Today, while biking in to work, I had to cut across the car wash parking lot because construction had the street blocked off. Total time lost: 4 seconds out of a 2 minute ride. :mad:
I live a living hell, as I’m sure y’all understand.
Actually, that sounds like a zipper merge (not the on the shoulder part, but the waiting until the lane ends part) and is more efficient and safer than merging a half mile before the lane ends. The way it is supposed to be done is drivers should use both lanes until the lane ends and then take turns merging. I have a place on my commute home where the merge lane ends and when people do it correctly and don’t merge too early traffic moves much more smoothly.
I hate my fellow drivers, about 80% of whom shouldn’t even be allowed Hot Wheels. I hate their cell phones, for G-d forbid they should be out of contact with their 3.1 children for even a nanosecond. I hate the friggin’ potholes; I hate the temporary patches with iron plates that have sharp corners; I hate the trains that chug by at about 1 mm/sec. I hate the people on the roads with 45 mph limits who crawl along at 35. I hate minivans, and stinky landscaping trucks that never have to pass emissions tests. I hate diesels. I hate old men in hats driving GM boats that rolled off the line when Reagan was president. I hate wayward yout’s with boom cars. I hate Harleys.
Most of all, I hate the 1.5 hours I spend daily in their presence.
Ee-yahhhhhhh!
^^ speaking of emissions…OMG that is the biggest money scam ever.
state government: “OH you just bought a brand new,fuel efficient, top of the line low emissions vehicle?? well now you’re gonna have to bring it to this little station every 2 years or every year and we’ll hook up a cool little machine to it, take your money then tell you that you’re vehicle is still within the limits of ‘low emissions’ and send you on your merry way. We’re going to ignore the people who are driving cars from 1985 with black smoke crawling out of their tailpipe though…”
27 miles. 40 minutes.
It’s not bad, really. I work in Fairborn, OH, but still get to live in a very rural area.
I used commute from Providence to Boston, but it never really bothered me much. There was a lot of traffic, but it was frigging flying. Rush hour in the Twin Cities is much worse. Traffic always comes to a stop on the highway. It doesnt help that people here have no clue how to enter and exit a highway.
I love my commute now, from my bedroom to the coffee maker.
Today I used my GPS and it said to avoid the Pike because of traffic, and it took me a route I’ve never taken before. I nearly got lost (made a wrong turn and had to U-turn back) and still don’t exactly understand how I got here, but I made it to work on time. It still took 1:15 though, so I’m not totally convinced it was faster than the turnpike.
My only rant is that I have to take a very circular route to work everyday. My commute is exactly 20 miles and takes about 40-45 minutes in good weather. It would only take half as much time if there was a direct route but none exists. I have to take narrow, winding roads in various states of disrepair through cranberry bogs and a state forest just to get to the town I work in. Then its more narrow, winding, decrepit residential roads until I’m about 3/4 of a mile from work. Its the shortest route, other ways go along main roads but would increase travel time by 15 minutes or more. My only saving grace is that I travel very early. I’m on the road from 3:45 to 4:30 a.m. and if I see more than four cars I consider it to be heavy traffic. It’s kind of nice in a way. I get to relax and drink my coffee at a lesiurely pace while listening to jazz on the radio and sometimes I see deer and turkeys in the forest. If it snows, all bets are off. Its taken up to two hours in the snow and I’ve gotten stuck a few times because the plows aren’t out that early. I just got rid of my Lincoln in favor of a Subaru to make this winter’s commute easier (I hope).
I give you credit for even attempting the drive Opal Cat. I do not have the emotional fortitude to deal with rush hour traffic near Boston, or even in the general direction of Boston. I’ve tried it and will never do that again. I’ll take my pre-dawn drive through the forest (only half of which can truly qualify as paved) over Rt. 3 into the city anyday.
my 20 minutes just became two hours (although improving) because the Interstate 64 bridge over the Ohio River in Louisville was just abruptly closed (last Friday during rush hour). It’s been total hell around here for people who work in Indiana and work in Louisville…http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20110914/EXTRAS18/309140078/Sherman-Minton-repair-could-take-3-months-2-years-longer?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|Home
sigh
I have to slog my ass all the way to the El, 1 block, then go 5 whole stops while checking email and Facebook and the Dope, then walk another block and a half to get to work.
sigh
I don’t know how I manage. Sometimes it’s rainy. Once I got really wet. Sometimes it’s snowy. I had to battle drifts in the blizzard in February. Probably the most harrowing experience getting home.
I so do not miss having to drive to get to work!
My commute: I get up, take a shower, go downstairs, feed the cats, give myself insulin and take pills, have breakfast, then come back upstairs to work.
I used to have a commute that went 20 miles due East and 20 miles due South in the Morning and 20 miles due west in the afternoon. Opposite ways in the afternoon. It meant I was staring into the sun or the sun was perpendicular to me left eye each way
I will say the the 40 mile commute took almost exactly 40 minutes. No traffic whatsoever and I could have gone a year without taking the same route due to all the roads in the area going N/S and E/W. Some roads were better than others, but when there happened to be construction, there was alternate route.
I handle our three largest clients. Two out of the three require most of my attention. One is a university campus and the other a major insurance company. I can see the bell tower of the campus and the top of the headquarters building of the insurance company from my bedroom window. the University is about ten minutes from here and the insurance company is twenty.
My commute is not too bad for DC, about 30-40 minutes, almost all of it through the city, but there are two places where it just gets stupid. In both those places, there is often/almost always a cop running radar. He’s basically there to make sure you don’t drive through the neighborhood like an idiot.
But some people see a cop and think, oh my God, I have to drive 15 mph under the speed limit! I notice it’s the people who really drive like douches the rest of the time who wayyy over compensate when they see a cop. All you have to do is drive the speed limit, it’s not that hard.
How does this happen? Forty minutes turning into an hour or an hour and a half frequently and unpredictable seems entirely possible- a disabled car can cause a 20 minute delay.But I can only see a 40 minute commute turning into a three hour commute under very unusual circumstances. It’s happened to me a few times - but in every case I knew exactly why it happened and knew it would be bad before I got on the road. It’s been three times in over 20 years.
I’ll jump on your party. I’m hated in my office because I live 2.9 miles from home. No matter the weather, the traffic or any other thing I’m only about 5 - 10 minutes from work. It’s been a life changing event so much that any future job would be under serious consideration and scrutiny if it weren’t close by or didn’t offer good telecommuting options.
These are not rants! :mad:
Okay, I have two new ones from this week.
Setting: Washington, DC Metro (subway train).
There are certain unwritten, but generally agreed-upon, rules of the Metro. The trains tend to stop with their doors in predictable places, but it’s not an exact science. If you are waiting on the front of the platform and a train stops with its door right beside you, people can disembark from the train and you are perfectly positioned to enter the door once they have left. If, however, the door stops right in front of you, you will have to move to the side or backward to get out of the way of passengers exiting.
So yesterday I am standing on the (crowded) platform with people on my immediate right and left. I believe I am aligned correctly for the door – it’s always nice to be the first one on, when seats are at a premium – but I am prepared for the train to stop in a slightly different position, in which case I will NOT get to be first on. It’s something of a lottery.
The train stops in the exactly right place for me – the door is JUST to my right. That means the man standing to my right is directly in front of the door, blocking passengers. He gathers himself, and steps firmly out of their way – INTO ME.
I am, frankly, not surprised. I have my feet planted, so he fails to shove me aside, take my spot, and get to be first. He turns toward me, irritated, and says, “EXCUSE ME.”
“It’s fine,” I reply cheerfully, as he AGAIN steps into me and tries to displace me. This fails. Evidently he didn’t mean “please excuse me, I have erred,” but “excuse me, I demand you yield.”
By now the doors are opening, and unless he wants to brave the human wave about to pour forth, he must step BACK – there’s no one behind him – and to the side, thus ceding first place to me. He does so, lowering his head a bit, and mutters, “Dick.”
Okay, that’s it for my cheerfulness. But I’m not enraged. I turned around and, with everyone around us watching, I say clearly, “What part of this situation led you to think shoving me aside was acceptable?” He does not reply, just stares at me. So I repeated myself: “What made you think it was okay to push someone to get the spot you wanted?”
I wasn’t being rhetorical – I really do wonder what this sort of pinhead is thinking, and I was prepared to listen to whatever defense he might mount of his apparent plan to get in the door first if the train stopped in the right place for him, or if it stopped in the right place for any neighbor he could overpower. (Believe me, I understand wanting to take a step to line up with the door, and I’ll do it myself – but obviously not if there’s someone standing there.)
But he just looked down in silence, and as the traffic had now exited the train, I got on so everyone else could.
The second incident (from this morning) was less outrageous, but kind of funny. When the train is almost full, I sometimes deliberately sit in the seats reserved for the handicapped/elderly, because that way I can guarantee one is available if a needy person boards (mine, which I will give up). I did so this morning.
After only a few stops, a woman with a cane gets on. As she enters, she points her cane at the “Reserved for handicapped/elderly” sign above the seats and asks loudly, “Will someone give me one of these seats?” I am standing up before she finishes asking, and I let her have my seat. She thanks me, and sits down under the sign, and then takes a long swig from her oversized aluminum coffee cup. She continues to drink from it during her entire ride.
The OTHER sign over her head says “Absolutely NO eating/drinking.”
I wasn’t mad, but I thought it was deeply ironic that she was clearly prepared to enforce one rule to exercise her rights and totally ignore the other rule because it was inconvenient.
.
My commute is a half-hour, door-to-door. A short walk to the metro station, quick hop across the Potomac, then another short walk (aboveground or underground, depending on the weather and my mood) and I’m at work. Along the way, I can grab a donut if I like.
Wait - this was supposed to be a rant? And not brag? Well, um -
Stand on the right, people, and walk on the left! It isn’t hard!
Starting in the middle of next month, my commute for two days a week will be:
1.) Wake up.
2.) Walk to window, pet cat.
3.) Make tea. Lapsang souchong, steeped seven minutes (insanely long, I know), brown sugar. Toast with strawberry jam.
4.) Carry tea and toast to sofa.
5.) Open laptop.
6.) Hurray! I’m at work!