8 ms·

I blame my own personal loss of time partially on long commutes. Previously, I lived about ~8 minutes away from where I worked. Now I live about ~40 minutes (wh

I blame my own personal loss of time partially on long commutes. Previously, I lived about ~8 minutes away from where I worked. Now I live about ~40 minutes (which is only about 12 miles) from work. So, that works out to ~5.3 extra hours a week I lose sitting in my car. Or about 6.5 work weeks of time a year. With that time, I could be teaching the kids something, learning a new skill, exercising, working on my own projects, or just relaxing. Think about how much work you can get done in 6 weeks at work. That is what is being lost because I live in a state/city that puts infrastructure projects near the bottom of the priority list.

radicalbyte 12y ago
I've just quit a job that is 40mins driving for one which is 10mins drive or 20mins cycle. I'm going to cycle.
- anton-107 12y ago
  My office is 40mins cycling away - that's the best!
jzwinck 12y ago
> That is what is being lost because I live in a state/city that puts infrastructure projects near the bottom of the priority list. Isn't it rather because you choose to live 12 miles from work?
- sliverstorm 12y ago
  Well, you must make these choices in the context of your city, but 12 miles would not be a big deal with, for example, a subway or lightrail. Living right by work is optimal, but not always practical, so the runner-up of solid transit is a good alternative.
  - BerislavLopac 12y ago
    If more people were allowed (and enabled) to work from home, that would help mitigate that issue heavily.
  - rahimnathwani 12y ago
    > 12 miles would not be a big deal with, for example, a subway or lightrail That's not true at all. I'm from London, which has a pretty extensive subway system (we call it the tube). The only way you'll do a 12 mile* tube journey in 40 minutes in London is if you (i) live and work on the same subway line, and (ii) have <2 minutes' walk at each end. This is not true for 99% of people. Sure, you could build more tube stations at great expense, to reduce the walking time, but more stops means more time stopped, which means more time spent in the tube. I've lived in Beijing and Shanghai, and what I've written above, in reference to London, applies almost equally in those two cities. *When I say '12 mile' above, I'm talking about the equivalent journey by road, not the 'as the crow flies' distance between two points, nor the distance the tube train travels.
    - lmm 12y ago
      To give a concrete example, my commute in London is 5 miles and 50 minutes - 10 minutes' walk to the station, 25 mins on the train, and 15 minutes walking to work. (Cycling is a little quicker, but still in the 40 minute region).
      - ido 12y ago
        My commute in Berlin would have been 4.7 miles if done by car & takes me ~30-35 minutes by subway (including ~10 minutes walk), so a little bit better but not much. I would have liked going down to ~20 minutes but beyond that it's entering into diminishing returns territory & I'd much rather work fewer hours and/or from home instead.
    - mattmanser 12y ago
      The worst part of this as well is that my city, Nottingham, and also the whole of England, changed to a "spokes on a wheel" method of organising public transport. This is where they have all public transport go to a central hub, rather than organising around transport demands and having direct buses from residential to industrial areas or cross country trains. So you always have to go into a hub (city center in Nottingham, London in England), and then walk & wait around for a new bus/train (or tube from station to station in London). This significantly increases journey times to anywhere that's not the hub. Also the assholes charge £20 more for having the gall to go through London, even though that's precisely how they set the system up. So now to get to my home town I either have to get 4 trains outside of London, or 2 and a tube through London. It's more economical and profitable for the bus/train companies, but costs everyone not going to the central hub a lot of time.
- snarfy 12y ago
  More like he was priced out of living any closer to work.
afoot 12y ago
This is what regularly makes my 8-9 hour day a 12 hour one. People who live close to the office manage to cook nice meals, exercise, spend time with family etc all while I'm commuting. The most I manage is replying to a few emails and listening to podcasts while standing up on the train with carriage after carriage of commuters.
lordbusiness 12y ago
This right here is my strongest motivator for embracing remote working. Reclaiming these hours has been the single most liberating and uplifting thing I've done in the pursuit of the oft promoted but rarely implemented work-life balance.
simonh 12y ago
And you're falling into exactly the trap the article is talking about. Worrying about the cost of all that time spent in the car, when you could be thanking your lucky stars you have that extra time to yourself. My commute is 1 hour each way and it's wonderful. Having a busy job and 2 kids means I have a lot to do at work and at home, but those 2 hors a day are entirely my own. Mostly I listen to podcasts and audiobooks, but I also carry an iPad and read on that when I get a seat on the train. It's a great opportunity to listen to novels, history and science podcasts, comedy shows or read material I wouldn't get a chance to otherwise. Podcasts and audiobooks are perfect for car journeys too though.
- falcor84 12y ago
  Well, that's the difference between having a good public transport option and driving. I hope that it won't be too long until self-driving cars solve this problem.
  - Dewie 12y ago
    > Well, that's the difference between having a good public transport option and driving. Why? He listens to podcasts and audiobooks, something which can be done while driving.
    - pixl97 12y ago
      No. Not exactly. You cannot both focus on the radio and driving at the same time with the equal amount of attention that a person who is just listen to audio while passively riding. It is not possible. Driving is not just visual clues, it is audio. Are my tires making the correct noise? Am I being honked at? Is that a siren I hear? Does the feedback from the road tell me about any dangerous conditions the road my present? There were over 30,000 traffic deaths in 2012. Over 5,000,000 automobile accidents. Yes, listening to audio while driving can be enjoyable, but it is a secondary task to not dying or not killing someone else.
      - Dewie 12y ago
roel_v 12y ago
"That is what is being lost because I live in a state/city that puts infrastructure projects near the bottom of the priority list." I'm not belittling your problem or saying that it's your own fault or anything, and it's empirically true that that short commutes contribute significantly to QoL, but more or better infrastructure is not (should not be) the goal. The mantra (which has become the norm in transportation research, to a lesser degree in professional transportation planning circles and only to a small degree in policy circles) is 'we don't need better mobility, we need better accessibility'. To make this more concrete, you don't need better roads, you need better jobs close to your home. But you'll only get these once this becomes the common sentiment and people start voting with their feet. Because what you're doing now (take better job in exchange for worse commute) only makes the overall situation worse - more people competing for jobs in central locations, and/or people trading bigger houses further away for a longer commute. A lot of work is being started (in Europe, I know little details of efforts elsewhere but from the current literature it seems this is a global trend) on getting people to change their sentiments on transport and home/work location. It will take a number of years for the first effects to show of course. Just spatial planning policy interventions take 10 years to become active, let alone for their effects to be significant.
- johnchristopher 12y ago
  > A lot of work is being started (in Europe, I know little details of efforts elsewhere but from the current literature it seems this is a global trend) on getting people to change their sentiments on transport and home/work location. European here. Could you point to some ressources on that work being started in Europe ?
  - roel_v 12y ago
    Well when I mean 'work', I mean that in the research sense (since for me that's 'work' :) ), and what I see and hear on conferences and symposiums, so I don't have any easy links. There are some FP7 projects that worked on this (search e.g. the Urbact websites, the FP7 website under transportation and sustainability themes, the Interreg website under the respective themes etc) and there are also many calls in Horizon 2020 that cover these aspects. There were some calls in the past in ICT subjects with open submissions that were won by projects working on crowd-sourcing and serious gaming applications that also covered this subject. Furthermore (and again without having anything concrete at hand), there are regularly articles that cover aspects of this in the usual journals: European Journal of Transport and Infrastructure Research, Transportation, Transportation Journal, Transportation Science etc.
smu 12y ago
Depending on your personal situation and goals, cycling to work could be a solution. 12 miles works out to 20km, which for me would amount to less than an hour of cycling time with good equipment. As a bonus, you'll arrive home with an empty head and you'll already have exercised!
- seanmcdirmid 12y ago
  Depends if cycling is practical. Many places don't have the weather, topology, or traffic for it. It would frustrating and bad for my health (pollution) to cycle to work in my current city (beijing) while I did nothing but in my previous coy (Lausanne, even with the hills).
  - zhte415 12y ago
    I do not want to sound flippant, just really practical, as I'm also in China (not Beijing) but sometimes have a somewhat long commute. Would it be possible to have a conversation =to argue time in the taxi, with laptop open and on a mobile connection was morning emailing time, and get the taxi charged to the company if it is a regular thing. I just do shift based on core hours I need to be in the office, as does everyone in the company.
    - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
      My company doesn't reimburse taxi fare, I just see it as worth the cost. I do shift my hours to make it worse, but line 10 is so crowded during peak, I'd have to anyways.
eliben 12y ago
YMMV, but I find that audio-books and audio-courses are a superb way to make an otherwise boring commute more tolerable. I hate commuting as much as anyone, and thankfully my commute isn't long, but even then, it's much more fun "reading" a book while sitting in the car.
kirk21 12y ago
Buy audiobooks :)

radicalbyte 12y ago

I've just quit a job that is 40mins driving for one which is 10mins drive or 20mins cycle. I'm going to cycle.

anton-107 12y ago
My office is 40mins cycling away - that's the best!

jzwinck 12y ago

> That is what is being lost because I live in a state/city that puts infrastructure projects near the bottom of the priority list. Isn't it rather because you choose to live 12 miles from work?

sliverstorm 12y ago
Well, you must make these choices in the context of your city, but 12 miles would not be a big deal with, for example, a subway or lightrail. Living right by work is optimal, but not always practical, so the runner-up of solid transit is a good alternative.
- BerislavLopac 12y ago
  If more people were allowed (and enabled) to work from home, that would help mitigate that issue heavily.
- rahimnathwani 12y ago
  > 12 miles would not be a big deal with, for example, a subway or lightrail That's not true at all. I'm from London, which has a pretty extensive subway system (we call it the tube). The only way you'll do a 12 mile* tube journey in 40 minutes in London is if you (i) live and work on the same subway line, and (ii) have <2 minutes' walk at each end. This is not true for 99% of people. Sure, you could build more tube stations at great expense, to reduce the walking time, but more stops means more time stopped, which means more time spent in the tube. I've lived in Beijing and Shanghai, and what I've written above, in reference to London, applies almost equally in those two cities. *When I say '12 mile' above, I'm talking about the equivalent journey by road, not the 'as the crow flies' distance between two points, nor the distance the tube train travels.
  - lmm 12y ago
    To give a concrete example, my commute in London is 5 miles and 50 minutes - 10 minutes' walk to the station, 25 mins on the train, and 15 minutes walking to work. (Cycling is a little quicker, but still in the 40 minute region).
    - ido 12y ago
      My commute in Berlin would have been 4.7 miles if done by car & takes me ~30-35 minutes by subway (including ~10 minutes walk), so a little bit better but not much. I would have liked going down to ~20 minutes but beyond that it's entering into diminishing returns territory & I'd much rather work fewer hours and/or from home instead.
  - mattmanser 12y ago
    The worst part of this as well is that my city, Nottingham, and also the whole of England, changed to a "spokes on a wheel" method of organising public transport. This is where they have all public transport go to a central hub, rather than organising around transport demands and having direct buses from residential to industrial areas or cross country trains. So you always have to go into a hub (city center in Nottingham, London in England), and then walk & wait around for a new bus/train (or tube from station to station in London). This significantly increases journey times to anywhere that's not the hub. Also the assholes charge £20 more for having the gall to go through London, even though that's precisely how they set the system up. So now to get to my home town I either have to get 4 trains outside of London, or 2 and a tube through London. It's more economical and profitable for the bus/train companies, but costs everyone not going to the central hub a lot of time.
snarfy 12y ago
More like he was priced out of living any closer to work.

afoot 12y ago

This is what regularly makes my 8-9 hour day a 12 hour one. People who live close to the office manage to cook nice meals, exercise, spend time with family etc all while I'm commuting. The most I manage is replying to a few emails and listening to podcasts while standing up on the train with carriage after carriage of commuters.

lordbusiness 12y ago

This right here is my strongest motivator for embracing remote working. Reclaiming these hours has been the single most liberating and uplifting thing I've done in the pursuit of the oft promoted but rarely implemented work-life balance.

simonh 12y ago

And you're falling into exactly the trap the article is talking about. Worrying about the cost of all that time spent in the car, when you could be thanking your lucky stars you have that extra time to yourself. My commute is 1 hour each way and it's wonderful. Having a busy job and 2 kids means I have a lot to do at work and at home, but those 2 hors a day are entirely my own. Mostly I listen to podcasts and audiobooks, but I also carry an iPad and read on that when I get a seat on the train. It's a great opportunity to listen to novels, history and science podcasts, comedy shows or read material I wouldn't get a chance to otherwise. Podcasts and audiobooks are perfect for car journeys too though.

falcor84 12y ago
Well, that's the difference between having a good public transport option and driving. I hope that it won't be too long until self-driving cars solve this problem.
- Dewie 12y ago
  > Well, that's the difference between having a good public transport option and driving. Why? He listens to podcasts and audiobooks, something which can be done while driving.
  - pixl97 12y ago
    No. Not exactly. You cannot both focus on the radio and driving at the same time with the equal amount of attention that a person who is just listen to audio while passively riding. It is not possible. Driving is not just visual clues, it is audio. Are my tires making the correct noise? Am I being honked at? Is that a siren I hear? Does the feedback from the road tell me about any dangerous conditions the road my present? There were over 30,000 traffic deaths in 2012. Over 5,000,000 automobile accidents. Yes, listening to audio while driving can be enjoyable, but it is a secondary task to not dying or not killing someone else.
    - Dewie 12y ago

roel_v 12y ago

"That is what is being lost because I live in a state/city that puts infrastructure projects near the bottom of the priority list." I'm not belittling your problem or saying that it's your own fault or anything, and it's empirically true that that short commutes contribute significantly to QoL, but more or better infrastructure is not (should not be) the goal. The mantra (which has become the norm in transportation research, to a lesser degree in professional transportation planning circles and only to a small degree in policy circles) is 'we don't need better mobility, we need better accessibility'. To make this more concrete, you don't need better roads, you need better jobs close to your home. But you'll only get these once this becomes the common sentiment and people start voting with their feet. Because what you're doing now (take better job in exchange for worse commute) only makes the overall situation worse - more people competing for jobs in central locations, and/or people trading bigger houses further away for a longer commute. A lot of work is being started (in Europe, I know little details of efforts elsewhere but from the current literature it seems this is a global trend) on getting people to change their sentiments on transport and home/work location. It will take a number of years for the first effects to show of course. Just spatial planning policy interventions take 10 years to become active, let alone for their effects to be significant.

johnchristopher 12y ago
> A lot of work is being started (in Europe, I know little details of efforts elsewhere but from the current literature it seems this is a global trend) on getting people to change their sentiments on transport and home/work location. European here. Could you point to some ressources on that work being started in Europe ?
- roel_v 12y ago
  Well when I mean 'work', I mean that in the research sense (since for me that's 'work' :) ), and what I see and hear on conferences and symposiums, so I don't have any easy links. There are some FP7 projects that worked on this (search e.g. the Urbact websites, the FP7 website under transportation and sustainability themes, the Interreg website under the respective themes etc) and there are also many calls in Horizon 2020 that cover these aspects. There were some calls in the past in ICT subjects with open submissions that were won by projects working on crowd-sourcing and serious gaming applications that also covered this subject. Furthermore (and again without having anything concrete at hand), there are regularly articles that cover aspects of this in the usual journals: European Journal of Transport and Infrastructure Research, Transportation, Transportation Journal, Transportation Science etc.

smu 12y ago

Depending on your personal situation and goals, cycling to work could be a solution. 12 miles works out to 20km, which for me would amount to less than an hour of cycling time with good equipment. As a bonus, you'll arrive home with an empty head and you'll already have exercised!

seanmcdirmid 12y ago
Depends if cycling is practical. Many places don't have the weather, topology, or traffic for it. It would frustrating and bad for my health (pollution) to cycle to work in my current city (beijing) while I did nothing but in my previous coy (Lausanne, even with the hills).
- zhte415 12y ago
  I do not want to sound flippant, just really practical, as I'm also in China (not Beijing) but sometimes have a somewhat long commute. Would it be possible to have a conversation =to argue time in the taxi, with laptop open and on a mobile connection was morning emailing time, and get the taxi charged to the company if it is a regular thing. I just do shift based on core hours I need to be in the office, as does everyone in the company.
  - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
    My company doesn't reimburse taxi fare, I just see it as worth the cost. I do shift my hours to make it worse, but line 10 is so crowded during peak, I'd have to anyways.

eliben 12y ago

YMMV, but I find that audio-books and audio-courses are a superb way to make an otherwise boring commute more tolerable. I hate commuting as much as anyone, and thankfully my commute isn't long, but even then, it's much more fun "reading" a book while sitting in the car.

kirk21 12y ago

Buy audiobooks :)