OT: Commute Times

[Dutch]

How long does it take for you to commute to work? I'm just curious.

[RendeR]

I'm a stay at home dad, but Telle only commutes 15 minutes in bad traffic to work.

[Dutch]

Okay, that makes you lucky and me jealous.

[Joe]

40 min

[MJ4H]

51 minutes average.

EDIT:

I drive through several towns, mostly very small. My drive is right at 45 miles.

[gottimd]

45 minutes from the time I step out of my place til I sit down in my office. Most of my commute is on the DC Metro, I only drive for about 5 minutes of my commute.

[st.cronin]

I have to budget 45 minutes since moving outside Santa Fe, although most days it takes just under 30.

[wade moore]

To me when you talk about commute it is round trip, not one way... especially since trffic patterns can vary greatly between to/from..

anyway... I work from home and have for about 6 months or so... before that, I had about 2 1/2 hours round trip...

[Maple Leafs]

About half an hour, counting the Tim Hortons stop.

(Unless it rains, in which case -- nine hours. People in Ottawa aren't phased at all by ice and snow, but a few drops of rain and they go into panic mode.)

[wbatl1]

About 25 minutes one way...

[molson]

About 30 minutes each way.

I once did an hour and half each way when I lived on Staten Island (bus to the ferry, ferry to Manhattan, subway uptown).

[Eaglesfan27]

It's about 25 minutes each way on average. A good day I can do it in 20 minutes. Heavy traffic equates to about 30 minutes. However, every once in a while an accident on the I-10 can extend it up to 40 minutes (assuming I can get off I-10 and onto back roads reasonably soon.)

Anyway, I picked the 16-30 minutes since that is usually the case.

[VPI97]

Last year - 50 miles / 1:15-1:45 each way
This year - 17 miles / 20 - 30 min each way

Yay!

[MikeVick7]

I'm lucky enough to live only 2 miles away from work. That's the first time I've been this close in over 10 years.

[ScottVib]

good day (or not during rush hour) 15 minutes tops
bad day (accident+rush hour) 30 minutes

[Logan]

I put myself in the 46-60 min category, but it's hard to say since I don't work in the same location all the time. If I'm taking the bus into my office in NYC, its about 1:10. If I'm driving to my office in Metropark, its about 35 mins. But then I can be working at a bank for a month that's 20 mins away, and then another time I'll be going up to a place like MetLife in northern NJ which will take me about 50 mins (like this week and last). Then some other times I'll be 2-3 hours away, but that trip will only be out on Monday morning and home on Thursday afternoon, so it makes up for it. So, uhhh....46-60 mins sounds good.

[caspanky]

Takes me about 35 minutes to get to school or work, since they are across the street from one another. Pretty much the average commute i've had for the last few years. I think my longest was about an hour, and the shortest was 5 minutes.

[cthomer5000]

90-135 minutes each way.

[Passacaglia]

Just under half an hour on the el.

[Cringer]

10-11 hours with a 10 hour break in between trips. :)

[Lorena]

It used to take me about 10 minutes when I worked in Phoenix.

[Easy Mac]

5-7 minutes. In theory I could walk, but that would involve crossing this
http://www.cooperriverbridge.org/images/galleryimages/photo672-02.jpg

[kcchief19]

I'm about 30 miles from my office and can make it in 30 minutes in optimum conditions, which means outside of rush hour with no construction projects. I only have one stop light between me and my office, which helps. In the morning, it's usually 30-35 minutes, in the evening it's 35-40 minutes.

Rain isn't a problem, but snow is. You get a few flakes on the ground and suddently everyone acts like they've never seen it before. If it's snowing/freezing raind during my drive, minimum 90 minutes but it's taken me three hours at least a half dozen times.

[Desnudo]

15 miles, 45-60 minutes.

[Izulde]

About 10 minutes, though I could walk there in about 30-45 minutes.

[Izulde]

dola,

the 10 min, 30-45 min thing is for work.

For school, it takes 5 minutes walking tops to get from fraternity house to class, unless the weather's super nasty like a blizzard or something.

[sabotai]

20-25 minutes

[kingnebwsu]

22 minutes on average

[duckman]

25-40 minutes depending on how traffic flows through the construction area.

[Grammaticus]

About 30 minutes. Sometimes 45 coming home at rush hour.

[finketr]

it is a 20 minute drive in "bad traffic" or during the construction days.

[Icy]

Working at home, so 10 seconds from my bedroom to the office room, sometimes can be 20 seconds if the dog is walking between my legs.

[Greyroofoo]

I live and work on a military base, so about 2 minutes

[Cringer]

5-7 minutes. In theory I could walk, but that would involve crossing this
http://www.cooperriverbridge.org/images/galleryimages/photo672-02.jpg

You should swim. :)

[MrBug708]

Hour and a half if I take the 101/405 interchange when I start at 10

[Crapshoot]

For those you with the hour plus commutes- how do you manage that without going nuts ? I commuted from parts of Palo Alto to San Fran for two months for an internship, and the whole hour and a half routine felt like I was giving up most of my life.

[MJ4H]

Yeah that's crazy. My 50 minute commute is pretty irritating. And gas kills me, but I know some of those longer ones use public trans.

[KWhit]

Average 1:45 each way. I have to move closer to where I work. The commute is killing me.

[stevew]

Right now it's around 35 minutes, hopefully will move to 5 to 10 minutes soon.

[Logan]

Not trying to move this thread in another direction, but since there's a bunch of people who seem to work from home already in this thread, don't see a reason for a new thread...

Just wondering how those who work from home like it. Obviously, you have the normal benefits: no commute, ability to dress how you want, not having to deal with an office environment, stay home with the kids, etc. But how about the downside of how you're technically always in the office and might feel the need to work longer hours (even if some time during the day is spent doing some other things)? I remember reading an article not too long ago that polled people who were working from home and found them to more stressed and worked more hours. Thought some perspective would be interesting.

[wade moore]

Not trying to move this thread in another direction, but since there's a bunch of people who seem to work from home already in this thread, don't see a reason for a new thread...

Just wondering how those who work from home like it. Obviously, you have the normal benefits: no commute, ability to dress how you want, not having to deal with an office environment, stay home with the kids, etc. But how about the downside of how you're technically always in the office and might feel the need to work longer hours (even if some time during the day is spent doing some other things)? I remember reading an article not too long ago that polled people who were working from home and found them to more stressed and worked more hours. Thought some perspective would be interesting.

For me it is certainly not more stressful. Now granted, I want from a much higher stress job to a lower stress job in addition to moving to working from home.

That being said, I do not feel obligated to work more hours or anything like that. I'm very good at seperating that and not feeling some odd obligation. My life happiness is DRAMATICALLY higher than it was when I was in my car for 2 1/2-3 hours a day.

The biggest downside for me (that would apply to some and not others) is that I find myself getting stir crazy and cavin feverish not just because I'm in the house all of the time, but because I don't interact with people NEARLY as much. yes, I'm on con calls, e-mailing people, and talking via the office instant message system - but it is just not the same. I really miss the personal interaction with my co-workers that I had. On Monday morning you don't have anyone to come in and BS about the football games, etc, etc...

[Buccaneer]

In my 20+ years of working, mostly here, I've always managed to keep my commute to a minimum - around 10-15 minutes to go about 3-5 miles. I can't imagine doing long commutes which means less time to sleep and less time with my family.

[Easy Mac]

You should swim. :)

Actually, if I had a boat I could dock it at my place and ride it across the "river" (technically river, but it leads to the ocean) to my work and dock it there. But I'd have to dodge barges every day.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Just wondering how those who work from home like it. Obviously, you have the normal benefits: no commute, ability to dress how you want, not having to deal with an office environment, stay home with the kids, etc. But how about the downside of how you're technically always in the office and might feel the need to work longer hours (even if some time during the day is spent doing some other things)? I remember reading an article not too long ago that polled people who were working from home and found them to more stressed and worked more hours. Thought some perspective would be interesting.

For my .02, I'd say there's definitely several tradeoffs in it, just like you mentioned.

We're very much "always at work" and that's really quite a big negative at times. That said, however, that's also the nature of our business so I'm not sure that our total hours associated with work are significantly higher than they were before (especially if you consider that we spent roughly 3 hours a day total in the car to/from work).

In hindsight, one thing I would definitely recommend to those who find themselves working at/from home is to make a concerted effort to deliniate "work space" from "living space". That's something we didn't do, and it seems to increase the "always working" feel of everyday life.

On that last point, about the poll, I wonder if that accounted for working-for-yourself-from-home versus working-for-somebody-else-outside.
That could account for at least some of the differences noted in the results.

[nilodor]

It used to be 20 minutes on the bus but then they built a new LRT station, which diverted the bus route. Now it takes 40 minutes and the most frustrating part is I can drive there in ~7 minutes but parking is just too expensive.

[Groundhog]

Thanks to lousy traffic it takes me about 45-50 mins each way on the bus. With no traffic it's about 25 mins.

[wade moore]

For my .02, I'd say there's definitely several tradeoffs in it, just like you mentioned.

We're very much "always at work" and that's really quite a big negative at times. That said, however, that's also the nature of our business so I'm not sure that our total hours associated with work are significantly higher than they were before (especially if you consider that we spent roughly 3 hours a day total in the car to/from work).

In hindsight, one thing I would definitely recommend to those who find themselves working at/from home is to make a concerted effort to deliniate "work space" from "living space". That's something we didn't do, and it seems to increase the "always working" feel of everyday life.

On that last point, about the poll, I wonder if that accounted for working-for-yourself-from-home versus working-for-somebody-else-outside.
That could account for at least some of the differences noted in the results.

This seperating of work/home was something that JiMG recommended to me when I mentioned that I was going to start working from home.

Totally great advice. My work is the same place as my regular computer, but outside of that it is very much dedicated and away from my "home life". Including this being the only location that a phone for my work is located. So, when I'm done working (unless I'm using the computer) I'm totally away from anything work related - I think this makes a big difference.

[Easy Mac]

so you're saying you can look at pr0n at work and not get fired?

[finketr]

In hindsight, one thing I would definitely recommend to those who find themselves working at/from home is to make a concerted effort to deliniate "work space" from "living space". That's something we didn't do, and it seems to increase the "always working" feel of everyday life.

that is actually a requirement to regularly telecommute for my employer. You can take an afternoon, morning or day occassionally without a separate work space.

[Joe]

so you're saying you can look at pr0n at work and not get fired?

Icy can. Actually he would get fired if he didn't look at porn.

[Pumpy Tudors]

12 miles, 25 minutes (each way)

[Galaxy]

Do you actually like the commute if it's short enough? I've always found it to allow me some quiet time to unwind, listen to music, and driving is one of the few places where I can really think.

[fantastic flying froggies]

35 minutes in the morning when there's almost no-one on the road.

Anywhere from 45 to 75 minutes in the evening rush hour.

(so I voted the 46-60 min range, which should be the average...)

[Abe Sargent]

Takes me about 30 to 40 seconds to commute to my office in the residence hall from my apartment. It's tough, letme tell you.

[Ksyrup]

About half a CD (20-25 minutes).

[CamEdwards]

I've gone from about 5 minutes when I lived in Oklahoma City to 45 minutes living in the DC suburbs. Though now that I'm on from 9-midnight, my commute home only takes about 20 minutes.

[condors]

twice i have moved to walking distance from work, wish it was like that now, right now i lose 2 hours every day on the drive

[IMetLyleAlzado]

Takes me about 1 minute to walk downstairs to the office.

[timmae]

45-60 minutes... (1:30-2:00 round trip) which includes a 15 minute walk to the el stop and then a roughly 25 minute trip on the el to the loop with a 2 minute walk to work. I live about 6 miles away and can make it driving in about 45 minutes round trip (30 minute sin the morning and 15 at night). I much prefer public transportation when possible. Which ends up being about 3 days a week.

[st.cronin]

2 things which would be nice about working at home

1. Nobody throws away/steals your crossword before you're done with it.
2. The housekeeper won't dump your fresh pot of coffee down the sink.

[LloydLungs]

Not trying to move this thread in another direction, but since there's a bunch of people who seem to work from home already in this thread, don't see a reason for a new thread...

Just wondering how those who work from home like it. Obviously, you have the normal benefits: no commute, ability to dress how you want, not having to deal with an office environment, stay home with the kids, etc. But how about the downside of how you're technically always in the office and might feel the need to work longer hours (even if some time during the day is spent doing some other things)? I remember reading an article not too long ago that polled people who were working from home and found them to more stressed and worked more hours. Thought some perspective would be interesting.

I'm a contract worker who works from home. I only get paid for what I do, so often I will supplement the day's work with a little extra work in the wee hours and at odd times. But it's fine -- not much stress at all. I go for a run in mid afternoons and can watch day baseball while I work. I don't get paid much, but the quality of life points more than make up for that, not to mention the lack of using up gas on a daily commute. And I can freely move just about anywhere and take the job with me, which eliminates one huge stress factor of moving. The work itself is dull but I have very few complaints.

[Suburban Rhythm]

I went with 46-60 mins.

I take the bus, and actually am only about 9 miles from downtown. But, I am one of the first stops, so about 15 minutes of the 40 minute ride is spent in the residential area, pickin up other passangers. By the time we hit the roads into town, the ride is nearly half over. Then I have about a 5 minute walk or so from the nearest bus stop to my building.

All of that would be at like 6 am though, not 7 when I actually leave and hit way more traffic.

[Young Drachma]

I live in Wyoming and there is no commute. But I commute about 100 miles a day (50 miles each way) It's fine now, but when there is bad weather they will close the interstate between where I work and where I live.

I'll move eventually, but I like Laramie and I'm not fond of Cheyenne. I have co-workers who live in Colorado, but..I'm not sure if I can bring myself to pay state income taxes, all the while paying for higher gas and dealing with traffic. Plus, the temptation of "stuff" all around.

[Young Drachma]

I live in Wyoming and there is no commute. But I commute about 100 miles a day (50 miles each way) It's fine now, but when there is bad weather they will close the interstate between where I work and where I live.

I'll move eventually, but I like Laramie and I'm not fond of Cheyenne. I have co-workers who live in Colorado, but..I'm not sure if I can bring myself to pay state income taxes, all the while paying for higher gas and dealing with traffic. Plus, the temptation of "stuff" all around.

I meant there is no traffic, not no commute.

[Pumpy Tudors]

when dark cloud going to get back his edit button

[fantastic flying froggies]

when dark cloud going to get back his edit button

well played, sir! :)

[Poli]

It takes me 5 minutes to walk the hill. It would take less if I didn't need to get past a locked barbed wire fence. It would take even less if the friggin roads around here were paved.

[Honolulu Blue]

8 minutes by foot, 3-4 minutes by car.

[Marc Vaughan]

Mines around 45 mins - 1h30 on the train and then between 15-30 minutes once I'm in london itself .... its a bit of a pain, but I've been doing it for nearly a decade and have commuted all my life (even as a kid going to school) so I'm kind of used to it.

[Dutch]

My new commute (which prompted this thread) is 25 minutes one-way. 10 minutes through the countryside, 10 minutes on the autobahn, and 5 minutes in town.

[KevinNU7]

Do you actually like the commute if it's short enough? I've always found it to allow me some quiet time to unwind, listen to music, and driving is one of the few places where I can really think.
My ideal commute would be 1 minute in and 30 minutes out

[vex]

5 minutes.

[KevinNU7]

I wrote 45-60 but right now I mostly work from home. And when I do commute it can be anywhere from 45 to 90 minutes each way

[KevinNU7]

Dola,

Working from home is good and bad. The good is that I get to sleep later and start work earlier. The bad is that I am now home for the morning routine on my wife and son (7 months) and my wife expects me to help out for almost an hour every morning because I am "at home"

[finketr]

My ideal commute would be 1 minute in and 30 minutes out

Amen!

[Craptacular]

17 miles, and 22-25 minutes. It's about as far as I could take.