Thanks guys. Your answers did shed some light on the mystery of thousands of cars on the highway going one way at 8:00am, while thousands of cars are going the other way.
Did anyone mention the “compromise location” reason? Two people, two jobs, two directions. Find a house in the middle!
Luckily when we moved here, the “middle” was Durham and we hadn’t met enough people from Raleigh and Chapel Hill to caution us against this wonderful city.
Living far from work greatly reduces the chance that your boss will call you at home to get you to come in “briefly” outside of normal business hours.
That’s the situation for Mrs. Giraffe and me. At 40 minutes, I have the longer commute both in terms of distance and time, but because it’s a reverse-commute every mile closer to my job would take about a minute off my commute and add 5-10 onto hers. We’re fairly lucky, actually. Both of our jobs are highly specialized, so we’re just happy to work in the same time zone.
30 minute (each way) commute for me… 40-45 minutes for the missus.
We chose our location to stay out of the city. Peace and quiet, house price, crime rate(s) .vs. gasoline… it was a no brainer. FWIW, this distance represents our decision to move closer about 12 years ago. Our first house was much, much further away (in another county).
Interestingly, I met someone who lives a loooong way from our town and commutes in a Cessna to work. He keeps a beater at the airport for the short drive to his office. One of my neighbors commutes* to Dallas in a helicopter (from his house). I want to commute like these people.
*Accurately, that should be past tense. I haven’t seen his helicopter in over a year. Don’t know why.
I currently have zero commute (unless you want to count “down the stairs, take a left”), but at my first-and-last Real Job, I had variously a 25-, 5- and 35-mile one-way commute. During the same period, Mr. S commuted 10, 35, and 50 miles.
The first two homes were rentals – first, the first city we lived in right after we got married, and the second was chosen to put me a little closer to work. Then we bought the house we live in now, which is actually on the property Mr. S grew up on, so we’re loath to just dump it. I remember when we first moved out here, we went to a party at a friend’s house in “The City” and our recent move came up. They said, “So I guess you’ll be getting a job out there then, huh?” Uh, no. There are no jobs out here. Plus we really don’t see the value in living right next to where you live – too easy to run into annoying co-workers, get asked to “just drop in for a few hours” on your day off, etc.
Plus, as someone has said, the job market is fickle. Why pull up and go through the whole real-estate rigmarole only to get transferred or downsized a few years later? There are several good-sized cities within 40 miles of us, and it’s worth the commute to have that choice and separation. So far, no job has been worth giving up our house and property, which is just starting to take shape after 12 years.
I drive about 40-45 minutes- from the edge of town to the one of the centers (we have a couple). I chose the neighborhood for the schools and trees and parks, etc., and the workplace because it’s a great company. The drive time is a nice transition from place to place for me, too.
My commute is about 50 minutes – not because I live particularly far from work, but because the (DC) Metro system has a lovely little red-lining scam (of running “express” buses to the Pentagon through the neighborhood and providing no local-bus connection to any of the nearby Metrorail stations).
I work for a company that does a lot of consulting (DC metro area) and you never really know where you’re going to be stationed from one month to another. You could have a 5 mile commute one year and a 30 mile commute the next year, without moving house, or changing jobs.
Personally I’d love a shorter commute (currently about 40 minutes to go 23 miles) but there’s no guarantee it’d stay short. And with the constantly-worsening traffic here, even the same distance can grow progressively worse over a year or two.
Basically though, even if you don’t consult and you know exactly where you’ll be working, the housing market is so insane that you have to either live in a tiny, close-in place, or commute mega-distances to find anything affordable.
I live close-in, in Arlington (Westover). My commute into DC is about 9 miles and takes about 15 minutes. I don’t have a big house or much land, but the location, schools and neighborhood are great. I’d rather peel off my face than sit on I-66, 95 or 270 a couple of hours a day.
I have about a 30 minute commute to work.
I changed jobs about 10 years ago and the commute was about 10 minutes.
I hated it. I hated the job for various reasons, but I found that I needed that 30 mintues to decompress my workday and get ready for being “Mom”. IOW, I could review the day in my head, and put it behind me within 30 minutes of mindless driving. I found with the closer job that I was bringing work home with me–ugh.
Hope that helps.
Mu husband now has a long commute each day–60 minutes. He is not happy, but since this job is probably temporary and we live in a great school district…he sucks it up.
I have about a 30 minute commute to work.
I changed jobs about 10 years ago and the commute was about 10 minutes.
I hated it. I hated the job for various reasons, but I found that I needed that 30 mintues to decompress my workday and get ready for being “Mom”. IOW, I could review the day in my head, and put it behind me within 30 minutes of mindless driving. I found with the closer job that I was bringing work home with me–ugh.
Hope that helps.
Mu husband now has a long commute each day–60 minutes. He is not happy, but since this job is probably temporary and we live in a great school district…he sucks it up.
oops-sorry about that.
Wanted to say also that I quit the closer job and went back to the old, longer commute.
Caller ID’s got to be a more economical solution to that problem. 
I have a commute of around an hour, which I sort of enjoy.
Possibly because I commute via train, therefore my commuting time is spent sitting in the air conditioned reasonable comfort of the train reading a book. 10 minutes on the subway, 45 minutes on the LIRR.
Gives me a chance to wind down after work - I bring less work stress home with me this way.
I live about six blocks from where I work, and I love it. I go home for lunch every day, which saves money. We’re about 20 miles from where my husband works, which around here means it takes him 20 minutes to get there.
I’ve got a 30 minute commute from our little town to where I work in the Big City (Well, actually I work in Madison, WI, so it’s more of a Li’l City). I really enjoy the morning commute – I sip my coffee while listening to the radio, I get to sort of ease my way into work mode, etc. The commute home is kind of a drag, though, because I just want to get home already.
We live about 20 miles outside of Madison because at the time we were looking for our first house, we couldn’t afford anything in the city. Heck, we couldn’t afford anything in any of the subburbs either. We’re a one income family, so we could only spend so much on housing.
Now that we’ve lived here for several years, I am really diggin’ the small town life. It’s quiet, my kids can run all over the place with the other neighborhood kids without us worrying too much about traffic, and there are great roads for cycling .
I’m about an hour each way from work. I chose that distance, partially to be midway between two facilities I was told I’d be working at (although I’ve ended up working only at the one), and because I didn’t want to live in the suburban nightmare that is the Inland Empire (just the name sounds creepy), or out in the middle of the desert. If I had my druthers, I’d move a bit further west, into Echo Park or Silver Lake, but that would be just a bit too much.
This isn’t my first 1 hour commute; I also commuted to St. Joseph, MO, and anyone whose ever been there can tell you why you’d choose not to live there (although there are a couple of decent areas). In Milwaukee, I was one of the few who commuted across the Bridge To Nowhere, which shortened my commute time from 1/2 hour to 12 minutes.
Stranger
My job, before I retired, was a 10-minute drive from here. My wife’s current job (which could fizzle out any day now) is in Carmel. In rush hour, it’s 50 minutes away. The closer you get to Indy from here, the more expensive the houses are. So, here we are.
I don’t commute as such as I really work out of my home, but have to make many client site visits all over the state. I frequeltly quazi-commute 2+ hrs each way. Fortunatly only 2 to 3 days /week on ave, but sometimes more.
I find it’s not bad commuting in areas w/o traffic, where I start out rush hour consists of seeing a car going the same direction as I am. As I approach city areas traffic picks up, but it is not a big deal. The only part that really gets me it the return trip when I am tired and just want to get home, but home is so far away.
It would be hard for me to be closer to work since I have no set place to go to. If I could I’m not sure I would as it would mean moving into a much more congested area.
If I had a set work place and ‘normal hours’ I would strongly consider moving closer, I know some people who commute via train 2h’s and 2h30m each day (5d/w) (again one way), and working normal hours. The get to the station starting in the 5-7AM range and get home in the 8 to 9 PM range assuming not having to stay late- and that’s just the train trip, not including the commute to the stattion, nor the commute from the station to work.