How Long is Your Drive/Commute to Work?

[Bikeage]

I work for a rental company that sets up events, catering, party equipment, etc all over the midwest, so my "commute" can range between across town or an eight hour drive.

[aaron]

we have a really nice downtown bike infrastructure (here's a nice article on it if you're interested)

That video makes me want to live in Indianapolis.

that's what it's designed to do!

[Ivo]

The worst I've had was about 1 hour each way, by car or bus, and that sucked. Although I tried to make the best of it.

Since I've started working, my longest commute was about 30 min each way by light rail. That is reasonably short and even then I didn't like it much (but I did try to make up for the lost time by playing on a DS Lite when I could get a seat - but it is still far from ideal).

Currently, about 5 min by bicycle

I may have mentioned this on this site before, but I'm *really* fond of having a short commute. To me it translates directly into quality of life. I happily would choose a worse house that is closer to work over a better one that is far (all else being equal, and within reason of course).

I find it hard to understand people that choose to live in a really nice house with a beautiful view and then have to commute 2 hours each way to work (for example). During the week they basically end up not spending any time at home, I'm not sure having a nicer place is worth it for the weekend alone - in the weekend you would have enough time to go to the beach/mountains and get the view anyway, with much less traffic / public on the transports.

[fastbilly1]

Ivo, for many folks it is the difference in owning a house and renting an apartment.

[KalessinDB]

3.7 miles. Takes me about 12 minutes from the time I'm locking my house door to the time I'm pulling out my badge to get in the door at work. It's pretty awesome.

[Jagosaurus]

Ivo, for many folks it is the difference in owning a house and renting an apartment.

Exactly. The house we're building is 30 miles from downtown. A house half the size would cost almost double inside the loop in Houston. Essentially 25¢ on the dollar per sq ft for a 45 min commute. No brainer for me.

I say this with the caveat that even with a house in the loop in Houston, you're still driving. Spread out city with no bike infrastructure & the metro is awful. Loft near your work, way over price town homes, or to the suburbs here (& likely many other big cities).

[Xeogred]

10 minutes tops. Nice backroads, roundabouts and such. Topped off with driving a Civic that's awesome on gas... it's definitely a nice perk.

[darsparx]

10-15, on a good day, on a bad day 20....

(now if you wanted to talk about retro game stores that's a different story because all of those are on the opposite side of the big city I live next too)

[Ivo]

Ivo, for many folks it is the difference in owning a house and renting an apartment.

I understand that sometimes you don't actually have a choice.
And things are different e.g. for people with kids (or wanting to have them in the near future) who have a more pressing need for extra space.
We aren't all the same, people have different preferences and that is fine. I respect that, I just don't understand it very well.

I generally prefer to rent/own an apartment than renting/owning a house for the same price if that meant 5 min commute each way instead of 1 hour commutes each way (compare rent to rent and own to own).
It would be nice to have extra room(s), e.g. a dedicated room for hobbies and such, but I don't want that at the "cost" of 100 minutes mostly wasted in a commute each weekday.

At the end of the week you have 500 minutes at home, and at the end of the year you have over 20000 minutes at home (over 300 extra hours, which you could use for example to see between 150 to 200 movies or something else - even for people with kids, spending that much more time with them has to also be worth weighing against the extra space).

And that isn't even discussing the extra commuting costs in fuel or other transport costs (if you are renting, you could fold into the "effective rent" if you want to make the comparison directly, but if you own the house it isn't straightforward).
You can try to make the most of it of course... If you at least can go by light rail/train and don't need to change, you can make some use of the time reading or on a handheld. If you need to drive and are able to arrange carpooling, the same applies.

[Jagosaurus]

@ Ivo, understand where you're coming from. Interesting discussion. Also, two huge points:

- School districts: no way my future kids (none now) will go to Houston ISD. Avoiding that inner city environment for them is huge for me.

- Apartment buying: not a common model in the southern States. Very few ppl buy (or sell) apartments/ condos in Texas. More common up in NY, etc.



Also depends on job: as I said earlier, I drive more now but work WAY less hours so I netted nearly 24 hours in free time when I doubled my drive