Mine’s 28 miles each way, but it’s mostly highway. Currently 9 stop lights enroute. Takes about 35-40 minutes.
My wife and I carpool together, and with the Firebug at home, this is the chance we get to talk and catch up with each other without interruption. So unless the weather’s crappy, no, we don’t dread the commute.
I don’t. It’s about 15 minutes in the morning, and about 20-25 in the afternoon (a shade less than 9 miles overall), and it’s pretty uneventful most mornings. I just listen to my favorite morning show, and otherwise relax while I drive in.
I used to take the light rail when I worked downtown. Pretty relaxing during the trip itself, but I found the waiting on the train to be fairly unpleasant for 2/3 of the year. During the winter, the mornings were often uncomfortably cold, and in the summer, the evening waiting was always uncomfortably hot. And there was always the usual concern of having to sit next to some unpleasant person (stinky homeless, obnoxious, flat-out weird), or not being able to sit at all.
The two saving graces of the light rail for me was that it was cheaper per month than paying gas and parking downtown, and it was predictable in a way that driving never even dreamed of. The train was scheduled to pick up at 7:43, and drop off at my final stop at 8:07, and it almost always was within 2-3 minutes of that at most, rain, shine, heat, cold, etc…
HA! I SAY HA! HA, I SAY!
My current commute is from Los Angeles to Philadelphia. For 20 years I have been a “road warrior” flying to my client sites for work. Often there is also a daily driven commute from the hotel to the office.
Do I dread my commute? You have no idea.
I live a mile away from my office and walk to work. Going to work is nice, because it’s all down a steep hill. Going home is less nice, especially on days like today, when it’s snowing. And in the summer, when going to and going from work leaves me a sweaty mess. But it’s good for me, good for the environment, and helps the parking shortage situation on campus.
That’s one of the reasons I live where I do – my rent is a little more expensive than I’d like to pay, but being within walking distance of the office is a huge benefit.
Not any more, since it’s just from the bedroom to the kitchen. However, whenever I’m taking a woodworking class, I dread the drive. During non-rush-hour times, the drive is about 15 minutes at most, less if you catch the lights. But the morning drive to get to the classes on time is at least 45 minutes. Even a week of that makes me homicidal and I can’t imagine having to commute into Portland from Vancouver or any other outlying area (and back) every day.
I have a 30 mile commute that seems like it has custom roads built just for me because it takes exactly 27 minutes door to door. It is all interstate highways except for the first and last mile and an easy cruise at 80 - 85 mph (hey, it’s still the outer Boston area; I have never been stopped going that slowly on those roads). I just settle in, point my SUV in the right direction and cruise until its over. I listen to a few different XM radio news stations and comedy on my way to work to get caught up.
It is a relaxing ritual and I would be extremely annoyed if it ever changes. The only things I don’t like about is that the miles on my vehicle really add up quickly (25,000 miles per year total) and I know that driving on high speed roads that frequently can be quite dangerous. I have seen many horrific wrecks on my route over the years and even had to save a man from one bad one that happened right in front of me.
No. I make other people dread it. 
I used to. Now I live a mile from my office. I either drive (most days, because work pays for parking and it’s often handy to have the car when I’m leaving in the evening) or take a bus or occasionally walk (though I don’t like breaking a sweat when I’m dressed up for work).
Of the three, driving is the biggest pain in the ass because going home, it often takes 15 minutes to cover that one mile (as opposed to five minutes in the morning). Some days, I’ll just leave the car at work and walk home.
6 miles, door to door. Takes about 12 minutes. No stress, and for the last few weeks I have wished it was a little longer. It’s the only time I get to listen to sports radio, which is fun these days (Go Hawks)
No dreading here. My daily work travel is straightforward. It takes about 20 minutes. I have a number of options to get to work: train, bus or ferry. Or a 45 minute walk if all those options fail, or I’m just feeling like the exercise.
I don’t especially dread it, but at least once a week someone does something so reckless that if I wasn’t paying full attention there would’ve been a real problem. So I’m always somewhat on edge and defensive. I’m talking cars that blow through stop signs and stop lights, cars going 20mph over the speed limit in residential areas with blind spots, people running in front of my car, cars cutting me off, cars driving well over the speed limit in inclement weather, cars tailgating me, cars with their lights off at night on unlighted highways, cars literally stopping in the middle of the highway because they almost missed their exit and they decide to make a right turn in front of me to get to it…
The list is near endless. And every week I get to think, “That asshole! If I hadn’t waited to see if he’d really stop at that stop sign he’d be t-boning me right now and I might be dead! FFFFUUUU—!!”
The commute’s only 23 minutes or so. I like commutes about that long as a way to get my brain ready for work. But not with drivers like these.
And this is going in the “good” direction. A few years ago I was going in the “bad” direction - every single day that highway had one to three wrecked or disabled cars on it and people still went 20 mph over the speed limit. Shoulders were rare. I once saw three cars on fire on that commute within six months, on three separate occasions.
It’s longer and more fragmented than I’d prefer- just over an hour, with a change of trains and a solid walk on either end. I’m much happier with a half hour commute
But it’s not particularly painful- I mostly read, relax, and catch up on emails, and the walk at lest keeps me active. I definitely don’t look forward to it and I wish I had that time for my family instead, but I don’t actively dislike it.
Motorcycle therapy. No radio, zen time as much as I can.
My commute is 1:15 each way, but I take a train and rarely have to drive. The nicest thing is that you’re allowed to bring alcohol on the train. In about 15 minutes we’ll be sipping on some whiskey! On the rare times I do have to drive, my Kesha CDs make the drive tolerable.
2 miles. 4 minutes. It takes me longer to de-ice the car than to get to work.
This is after 6 years of commuting (1:20 each way) on foot/ by train. I miss the opportunity to read, but not walking in the rain and wind.
I bike to work (and pretty much everywhere else), anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour depending on where I’m assigned any given day. It’s a bit uncomfortable in bad weather, of course, but on the other hand, I’m fitter now than I ever thought I’d be. Plus, of course, it’s really cheap.
Nope. 15 minutes with little traffic. I’m happy with it. It allows me to decompress after work a bit.
Besides, I don’t think I’d want too short of a commute. I don’t like the idea of living next door to work. I like living in the next town over.
I used to commute from Las Vegas to New York. Made the round trip about once a week. That was a PITA.
Nowadays I drive about 40 minutes at offpeak times or take the train if I have to go in during heavy traffic.
Drivers in Miami are insane. My usual comment is “There’s a cardio workout in every trip.” By which I mean an adrenaline-driven heart rate surge after some joker weaving through traffic at 100 mph causes some old lady going 40-ish to pull right in front of me going 70 like everybody else. Or while doing 75 you crest a rise to find a semi truck stopped 300 ft ahead. Something exciting happens every drive.
The train is very relaxing by comparison. Except it’s not real reliable and the boss gets all bent out of shape if we show up for work an hour late. Their idea is you should just leave 2 or 3 hours earlier than normally necessary and if nothing goes wrong, just wait until shift time to clock in.
Oddly enough, most of the train unreliability is caused by cars driving past the crossing gates and colliding with the train. It happens 2 or 3 times per week. These are full sized inter-city trains with real locomotives; not some wimpy streetcar thing. Bozos will still race them to the crossing or sit trapped in traffic athwart the tracks. Go Darwin!!
Bottom line: It’s always an adventure, but I don’t dread it. I have had easy commutes to *jobs *I dreaded. That was *much *worse.
Only because I know where it ends every morning.
No. 5 minutes if I hit every green light; 15 if I hit every red. It’s entirely unpredictable because the lights are stupid and uncoordinated and have 2-3 minute cycle times. But it’s not bad regardless.
I had a 45 minute commute once and it was utterly miserable. A company would have to offer a very significant pay increase to justify an increase in my current commute.