Have you been exposed much to the alternative to car commuting? I used to live in New Orleans, and commuted 45 minutes each direction by car, usually without tr

Have you been exposed much to the alternative to car commuting? I used to live in New Orleans, and commuted 45 minutes each direction by car, usually without traffic. I moved to San Francisco and commuted 40 minutes by bus, each direction. The difference in experience of these two commutes is something you truly need to experience for yourself. On public transportation, you don't have to be engaged with the road. You can read. You can text with people on your phone. You can watch a TV show. You can get caught up on emails, or slack messages you need to handle. Commuting in general sucks, but not having to have your mind fully engaged on a specific (and frankly boring) task the entire time is an amazingly freeing experience. Now I live in Tokyo and mostly work from home. The commuting experience here (for most routes) is even better. It's fast, comfortable, highly accessible and extremely quiet. I'm eventually moving back to the experience, but to be honest I'm a bit worried about my reverse culture shock when I have to downgrade my transportation experience. I absolutely hate driving everywhere when I go back to visit my family. It's dangerous. It's expensive. I have to figure out where to park, worry about damage to the car, stay sober, and not be sleepy. Driving is in most ways a worse experience than using public transportation.