But spending 90 minutes reading or sleeping at a bus stop (or at Starbucks or in the break room at work) is not the same thing as spending that 90 minutes sleeping or reading at home. It’s still tied up in the work day - and probably in less than comfortable surroundings.
And, the OP says the time keeps going up - what happens when it’s no longer just 90 minutes? Presumably the experience of reading and sleeping at a cold/wet bus stop or in a loud coffee shop or break room starts to wear thin eventually. If it’s enjoyable at 90 minutes, is it still fun at two hours? Three?
But the OP doesnt save 90 minutes–he is LOSING a full hour.
He used to get to the the park’n’ride after 8:00. Now he has to get there by 7:10, and it is getting worse.
Real convenient.
That’s why I drive every day thru the traffic jams. I would have to leave the house a half hour earlier every day to catch the train. And I’m sitting in the privacy (and cleanliness) of my own car. Plus,while in the traffic jam, I can read the newspaper at the red lights.
Different people like different things. When I commuted every day in the car, I arrived at work pent-up stressed and unhappy. When someone else did the driving, and I could enjoy the time, I came to work (and got home) in a much better frame of mind.
There are other factors at play as well…part of that time, I was a new parent of twins…the 90 minutes on the Bus/Light rail were the only times during the day that were completely mine.
Some times I could go from a warm garage to a warm garage in my car and that was neat…especially when it was snowing it’s ass off. But it bugged me I was paying $140 a month for the privilege of parking downtown.
As a motorcyclist, this scares the crap out of me. Your inattention may well be the reason I’m killed. But that deserves a whole nother thread.
I would much rather be 100% involved in the act of going from point A to point B…or 0% involved in it.
I can also say I have to leave earlier and earlier each morning to get that free motorcycle space, so it’s not JUST rapid transit that people adjust their schedules to. I also adjusted my driving schedule because leaving 15 minutes earlier meant a 25 minute reduction in drive time as I beat the crowd.
When I changed from working full time in the office to remotely 4 days a week I also switched from taking transit downtown to driving.
It’s only one day I thought. It’s such a hassle waiting in the cold and rain for the train, driving is much more convenient. I was crazy. Starting next week I’m going back to transit for my own day in the office. Between parking and toll charges it costs me more to commute than take transit even without considering fuel and wear and tear but that’s not the driver. The fact that I arrive at work and at home enraged at least half the time is the driver. People are insane and I have way less patience with horrible drivers than I used to. As a special bonus I’ll get to read more
I’ll tell one story. But first let me say that I have never, ever commuted to my office by car. On the other hand, I have chosen to live less that 1/2 mile from a commuter train station.
One day during a very heavy snowstorm, me dept. chair asked me how I was getting home. I told him that I would take the train as usual. “What train?” he said. Now he was at the time in his late 50s, born and raised in Montreal and except for four or five years getting a PhD at Cal Tech, had lived his entire life here. He lived about 3/4 mile from a stop on the train. He had no idea the train existed. It has started operation in 1919, probably about when he was born and he was unaware of its existence. Although he had only about a half hour commute and parking in those days was relatively cheap (something like a couple hundred a year, now it is north of $1000) he later discovered that he got to his office in a much more relaxed and cheerful state when he took the train, which he started to do regularly.
I understand that there are economic and traffic concerns that make mass transit appealing. But this thread isn’t about whether a long commute is better on a bus or in a car. From what people like Leaper and zoid are saying, the hour or 90 minutes isn’t even spent in transit - it’s spent killing time either waiting for transit or waiting to work after taking transit. That’s all on top of whatever time is spent on the bus or train.
It just sounds like at some point, it must stop being worth it. At some point it starts to feel like your life revolves around working and commuting to work. If that point isn’t at 90 minutes or two hours, where is it?
You do what you have to do to get to work. I think my longest commute involved:
4 a.m. Alarm goes off
4:30 a.m. I catch bus in NW Portland to downtown Portland
5 a.m. Bus arrives
5 a.m. to about 5:30’ish Wait for another bus
5:30’ish Get on bus to Beaverton
6:20’ish Bus arrives in Beaverton
Get on another bus right away, arrive at bus stop closest to work with a 5-10 minute walk
To start work at 7.
So, 5 hours a day commute for a minimum wage job, whee!
You do what you have to do.
Edit: We had a car at the time, but my then-fiancee worked elsewhere and it was easier for me to take the bus, believe it or not, then it would have been for him to. Portland’s got great transportation but that doesn’t mean it’s fast, lol.
If I’d driven to work it would have still been at least 2 hours of commuting a day, plus gas and wear/tear instead of just a bus pass. Not even gonna think about parking.
I guess, you do what you have to do. But there must be a point where it stops being worth the sacrifice. For you, that point would have been longer than five hours. But surely there would have been a commute time that would have made you say, “Fuck this shit - I’m driving/changing jobs/moving/something else!” I mean, people still need to sleep, eat, spend time with their families, goof off. It can’t all revolve around the workday … can it?
Okay, why the HELL are the park and rides significantly emptier on Fridays? I decided to check them out today, because that’s the day I usually drive into the city (my usual reason, game night, is cancelled, but I decided to visit someplace else in the area anyway). I take a look at the two local bus-based park and rides. Nice and empty. TOO empty, actually; the one by my usual route to my usual park and ride seems a lot emptier than when I drive by it usually. So I ask someone who’s waiting for the bus before she drops off her husband, and she told me the truth I’d feared: my visit is skewed, and thus the info I got probably worthless.
I can see Fridays before holidays and such having significantly fewer people at the park and rides, but EVERY Friday?
Some people, when confronted with your “have to get there earlier to get a spot” dilemma, instead of moving their working hours from 9-5 to 7-3 or something, work 7-5 M-T and take fridays off (IE 4-10s). Enough that combined with the usual rotating cast of people who take off Friday to make a 3 day weekend, you get less traffic and less people parked.
Mmm? Taking public transit cuts ten minutes off my commute (which is 20 minutes), increases reliability of my arrival time, saves thousands of dollars, and gives me time to read the newspaper en route.
It seems to me that the problem here is that the OP lives a good distance from a subway station, which can sometimes be the worst of both worlds.
Yeah, my apartment is in a spot of suburbia ill-served by public transit (which is why the P&Rs that are nearby are so crowded, I think, and why they were the first ones I visited earlier). It was great back when I had my first major job, which was a heavenly ten minute commute, but not for any of my jobs lately.
I think maybe I should give some serious thought to moving over the course of the next year.
We don’t know how far the OP lives from the park-and-ride or how long the commute is. We do know that the OP uses a popular park-and-ride. The popularity of this stop has added at least 50 minutes to their daily commute.
Sure, this could still be worthwhile - driving could still take longer than the combined bus and wait time. But the wait time keeps getting longer and longer. At some point, doesn’t this negatively impact the OP’s quality of life?
Thanks to me forgetting to set my alarm last night, I decided to visit one of the nearby park and rides, this time at around 8 after waking up an hour later than I usually do. Lo and behold, sufficient parking! I got on a bus and went to work as usual.
Unfortunately, said P&R is known for not servicing (or not being in) the… best neighborhood, and I’ve seen at least one online comment warning to be careful at night - which, of course, is when I’d be getting home. Then, of course, there’s the whole iPad thing. Oh, and my commute is 20 minutes longer on the bus, for obvious reasons.
I’m kind of torn. On one hand, an hour later! OTOH, all of the above.
You don’t have to commit yourself to anything - you could give the other P&R a try for a few days and see how comfortable you are there in the evenings.
True. However, I have a feeling I’d always be a little on edge. OTOH, a local friend pointed out that I’m basing this on one guy’s opinion on the Internet, and possibly on personal stereotypes.
I moved my commute a few stops to a “less desirable” neighborhood and it totally paid off.
I was a little nervous but after a couple weeks I realized no one was gonna jump me and I was really a victim of my own bias. I’ll admit there is more crime in the area but I keep my head up and I make sure I’m aware and no one has ever given me the least bit of trouble.
This happened quite a bit in parts of the San Francisco area, except that people were using the subway parking lots in the suburbs as park-and-rides for carpools.
There’s a fix for that; they started numbering the parking spots, and when you enter the “paid” area, you enter your parking spot number into a machine - at some point, the machine spits out a list of the “unoccupied” spaces, and if any of them have cars, they get parking tickets.
Leaper, I’m not sure where you are, but you might want to check around and see if there are commuter buses in your area. These are different from the usual mass transit buses in that they are coach buses that only run during rush hour. I know in the DC metro area these bus services have their own free parking lots and service the suburban areas beyond the reach of the transit system. The cost is in the middle of using the train and driving/parking.
I only WISH I could take public transport to work. I live the Bay Area, and, according to Google Maps, work 10.4 miles from home. I can take the freeway and get here in 15-20 minutes, against traffic. On VTA? 1 hour 25 minutes, three buses and walking through some sketchy neighbourhoods. And that’s only if I need to get to work at peak hour - I sometimes need to arrive very early (e.g., tomorrow, at 7:15AM) which would involve an even longer trip.
I used to bike to work (elsewhere), which was 7.5 miles. Not so bad in summer. There’s less good biking options to this job, though.
I was recently thinking about applying for a new job in Oakland. Then I went to a conference in Oakland, and took BART to get there. Not applying any more. Some people are willing to make a commute like that, but I’m not.
