faster with the public transport, if you work in a city centre and go there with a tram (which mostly avoids traffic). Also, even if public transport takes ~2x the time of a drive, I still prefer it. That 1h / day in a car as a driver is completely wasted, while the 2h / day in a bus is something I can (and do) use to read books/articles, answer e-mails, etc. I try to schedule my day so that anything I can do on a bus I'll do on a bus.
- fredley 9y agoIt doesn't, I double doubled, instead of just doubled it. Thanks for pointing it out!
- dboreham 9y agoI don't think there is any appeal to it. More like 1. The well paying jobs are in places like Central London and NYC but 2. Housing in those places is unaffordable so you live in a more affordable place far away.
- matwood 9y agoMy current commute is 30 mins each way. It's right at my maximum, but I don't really mind it since I only go to the office a couple of times a week. Usually what I do on those days is plan to get other things done either on the way to work (there is a gym location 1/2 way) or on the way home (like grocery shop). The commute is also on two highways that run pretty well unless there is a wreck. I would rather a slightly longer commute with easy driving than a shorter one with horrible traffic.
- rb808 9y agoWait til you need to find a school for your kids. It changes everything.
- yardie 9y agoThis is one of the (few) great things about charter schools. They admit irrespective of location. As long as you are in the county, can find transport there, and they have space you are in. This is working out so well that even the public schools are doing it. I won't be sending our son to our local middle school. He'll commute with me and go to the school a few blocks from my office.
- Sleeep 9y agoI went to a below average school and turned out just fine so I'm not worried about my hypothetical children going to an average school. All that money you're spending on a three hour commute could probably hire a private tutor.
- overcast 9y agoLikewise, my commute from my home to the office, is approximately five minutes. I'm in Upstate New York. I see these salaries/lifestyles out West/Down State, and wonder if I ever made a mistake sticking around here. But for the amount of my life I've saved having zero commute times, I feel like it's justified. The ability to run home for lunch, take a nap, come back to the office, is just magical.
- ryandrake 9y agoI don't think there is an appeal. I would move 15 minutes to work _in a heartbeat_ if I could afford it. Starter homes near my job go for $1.2M+. The difference in housing costs between where I live and 15 minutes to work are about 10X the total cost of a car + all maintenance and gas. So I commute.
- sethammons 9y agoexactly. My house was 180k + 2hr commute. I could get a house for around 1M + 8min commute. We are talking about $4k/mo difference. If I commuted 5 days a week, you could look at that as $100/hr made by choosing to commute. I only commute 3 days a week, so it is more like $160/hr. And I get to work on the train for half my commute. It's not bad.
- hn_throwaway_99 9y ago> And I get to work on the train for half my commute. That's the thing that's key for me. I go nuts if I'm sitting behind the wheel in traffic for more than 20 minutes. I can easily do, for example, an hour each way on the commuter rail or shuttle. In fact, I feel it actually allows me to waste less time because I'll bookend emails and other communications in my day to my commute, and then while I'm at work I am able to focus better.
- throwawayNa2772 9y agoSounds to me like the Eastern seaboard needs some Shinkansen in its life.
- ido 9y agoand people in megacities like greater-NY need to accept not living in a detached home.
- mattl 9y agoShinkansen is known as the bullet train, for those unfamiliar with the term.
- isostatic 9y agoThe US prefers to spend money on real bullets.
- throwanem 9y agoElon Musk is making noises about a DC-NYC "hyperloop" with stops in Philly and here in Baltimore. Best of luck to him, I suppose - maybe in fifty years or so the Sprawl will be an actual thing.
- ghaff 9y agoThe Northeast Corridor is one of the few places in the US where density makes ambitious rail projects viable, at least on paper. Of course, that same density makes them extremely challenging to imagine actually building. Just the current tunnels into NYC are a real issue right now.
- ghaff 9y agoMost of what's discussed in that article has very little to do with the main Northeast Corridor Amtrak line. It would be nice if the Acela were faster and there are various improvements slated--it's pretty much at capacity for peak times. But the decision was made when it was originally built not to go for a complete greenfield high-speed rail. It actually works pretty well most of the time. You just can't really do daily commutes from NYC to DC.
- malux85 9y agoComing to London (From New Zealand) I was blown away at some of the extreme commutes I saw here, the worst was a guy who: Drove from his house to the closest town. Got a Bus to the train station. Trained into Central London. Took another train to the office. (The intermediate bus stop was required because parking was too expensive near the train station) It took him about 2.5 hours each way every day!
- albertgoeswoof 9y agosounds like someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing
- chrisseaton 9y agoMaybe it's the opposite. Maybe he knows the value of his family getting to live in the countryside with space and fresh air and is willing to pay the personal price himself to allow that.
- Boothroid 9y agoI think it's very sad that people have to sacrifice like that. What is the cost in human misery? Surely there is a better way?
- mattl 9y agoYeah, I had a friend who was taking the train from York to London every day and back. I think they may have stayed over on a Friday night, but even still... I always thought it was crazy, until I moved to the US where people will take a 90 minute subway train across a city.
- zimpenfish 9y agoI know someone who was doing New Forest to London every day and back. Basically about 6-7 hours of commuting daily.
- 9y ago
- awjr 9y agoI was contract working in London, commuting from Glastonbury and that was a good 2.5 hours+ each way. I moved to Bath and cut the commute to only 1.5 hours :D I was lucky. I had an innate ability to sleep anywhere. BUT my key requirement with any role is that I should not have to drive. Train + Cycle is my preference giving me time to work/relax and exercise/chill. Any contract where I end up driving 1hour each way just takes my edge off.
- nfriedly 9y agoI really love my 5-6 minute bicycle commute - it's short enough that I come home for lunch most days! I don't think I could take another job where I had to commute by car.
- dijit 9y agoI echo this sentiment. I came from London to Malmo, Sweden. I went from riding 30 minutes in horrible crazy traffic to 6 minutes along a quiet cycle path surrounded by trees. My commute in London was one of the "Luxury" ones (IE; I was in Zone 2 to the east and commuted to an "eastern central" part of the center.) (if you know London think: Bow -> Shoreditch) I paid through the nose for this "Luxury" "Central" commute. I can't imagine it being worse than that, but for most people it is. It's definitely something I have a strong consideration for now. Commuting is basically "unpaid work" time in my mind, it's time I could spend doing other things and I only commute for my work.
- akie 9y agoIn my opinion this guy has his priorities reversed, basically admitting he never sees his kid yet somehow finds it worth it (he comes home at midnight and gets up at 5am): “Our little guy goes to bed at 9 p.m., which is not so cool, but he loves the backyard and neighborhood, so it’s completely worth it.”
- celticninja 9y agoI assume its on the basis that he needs to work to support his wife and kid, by sacrificing his time he can give them a decent house and garden which they would otherwise be unable to afford. I'm not saying its the choice I would make but i understand his reasoning.
- mi100hael 9y agoI do not understand how a maximum of 5 hours of sleep per day on a long-term basis is sufficient. How has this guy not had a melt-down?
- Double_a_92 9y agoYou can sleep on the train. So it's at least +2 hours.
- Touche 9y agoNote that this does vary from person to person. I know people who can sleep anywhere but I personally find it very difficult to sleep sitting up. I pretty much never sleep on planes, for example, no matter how little sleep I've had or how long the flight is. So in this commuting situation I would try to sleep, but probably only be asleep for half the time and never get to the REM stage.
- scott00 9y agoSleep needs vary. I honestly believe 5 hours a day long term would kill me. But I have friends who voluntarily sleep that little.
- maxxxxx 9y agoI think self driving cars will make this even more viable. I bet you'll see people sleeping in their cars while doing commutes several hours long.
- adrianN 9y agoAt what point do you live in the car as opposed to the nice home that your commuting lifestyle affords you?
- edward 9y agoA commute of over two hours is very wrong. These people should find a job within biking distance of where they live. See http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/10/06/the-true-cost-of-commuting/ http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/10/06/the-true-cost-of-c...
- ghaff 9y agoI actually agree with your first sentence. At a minimum, it doesn't seem sustainable over any significant period without something giving. That said, there are reasonable places that are in-between living very near the office or commuting for two hours. Given that the link is mostly focused on the monetary aspect, let's think about it. For people who do not work from home, he is basically saying that 1.) the constraint probably can't be satisfied for a two income couple; 2.) if you own a home you will probably have to sell it every time you switch jobs--which doesn't seem very economically sound; and/or 3.) you will have to be very selective about switching jobs. I actually did have an extremely short commute for a long time but it went up to an IMO still reasonably sensible 25 minutes when I bought a house. I've kept the house through several job changes. The commute veered into the somewhat unreasonable range for a year or so but it's otherwise been well under an hour with an increasing amount of WFH and travel mixed in.
- staticelf 9y agoI have 15 minutes by car or 40 minutes by bike and I think that is far and I only commute on the days I do not work from home. I moved to a smaller city to get a more relaxed lifestyle and that is also what I've got. I used to have 40-50 minutes commute in a packed train and hated every second of it. Compared to taing the train or bus I love driving that 15 minutes to work. Just me and my dog, excited to being allowed to tag along.
- holydude 9y agoSometimes you do not have a choice. Or your only choice is to leave everything behind.
- SirLJ 9y agoWow, to think that my commute is less than 1 minute, a short walk to my home office... talking about quality of life...
- verri 9y agoDid you move to live near your workplace, or the other way around?
- majewsky 9y agoRead closely. > a short walk to my home office
- aequitas 9y agoThe question is still valid though.
- SirLJ 9y agoThe other way around. One day, few years ago, I told my boss, I am not going to the office anymore and since then I am working from home, except for 1 day in the month I am going onsite for a district person to person meeting = 30 minutes commute by car in one direction...
- isostatic 9y agoMy commute is far longer - takes longer than a minute to boil the kettle l, and I don't start the morning stand up without first sitting down with a cup of tea.
- SirLJ 9y agoYep the time will change for sure if we coun the detour to the kitchen for the espresso machine and after that to the "throne" room for a bit of self reflection and posting few articles to the HN...
- fhood 9y ago“Our little guy goes to bed at 9 p.m., which is not so cool, but he loves the backyard and neighborhood, so it’s completely worth it.” I somehow feel that having a backyard does not justify leaving before your child wakes up and returning after he goes to bed.
- usefulcat 9y agoSpeaking as a parent, I absolutely agree.
- hudibras 9y agoSpeaking as both a parent and a former child, I also agree.
- brudgers 9y agoI don't disagree that it sucks. On the other hand, if a person has a job where working is part of their commute then there may not really be a tradeoff...the hours on the train answering email and making calls and banging at the laptop could just be hours at the office if it's still a ten or twelve hour a day job.
- laumars 9y agoIt very much depends on how valuable your time with the kids is. How many days of holiday do you get and do you spend nearly all of the weekend playing with the kids? I only have a 45min commute and I still only get to spend around 1 to 2 hours with my kids during the week. Some days I'm too tired to even make best use of my time with them. I'm currently looking for a new job in London which will put my commute just shy of "extreme commuting" knowing I might not see much - if any - of my kids during the week. But I can live with that because of the opportunities it creates for our family and the most valuable time I spend with them is the days I don't work anyway.
- zanny 9y agoIt isn't about you, it is developmentally harmful to children to only ever see one of their parents. Even just seeing the father at breakfast and dinner for 10 minutes of chatting is magnitudes better. Even if your routine gives you extra days, the younger the children the more consistency is important. Having 3 days to see your children and 4 where you are missing from their lives can cause developmental complications even if it is done for noble causes.
- madamelic 9y agoI did this exact commute (Phillipsburg, NJ) to Port Authority for a few months when I first graduated college and was living with my to-be-in-laws. It was grueling and miserable. I would wake up at 5:30, stand outside in the cold at 6:45, arrive at PABT at 9 to be in at work by 9:30 - 10. Leave at 6:30 to be home by... 10:30 , eat cold dinner in bed then go to sleep to start all over. I broke down one day and couldn't do it anymore so I got an apartment in the city (It was harder than it sounds. Searching for a non-craphole place in a good area then throwing down like $6k just to get in. Yikes.) I don't understand people who do this as a lifestyle. It is miserable and you spend an inordinate amount of your life on a bus: Get a new job.
- Tade0 9y agoI looked at the map and at this rate you would easily run a brand new car to death every 5 years or so. Scary.
- madamelic 9y agoYeah, exactly. I can't imagine driving. I started taking my personal laptop with me and using my phone as a hotspot (because the bus WiFi is a joke). I would get stressed just looking at the traffic the bus had to endure, I can't imagine having to do that then work for 8 hours then do it over again (plus the cost of parking!)
- Touche 9y agoIt's too bad the hyperloop idea is focused on city->city transportation. It could be an incredible tool to combat the increasing cost of living in cities. Imagine living this far away but getting to work in 30 minutes. Housing prices would return to sanity in cities.
- tacostakohashi 9y agoNot just that, but in many ways a strange business decision. Traditionally, it's not uncommon for railways to build a line to the middle of nowhere where they own the land, then make their money developing and selling the land, rather than from fares.
- albertgoeswoof 9y agoThese commutes can look OK on paper, but there are so many points of failure. All it takes is 15 minutes oversleep, a missed your connection, a delayed train, failure to get a seat and you can have an entire morning or evening taken out and a boatload of stress with it.
- humanrebar 9y ago> [An extreme commuter] typically logs a 10- to 12-hour workday, returning home at close to midnight.... “Our little guy goes to bed at 9 p.m., which is not so cool, but he loves the backyard and neighborhood, so it’s completely worth it.” I'm not judging this guy, but I can't understand the mental math here. So much of parenting is just being there as life happens. Noticing when things are off. Giving impromptu love, advice, and correction. How do we make sure we're not just suffering from confirmation bias when we say these choices are a net win?
- LeifCarrotson 9y ago> So much of parenting is just being there as life happens. It's easy in our consumerist, materialist culture for parents to become confused about this concept, and emphasize making sure that the life that happens for your child is as good as possible by providing them with luxuries like backyards and designer clothes and buying them the best toys and tech and clubs and sports and vacations. And when you even dip your toe into this danger by spending a bit more than you budgeted for at Christmas or for a birthday, you can become trapped into keeping up with your new neigbors (who are probably playing the same game you are) and feel forced to maintain a front of being just a few percent more wealthy than you are. Not saying that it's smart, but it's happening all the time.
- matt_s 9y agoIs a backyard a luxury? I can't think of any kid that would prefer living in a concrete jungle vs having a back yard they go play in without having to plan a trip to a park. I'm with ya though on the keeping up with the Jones stuff.
- humanrebar 9y agoI didn't care about yards as a kid. I know kids so into organized activities that the yards are basically unused.
- TeMPOraL 9y agoI grew up in a city and didn't have a back yard. I never minded it. The cool thing about being a kid is that you don't have many expectations - you accept things you see as the way the world works.
- Touche 9y agoThis doesn't seem too fair to their spouses, who essentially are responsible for all weekday chores. Perhaps the commuters can do stuff like personal finances on the train... but that's basically it.
- humanrebar 9y agoThey're almost single parents when you think about it.
- LeifCarrotson 9y agoIf they're not in a dual-income situation, with the kids being taken care of by BAC and elementary school and the au pair. Living for the weekend...
- Touche 9y agoThat only solves one chore. There's general cleaning of the house, cooking, doing the dishes, laundry. Taking the dog to the vet, taking the car in for an oil change. Picking up the dry cleaning. I probably spend 2 hours every day after work doing various chores. You can solve this 1 of 2 ways. One is you outsource much of this; hire a maid, eat out every day, maybe someone to do your chores (what was that startup called?), hire a nanny, but once you do this are you really saving money by living outside of the city? The second is just push all chores onto the weekend. But damn. During the weekend you only use your house for sleeping and on the weekend you only have time to catch up on chores. Pretty much 0 relaxation / fun time.
- Coincoin 9y agoThey're almost single, yes, but they are not almost single parents. There is a big difference. The money the other parent brings home they would still need to earn it if they were single parents.
- humanrebar 9y agoSome extreme commuter spouses also have jobs. Some single parents get child support. But I did use the word "almost".
- raverbashing 9y agoLet me say it: It is not worth it Yes, having a big lawn, a big house, etc, are wonderful things to have. It is not worth it if you have to sacrifice so much personal time to be in a moving box for 2 or 3 hours per day It's worth even less if you're isolated and needs the car for pretty much any errand that you need to run Also cars need maintenance, bikes get stolen or they break down. Then what? Your Uber ride will be in the 3 digit range I guess Bonus question: what happens if you have an emergency at home and you need to be there. Especially at non-peak commuter times In sum: no
- phil21 9y agoAnd that's just looking at it from an individual rationality point of view. If you expand this lifestyle into it's externalities it's clearly a huge loss for everyone involved; with those participating in it only funding a tiny fraction of it's costs. Not only are these types of lifestyles by far the most subsidized in the US (not even a tiny fraction of suburbs are sustainable financially long-term), this lifestyle is actively destroying the social cohesion of the country. I think the lense of history will show the suburban development model to be laughably obviously not sustainable in a financial/energy sense of the word; but I think in the end those will be footnotes. The true destruction and externality is the divisiveness and social dysfunction. You cannot have the vast majority of your "best" middle class population sequester themselves into little boxes (house, car, cube, big box store and back again) with exceedingly little forced social interaction and not expect the outcomes we are seeing. Basically it's the balkanization of America, and done for almost the sole reason of propping up single family home values.
- humanrebar 9y agoI'd like to encourage employers and corporate leaders to consider whether they have sustainable salaries for their employees. Can employees raise a family while affording the requisite housing and commuting a reasonable amount? I'm not saying extreme commutes are the employers fault alone, but employers obviously do math when they locate their employees in Manhattan. Things that don't end up in the equation like commute times are paid by someone else, like employees. Flexible scheduling, remote work, satellite offices, etc. should be considered as part of being a responsible employer, not just a begrudged "perk" because it's too hard to keep good employees.
- ido 9y agoIMO there is no way around having to abandon the house+yard dream if you live in a big city. High density housing + efficient transit, or don't live in a megacity.
- ProblemFactory 9y ago"Sustainable salaries" won't fix this issue, as real estate is a competitive market. If you double the salaries of everyone who works in Manhattan, you will still have the same number of people living near work, just paying more rent. A salary increase only helps you move closer to work if other people don't get an increase and you can price them out. In the end, there are only three options: build more housing where people want to work and live (but it has to be high-rises, not houses with backyards), better remote work options, or better transport infrastructure.
- humanrebar 9y agoI'm saying employers contribute to the poor salary/rent ratio in cities, especially when we factor in commute times. They should acknowledge the problem and help solve it as a strategic priority. Working towards your list of ideas is a viable approach. Having core butts-in-seats hours that coincide with rush hour and not paying people enough to keep the commute down is not.
- 6d6b73 9y agoI also do a form of extreme commuting, but on the other side of the spectrum - I commute 1 mile (1.6km). I had to endure one hour long commute for a year, and it simply was not worth it.
- rb808 9y agoIf you can't understand why anyone would do this, here is the logic: * Most of the best & middling jobs in the region are in Manhattan * You can live in Manhattan but you can imagine its super expensive. Good for singles, yuppies and wealthy families. * The NYC suburbs/NJ across the river are a 30-60 commute, they are expensive too and largely apartments and small town houses. Public schools are often sub-optimal, traffic is bad, sometimes crime. * City Fringe - LI/Westchester/Northern NJ - 60-90 min commute (when trains/buses are running): big houses, lots beautiful suburbs, good schools, backyard, maybe close to beach. The American dream. Some places are affordable but still expensive. * Extreme Commutes - Much cheaper, wide variety of cities and towns, some great schools. Affordable for normal people. 2hr + commute for one of the parents Other points * in the 80s with high crime lots of firms moved out to the suburbs. This is now no longer in fashion as newer generations are happier to live in apartments and office parks are empty. * The geography of NY is tough with the Hudson River & harbor making access difficult, and suburbs more remote than say LA or London. * Other towns in the North East are struggling. Upstate NY, Connecticut, Southern NJ all suffer from shuttering firms, low employment and low wages so people will commute to get to NYC from those areas. * Trains and Buses are super slow, the final few miles into Manhattan are often stop/start. updated infrastructure will help a lot. Would also increase urban sprawl though. I chose to raise my kids in an apartment and avoid the commute. But I know they're missing out on a lot, maybe I'm selfish and the extreme commuters are the sensible ones.
- look_lookatme 9y agoVery well put. In addition some lifestyles are just easier to attain in these scenarios, such as making a enough to be the sole earner in the family and allowing your partner to stay at home and raise children (which keeps even more money in the bank). I can imagine being in this position and opting to extreme commute.
- hamstercat 9y agoI don't think having a big house or a yard trumps having more time with your parents (as a child).
- xzel 9y agoSome of this is responding to you but I think it got a little away from what I originally was going to say :) I agree Manhattan real estate can be crazy expensive but there are plenty more affordable apartments in Harlem, Brooklyn, Long Island and Queens. They are still expensive compared to the national average but I live in one of those areas and pay a third of what many of my friends do that live in UW/LW/UE/LE sides. From this article it seems the most important things to them are the space and schools they are able to get from moving outside of manhattan. Which is nice but certainly a personal preference. I value things to do over my commute so I actually live in NYC and do an hour to work outside of the city. Either way, what do you think they're missing out living in some place like Bethlehem? Most people move there because there is nothing there, and as someone who has spent some time, there really is nothing to do there. Most cities have parks, rec leagues etc. for kids to enjoy. Not having a yard won't deprive you kid of most activities besides not having to walk a few blocks to find somewhere to play.
- atonse 9y agoAll this tells me is that there's a huge untapped potential market for an increasingly remote workforce.
- blktiger 9y agoThis is why remote work is the future. Live wherever you want, spend 0 time commuting to work. Even if you have a modest 30 minute commute, you are losing 1 hour every day that you could be spending doing something else. BTW, my employer is 100% remote and is hiring. https://www.sonatype.com/careers-sonatype https://www.sonatype.com/careers-sonatype
- CycnuS 9y agoI did it for family and industry experience. For 2 years I commuted from central Virginia into DC. Would wake up at 0300, arrive in DC around 0500, go to the gym, then head into the office around 0700. This job was near 100% travel as well, so I would be in the DC office for a day, then another city for a day, etc... I calculated that each week I was only at my house from Saturday at 0100 - Monday at 0300. So, why did I do this? There are a number of reasons. 1) Money. Where I live in Virginia there are no information security jobs OR they pay 60K. The amount of money I was making allowed me to pay down debts and provide a nice lifestyle for my family. 2) Housing. If we were to live in DC, we could not afford a house, so we would be stuck in a 1300SF apartment. Nice if your single or have a significant other, not so much fun with a wife and twins. For the same price of this 1300SF apartment in DC I can afford a 4000SF house where I am currently at. 3) Industry experience. I knew that by working at this organization in DC it would legitimize me as a security professional - I would be able to get out when I needed to and find another info sec job. 4) Landscape. No offense to DC, but it is flat and ugly. I live in the Shenandoah valley - the scenery alone gives me great joy. I now work near 100% remote. I have to commute once every 6 weeks or so into our corporate office (about 4 1/2 hours away), but it allows me to be home for 5 weeks with the kids. Without the sacrifice earlier working out of DC, I would never have landed in the role I have now.
- bryanlarsen 9y agoSome of those people work on the train, and then spend 8 hours in the office. Madness. It could be palatable if you work for 2 hours on the train, 4 in the office and then 2 on the train again. Or you spend your 4 hour commute sleeping.
- Demoneeri 9y agoThis is crazy. We made the choice to live in the city. We have a townhouse with a 300-square-foot backyard, a 20-minute subway ride to the office or a 15-minute bike ride. Friends choose the suburb, have I don't know how many square feet backyard, a bigger house and a 1.5-hour car commute. I don't know how they do it plus all the time spending maintaining this big house and backyard.
- SmallDeadGuy 9y agoJust preference over how and where they live. I'd much, much rather have a far more enjoyable home life in a quieter countryside area even if my weekday time there is significantly less due to the commute. But I know friends that grew up in cities and are bored to death in the countryside. I can't wait to finally rent my own place in a small village when I move away from university in a couple of months.
- Demoneeri 9y agoYes and no, yes it's preference but urban sprawl is a real problem and every other people pay for the preference of having a large backyard away from the city.
- OhHeyItsE 9y agoWhich city? In NYC, a stand-alone townhouse in need of TLC with any outdoor space would probably start somewhere around $4-6 million (Manhattan). $2-3 Million in the outer boroughs (the ones that are up-and-coming, some of the gentrified neighborhoods are approaching Manhattan prices). All of those neighborhoods have poor public schools (yes, I know there are exceptions these days. But they are just that - exceptional. Not the norm). You would most likely have to send your child to private school. Minimum $20k/yr/child starting in kindergarten. Many push $40k/yr/child. In surrounding suburbs with top public schools and ~45min rail commutes, a well-kept ~2k sqft house would be around $700-800k. New construction with all the trimmings: $1m+. For many, this isn't really a "choice".
- Demoneeri 9y ago
- losteverything 9y agoCommutes change over time. Dictated by employment. I doubt anyone thinks they won't change employers over a work-life
- tmaly 9y agoI have a 45 min to 60 min commute one way to work each day. If I take Metro North it turns into a 2 hour commute. It really consumes a ton of time if you add it all up across the years.
- wernercd 9y agoI just ended a job that involved a 1:45 minute drive each direction... interesting to know that doesn't count as "Extreme" commuting since it wasn't 2:00+. It's not something I would do forever... but the experience was worth it and the pay was/is better than I get nearby. Nearby being the 140 acres of family farm land I'm lucky enough to live on.
- CurtMonash 9y agoThe earliest mention of this problem I can recall is in the 1948 movie Mr. Blanding Builds His Dream House. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Blandings_Builds_His_Dream_House https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Blandings_Builds_His_Dream... Admittedly, that wasn't the extreme form. Rather, they had misread the train schedule, and available trains ran at very inconvenient times.
- CurtMonash 9y agoAlso, it was a big deal when I visited Tokyo in 1979.
- enkay 9y agoReminds me of this: http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thisisthat/canadian-man-drives-1-944km-every-day-to-work-as-barista-1.3666285 http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thisisthat/canadian-man-drives-1-944...
- heydonovan 9y agoUsed to spend 40+ min in Austin traffic. I don't believe that people working in tech should have to commute, since all the work can be accomplished over the Internet. Yet, several friends of mine are not allowed to work from home (SysAdmins and Developers), and so have to endure the pain of commute for no reason.
- criddell 9y agoI live in Austin and sometimes commute via bicycle. When I do, it takes me about 40 minutes to get there. Enduring the pain of the commute is kind of the point. :)
- stevenwoo 9y agoI used to work in Austin about 20 years ago, what is the general start/end of your commute to work? Curious about how much things have changed.
- criddell 9y agoThe traffic does get bad, but it's very predictable. I drive through a few school zones and if I time it poorly, it takes probably 40 minutes for me drive. When I time it well (that is, leave early or late), half that. During the summer, 15 minutes. Everybody complains about the traffic, but it really isn't all that bad most of the time. I listen to a lot of podcasts and I enjoy my time in the car.
- roye 9y agoI wonder how driverless cars will effect this. Similarly I'm wondering if ride-sharing apps already are. Single cars picking up 4 adults that would otherwise be driving could potentially hugely reduce the number of cars on the road, making commutes shorter for all involved.
- sphix 9y agoAny reason to suspect it'll affect it more than Uber pool and Lyft line already have?
- tfinniga 9y agoThe first impact of self-driving cars will be much worse traffic. While ride-sharing and public transit are helpful, they are nowhere near as good as self-driving cars. If you had a self-driving car you'd be able to set up a truly productive or relaxing environment, which you're unable to fully replicate on public transit. For example, stick in a mattress with your favorite pillow, add a shower, have a desk with nice big monitors, a webcam to take video calls, etc. Aside from just being transportation, a car is also a bubble of quiet, cleanliness, and personal security. It is a mini house on wheels, a portable locker, and a refuge. And since you're not driving, who cares about the traffic?
- mathperson 9y agoEh I can't find citations right now because I am trying to be productive but modellers and people who study this argue that a lot of traffic is caused by sub-optimal driver behavior. Specifically issues with merging/ and phantom waves that build up and cause phantom jams. Accordingly people think the self driving cars will not be susceptible to this -> less traffic(?). I do not know I agree with these claims since I haven't looked at the math but I am not so sure self driving cars will lead to "much worse" traffic than human driven cars.
- Mankhool 9y agoLive close to where you work, or find employment close to where you want to live.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- danans 9y agoAs difficult as doing a 2hr+ commute is (I did it for years), at least the people featured in this article don't have to drive. NYC, as an old city whose structure predates the automobile, has a centralized business zone (Manhattan) with established and comprehensive public transit infrastructure (bus, rail, etc). Areas where transit systems were built as an afterthought, and where places of employment are sparsely distributed and far from transit hubs (i.e Silicon Valley), lead to situations where people have 1 hour commutes to travel little more than 10 miles in their cars.
- simonsquiff 9y agoI currently have a 2hr+ commute, one way (so 4hr+ a day) and surprisingly it's not a problem for me. Key is that you have to embrace the commute and not fight it. But some important factors make it possible for me: -it's by train, and the bulk of that (1hr 25) is a single train leg. It's far enough out that I'm guaranteed a seat every trip, and it's only really the final two stops where things fill up. Really it feels like my commute is the bit after that train. - that train journey is great: it's quality 'me time'. I can do some work, I can surf the web, I can play some games. Previously, on a 30 min commute, I'd get home and need unwind time on the sofa doing the same - no longer necessary now -home is properly amazing and a real escape. I live 2 mins walk from the sea and it's the opposite of London. Ie the destination feels worth it -many others in my office have similar or worse commutes (2.5 hrs is common, and the CEO has this length), so culturally no-one bats an eyelid at leaving the office whenever - I always leave the office at 5:20 to catch my train, and if I need to work I just do that on the train. So I'm never back particularly late -when things are busy that extra quiet time on the train in each direction is a god-send and can be super productive - I can walk to the station so no additional leg in the car, and hence no buffer needed for traffic etc. It basically feels like I'm still at a tube station just one further away - I work from home 1 or 2 days a week A few years ago I would have strongly said I'd never live a long commute away and always want a <30 min commute. I was wrong. With the right ingredients not just doable but weirdly enjoyable
- ryandrake 9y agoIn the same boat as you.. 2+hours, but about 1.5 of it is usually on a bus so it's bearable. That's my alone time. Phone goes to Do Not Disturb mode, put on some music, and relax. I thought I'd hate the commute but your comment is spot on: "With the right ingredients not just doable but weirdly enjoyable" Every once in a while I will drive the whole way and it's really not so bad. It sucks not seeing my kid during the week though. My home is not amazing, it's pretty bog standard, but then again it didn't cost me $1M+ so that's amazing. Home prices entirely drive this. When we were looking for a place to live, we basically plotted on a map "places we can afford" and picked the place the shortest distance from my work.
- kevstev 9y ago
- ChuckMcM 9y agoExtreme commuting has always fascinated me. I don't like to commute and so early in my life my wife and I worked very hard to get into a small 'starter house' in the middle of things. It was a good choice for me, given how much I don't like commuting. But a good friend of mine who worked at NetApp lived in Livermore which is 40 miles away in exchange for a bigger house and a larger lot, a lot of the reason that was 'ok' for them was the 'ace' commuter train(1). When I worked at Google there was a good friend of mine that lived in Marin county (about 75 miles away) and took the Google shuttle. What all of these things have in common is that for most of the commute if you aren't driving and can do 'productive' work, the time isn't really "wasted". And that kind of thing leads to all sorts of speculative questions; Like what if a town outside of New York invested in their own train that would take residents to downtown Manhattan? If you compare the sales tax and property tax revenue of those people with the cost of operating a small passenger service to Manhattan how does it compare? How about a bus service like Google does for its employees? At what point would it make sense to have a train that was the office? Given the price of real estate when does a company benefit from having a train that rolls in a loop amongst some number of cities and people get on and get off when the train returns to their city. Could you topologically arrange it so that a city was re-visited every 8 hours? How will self driving cars change this? Clearly a commute isn't as big a deal if the car is driving you (its your own commuter bus to work, but with all your stuff and you are in control of who rides with you). Should we be buying up property in the Exurbs in anticipation of the huge demand? What about 'driverless car roads' that go from the exurbs to major cities? It is a lot of fun to speculate about. [1] http://www.acerail.com/Home http://www.acerail.com/Home
- nugget 9y agoI'll do you one better: combine super comfortable van dwelling type vans, autonomous vehicles, and extreme commuting. Can I fall asleep in my van in my driveway 2 hours away from Manhattan but program it to start driving me in about 90 minutes before I wake up? And then perhaps take a nap again on the way home.
- Obi_Juan_Kenobi 9y agoOne thing I'm noticing in the article and the comments is the disconnect between daily commute hours and weekly commute hours. Both are high, but the weekly time seems to be holding much more steady as people work from home one or two days. So yes, you may commute for 4 hours a day, but only commuting 60% as often means you're in the ballpark of a 1 hour commute (each way). Average 'commute tolerance' isn't drastically changing.
- seanmcdirmid 9y agoFor my current job at HARC LA, I got an apartment two blocks from our office. This has worked out very well, I'm pretty spoiled now.
- sethammons 9y agoMy commute is about two hours each way (a bit longer in the afternoon), and about to get longer due to the office moving locations. I've commented on here before when super commuting came up. Since then, things have improved for me a lot. Why do I do it? I love living in the mountains. I'm in SoCal and I live with great views, bears, deer, mountain lions, raccoons, bird songs, summer time crickets in the evening, frog croaks, mountain biking, creeks, snow, rain, seasons, and nearly no light pollution. I'm raising my kids in the same house I grew up in around many of the neighbors I grew up with. I have dogs, cats, fish, and chickens, a nice garden, a large yard, and still have high speed internet. I get up at about 4:15am, commute about 30 minutes to the gym, workout for an hour, drive for 5 more minutes and hop on a train at 7am. I work on the train for a little under an hour. About 8am, I get off the train and walk for about 5 minutes to the office. This train ride is increasing about 20 minutes about 8 months from now. I leave the office and hop back on the train about 4pm, get off the train about 5pm (having worked while on the train most of the time), and walk in the door around 6pm. Getting home at 6? Yeah, not bad at all. Getting up at 4? Meh, I'm a morning person. With the new office move, I get to keep the same train schedule. I'll just be working more on the train. Oh, and I negotiated working from home two days a week. Previously, I was on a different train schedule and working form the office five days a week. I was out of the house from 6am to 7:30pm every day. Now things are sustainable and great.
- meddlepal 9y agoDo you have a family? Do you usually get eight hours of sleep?
- sethammons 9y agoYup. Wife and three kids. I tend to go to bed around 9pm. So usually around 7 hours of sleep. I still get up early on the days I don't commute to go to the gym.
- meddlepal 9y agoCool! Thanks for the reply. Awesome that you can make that work for you :)
- pilom 9y agoIf I ever founded a company, we'd be remote only from the start simply so that I wouldn't force people to do silly commutes. I would see any of my employees doing a 2 hour commute as a major failure on my part.
- wheezy_express 9y agoI currently have a 4 hour commute each way. On Monday morning, 15 min taxi from home to the airport (medium sized midwest city). 3 hour direct flight to LGA (incl. security and whatnot). 30 min taxi to the office in Manhattan. Stay in a hotel next to the office until Friday then fly back. I do this commute about 4 times per year. The rest of the time I work from home. It's great.
- isostatic 9y agoThat's not a commute, that's a business trip.
- emartinelli 9y agoI live in a neighbor city of São Paulo city, Brazil. I have a 2hrs+ commute , 4hrs+ a day. I take a train (~1hr), a subway(~30min) and another train(~30min), I work next to train station. The train use to be crowded with no seats to take. I try to make the travel as pleasant and productive as I can, I read news and books - almost finishing Uncle Bob's "Clean Code" -, listen to podcasts and music, watch movies etc.. I am SW developer in a big electronics vendor, we are not allowed to work from home, I lived some time in São Paulo during graduation and working full time, but it was expensive and lonely for me, I live with my parents and near of all my relatives now, but I am thinking to move back soon. We have no many jobs in my city, so even people that no have skilled jobs use to have long commutes.
- walshemj 9y ago2 hours is extreme? I live 60 miles (Bedford) or so from work in London and my commute is 1.5 hours and there are thousands of commuters do the same trip and there at are plenty who commute from further out on the same line.
- isostatic 9y ago10 years ago I knew guys who loved in eastern Kent who would spend 5 hours a day commuting. I'm a home worker now, but still have to go to London far too frequently. Getting from Cheshire to Euston isn't bad - leave home at 0820, 0841 train arrives Euston at 10.25. The next 30-50 minutes slogging it out to zone 2 is a pain though. Going the other way is where it all falls apart, as the train is only really hourly due to the connection. To guarentee making it it takes an hour to get the first 6 miles to Euston (I really should dust off the bike), 90 minutes for the next 160 miles to Crewe, then the last 5 miles can take all sorts of time. Now I think about it giving the Brompton a service would make this far more consistent, although for maybe once every 2 weeks doesn't seem worthwhile
- Sleeep 9y agoI am seriously baffled, I have some extended family in Newburgh, NY and I have no idea why this woman would commute two hours to live there. Not only is there absolutely nothing special about it (other than seeing the American Chopper cast in the grocery store) it's got a problem with crime [1][2] and is #5 on some random "10 worst places to live in New York State" list.[3] if you're just looking for "not Manhattan" you could do a lot better. [1]https://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/12/nyregion/12newburgh.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 https://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/12/nyregion/12newburgh.html?... [2] https://tcf.org/content/commentary/welcome-to-newburgh-murder-capital-of-new-york/ https://tcf.org/content/commentary/welcome-to-newburgh-murde... [3]https://www.roadsnacks.net/worst-places-to-live-in-new-york-state/ https://www.roadsnacks.net/worst-places-to-live-in-new-york-...
- bhartzer 9y agoWhen I was commuting, I would have done anything to sit on a bus or a train. Drove 89 miles door-to-door (each way) to the office, typically anywhere from 2-3 hours' commute. Waze helped, but could only really spend time making calls or listening to the radio or podcasts.
- bsaul 9y agoPeople in the valley, doing 2 hours commute, paying incredible fees for kids school, incredible rent : do everyone a favor and just leave this hell. This is more balsy than creating a startup, but also more disruptive. the only reason this situation exists is because people tolerate it, and perpetuate the vicious circle between companies going where people are, and people going where jobs are.
- rayiner 9y agoI was almost in extreme commuter territory--for two years, my wife and I commuted 1.5 hours each way in opposite directions from Baltimore (her to Delaware, me to D.C.). It was okay. The unpredictability of Amtrak bothered me more than the time. We then did a shorter commute for a bit (15 minutes Uber for me, 5 minute walk for my wife). But recently we traded it in again for a long, but very predictable (hour and ten minutes each way) commute from Annapolis to D.C. I don't really miss the short commute. My wife chat during the mostly-shared part of our commute, and the cab ride from union station lets me catch up on emails. On the upside, I don't have to live in D.C. or send my kid to school in the D.C. bubble.
- fundabulousrIII 9y agoNorthern Virginia. Used to commute to silver spring from lorton/woodbridge every morning via metro. Took about two hours each way depending on traffic. Then Arlington to Ashburn, that lasted about 6 months. Then Aberdeen MD to Fairfax Va, about a year. That was the worst. Now work from home. Maybe go into DC 2x weekly. This area is terrible for commutes.
- lawn 9y ago> It’s true, we are living the American dream, with deer running around in our yard, and bald eagles, too. Sounds like an American nightmare. Damn.
- chmaynard 9y agoI commuted to North Beach from Los Altos twice a week in 2013. Each round-trip commute took around four hours on public transit. I felt like an idiot. Yes, humans can adapt to almost anything, but why bother for a lousy job that can easily be done from home?
- carapace 9y agoMontreal to Brooklyn. Not as bad as it sounds: You walk a few blocks to the Metro station, take that downtown, walk to the train station. Take the train to Grand Central Terminal. Then the subway to a stop a few blocks from your destination. Total blocks walked about ten. The train ride was though some very beautiful country. Crossing the border took a while but wasn't onerous. No wi-fi at that time but if you had a good book or some offline work to be about it was great.
- lilbobbytables 9y agoCool! My commute is on here (Newburgh / Beacon, NY), although mine is a hair better. My commute usually ranges from 1:50 to 2 hours. I get up at 6:30, a 10 minute walk to the Beacon train station for the 7:08 train which brings me straight to Grand Central. I'm working from home right now, but I was literally always there first person into the office at about 9am. The fact that no car is involved and it's only one mode of transportation to get into the city is what makes the commute very easy for me. With my phone or iPad as a hotspot I can easy work, Reddit, or just play on my computer. Grab a book and now you've got some good dedicated reading time. To top it all off, you ride along the Hudson for the entire trip. At times I certainly didn't love it, but I found it surprisingly bearable.
- bane 9y agoIf only there were parts of Manhattan north of 110th and/or other boroughs nearby. More seriously, lots of the comments here talk about the closeness of relatives to help with kids and so on. And I get that. But for people not in that situation, I'm never quite clear on the protein folding level computation that seems to go into just finding where you want to live, and then moving linearly out along transit routes until you find a reasonable mix of cost and distance. Let's play a game, can I find homes (not Apartments) near NYC and SF for around $500k (a home a family making around $100k/yr can easily afford...that's two people with $50k/yr jobs) that are around 1 hr daily commute on public transit. Let's let the NYC round begin: [1] Yonkers, estimate is under $500k. Okay, that's a shitty commute to midtown, but I spent 30 seconds figuring out this life quandry. [2] a half hour shaved off the commute [3] if you don't mind other people's houses touching yours and can pay $50k more, daily commute under 1 hr on public transit Mission accomplished - total research time, 5 minutes. Now for the San Francisco round: [4] 30-40 minutes from this ~$500k property to the Castro in SF. [5] - I did this one absolutely blind. Just picked a spot on the map that was about an hour commute by public transport. <$549k. Mission accomplished - total research time, 3 minutes. The first guy in the article, I mean goodness, is there nothing he can do around where he lives so he and his wife can afford a $375k home? A combined income of <$65,000 can afford that house. They each need full-time jobs that pay around $15/hr to make that work. What the hell kind of chef job does he have if he's not breaking $30/hr in NYC? That's small restaurant manager pay. Here's an entire craigslist for their area full of jobs that pay what they need. [6] Now they can both see their kids. 1 - https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/110-Sweetfield-Cir-Yonkers,-New-York_rb/?fromHomePage=true&shouldFireSellPageImplicitClaimGA=false&fromHomePageTab=buy https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/110-Sweetfield-Cir-Yon... 2 - https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/house,mobile_type/2095535544_zpid/2-_baths/399958-899905_price/1475-3319_mp/globalrelevanceex_sort/40.730271,-73.731732,40.723847,-73.745572_rect/16_zm/ https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/house,mobile_type/2095... 3 - https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/house,mobile_type/30646417_zpid/2-_baths/399958-899905_price/1475-3319_mp/globalrelevanceex_sort/40.672676,-73.861712,40.666247,-73.875552_rect/16_zm/ https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/house,mobile_type/3064... 4 - https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/Oakland-CA/house,mobile_type/24779863_zpid/13072_rid/2-_baths/399958-899905_price/1475-3319_mp/globalrelevanceex_sort/37.803239,-122.16209,37.749645,-122.272811_rect/13_zm/ https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/Oakland-CA/house,mobil... 5 - https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/house,mobile_type/24962942_zpid/2-_baths/399958-549958_price/1475-2028_mp/globalrelevanceex_sort/37.744317,-122.012187,37.637004,-122.23363_rect/12_zm/ https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/house,mobile_type/2496... 6 - https://allentown.craigslist.org/search/fbh https://allentown.craigslist.org/search/fbh