My commute to work is 20 miles but, because I leave at 5:30 am and am going away from the city, it is usually pretty good, but it has never been PERFECT until this morning. From the time I pulled out onto my residential street until the time I pulled up at school, I hit all 16 traffic lights on the green without having to stop. I never fell below 80 MPH on the interstate, and I zipped right through my Dunkin Donuts because, believe it or not, there wasn’t a single car in front of me. I made that commute in 22 minutes which, mind you, includes my brief tour of Dunkin Donuts.
Even though I don’t smoke, I have the strange desire for a cigarette.
When we drive back home from town, we pass through a sequence of 7 traffic lights and 2 pedestrian crossings. Hitting them all on green is termed “Crossing the Red Sea”.
We have done in the past, but not recently. They modified one of the junctions and I think that affected the sequencing of the lights. Still, it’s oddly exciting as you pass green, green, green… and then a howl of anguish as one stays stubbornly red.
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ETA @glee - when I was self employed my commute was across the landing from bedroom to office.
In the Before Times, when I could ride my bike to work, a perfect commute was clipping-in at the start and being able to ride non-stop to the destination without having to clip-out. The route was about 12 miles and did include a couple of long stretches on bike trails, plus maybe a half-dozen or so stop lights. I do remember getting it perfect a couple-three times.
One year when I was in grad school, a friend and I rented an apartment that was about a 3-minute walk from the building where my office was.
Of course, ever since Covid, my commute has been from the living room or kitchen to the guest room where my desk is. That 20 feet or so usually goes pretty smoothly, unless I’m intercepted by a cat that wants some play time.
Ha! I’ve just traded in that commute (working from home) to a hybrid remote position that’s 42 miles away. It’s an ideal situation for many, but I was going batty. I much prefer in-person meetings to Teams meetings, and getting out of the house feels good once I get over the initial hump of having to put clothes on.
I work from home now, so my commute is up ten stairs to the loft over our bedroom. That’s my office now.
Previously I drove 45 minutes to work. Two lane mountain highway over the continental divide at 11,500 feet. Make no mistake, it could be absolutely brutal in winter. Four wheel drive locked in the entire way.
But mostly, it was a gorgeous drive with little or no traffic.
COVID changed a lot of things. Now I work from home which is wonderful. But now the roads seem more crowded with many people taking short little vacations up to the mountains. And these idiots can’t drive.
Had to go from Lawn Guyland to Newark, NJ for work / event one Moanday morning. Oh great, thru NYC & tunnel traffic during rush hour.
I was SAILING right along. Finally dawned on me it was a holiday (Columbus Day?) & lots of people were off work/school. Got there MUCH earlier than expected.
I remember one time getting from pulling out of the parking spot at home to pulling into the garage at work in 8 minutes. I was overly excited by this. Nowadays, I live about 3.5 miles from the office and I can have a 10-minute commute or a 25-minute commute. All depends on if I get a quick left turn onto a busy road, a specific tourist-crossing light being red, and most importantly, getting stuck behind a person in no rush in their life.
Where I live, that would be 15mph over the posted limit. And 15 mph under the speed of freeway traffic mid-day. At 5am it’d be 20+ mph under the speed of freeway traffic. Tastes vary around the USA.
My own commute is about 3 miles and 10 traffic lights from home to the freeway on-ramp, then pure freeway from there where the offramp dumps directly into a toll gate to enter a parking structure. Once in awhile I make all 10 lights and it’s amazingly satisfying.
My front door to toll gate time varies between 38 minutes at 4am (at mumble mumble mph) to 2 hours if it touches the morning or evening rush.
