I am looking to hear from people who had a long commute to work or school. I’m looking at a possible 80 mile one-way commute for school, and hoping others will share their stories of suffering long commutes on a daily basis. Would especially like to hear from people who had to drive, as opposed to using public transportation.
And, how long did it last? Months? Years?
115 km or 72 miles. It took almost an hour and a half door to door. I only did it for three months. It had city driving at either end, highway in the middle. I did it from December of last year until the end of February of this year. Worst winter ever for driving. I would have to make a lot more money to do it again. It made long days even longer.
Previous to that, I did about half that for four years. It was ok. I liked having the time to unwind at the end of the day and gear up for the day in the morning.
I am currently driving 69kms, it takes about 45 minutes, but I am in a carpool with two good friends, so it is not bad at all.
47 miles, from San Dimas, CA to El Segundo, CA.
But it took 2.5 hours, each way, on a good day.
About six months.
I had a 45 mi/each way commute for a little over two years. It took about 70 mins to get to work and at least 90 to get home.
The roughest part was leaving early and getting home late. Most of my memories of those two years occurred on the way to or from work or in the office. I wouldn’t do it again if I could avoid it.
13000 miles. Texas to the Falkland Islands via London. Do I win?
I used to commute about 50 miles. In good conditions it took me 45 minutes; in bad it could take 2 hours. No rush-hour traffic, rural highway all the way, but with blizzards, fog and thousands of suicidal white-tail deer (my commute home was in the wee hours), good conditions only occurred about half the time. I hung in for about 2 years, but only because it was a particularly good job.
A hour and a half, if I had a connecting train there. if not, it could had take up to two hours.
When I worked in Northern VA, the employee with the longest daily commute was from Abingdon, MD to Dulles, VA. 87 miles each way via I-95, I-495, & Dulles Toll Road. He had to leave his home by 4:30 am to beat the traffic.
I currently commute about 43 miles each way, which takes me between 45 minutes and 1.5 hours, depending on traffic, weather, and what time I leave the house. I may see my commute time diminish a bit when we start a half hour earlier next week, but it might not get better for the drive home. So far, it’s not unbearable, but it’s not going to be a “forever” commute, as we’ll either move halfway between my job and my SO’s or the SO will find another job that pays as well and frustrates him to the same degree or less in a closer location to my job.
45 miles. Most of the time I carpooled with friends. We met at the carpool lot at 5:45AM. If anyone was late, we agreed to leave by 6AM. If we were any later than that it would add 20-30 minutes to the drive. It was about 15 minute drive to the carpool lot, so the whole thing was about 1 hour ahead of traffic, or 1-1/2 hours if we got in the thick of it.
Occassionally I would drive myself as I would work late or stay in town for the evening. The drive ended up being long and tedious because of the bad traffic.
I did this for about 18 months until a co-worker was moving out of her leased condo and I took it over. The new place was a 10 minute walk…heaven.
I now take a commuter train which is 1 hour door-to-door even though I am only 24 miles away from work. The commute is much more relaxing. Driving would take the same amount of time if we are lucky. I won’t let my wife pick me up at the station as it takes longer to get out of the parking lot than it does for me to take the bus.
We had considered buying a place that we would have loved to move in, but it would have changed my commute to 60 miles and I couldn’t go back to that.
It generally takes me about 45 minutes to travel a straight-line distance of about 4.5 miles.
Well, these were on a weekly basis, but one summer I commuted about 3,000 miles one way (8ish hours door to door). Shortly thereafter, I commuted about 200 miles one day (4ish door-to-door)… not driving in either of these cases, obviously.
Aside from those, the longest routine would have been 45-50 minutes, and 10 miles (DC-area traffic). So I suspect I’m not even in the top 10.
Currently an hour each way, more or less (don’t know the distance). It’s fine when people aren’t being idiots or jerks, but most of the route I take isn’t on freeways, so I don’t get traffic reports, which makes things ‘interesting’ sometimes.
Attended a school for three years, where it took me 1 hour and a half to get there. You couldnt miss the right train because if you did and waited for the next one, you’d miss the bus at the end that actually took you to the school’s grounds, and there wouldnt be another bus for an hour or so.
So it was 3 hours of commute every week day, with absolutely no margin of error, for three years.
I dont think I was ever able to catch more than half an hour of the evening’s movie without falling fast asleep.
Interesting article on extreme commutes:
:::cringe:::
Twenty miles, took twenty minutes. I did it for about a year.
For nigh on two years now I’ve been commuting 100 miles (160 KMS) to work every day: yes that’s one way.
It should take about 1:45, but highway construction this summer has been heavy, and sometimes it takes about 2:15.
I did car pool for some of the journey for a while, but circumstances changed and for over a year I’ve been driving solo.
It’s not too bad. I hear lots of good talk radio!
Is biking not an option? I would think you could do that in half the time on a bike.
My longest commute was when I had to cross the Tappan Zee bridge each day. Generally I was headed in the opposite direction as major traffic (west in the morning, east in the afternoon), but on Friday afternoons the bridge could be backed up with city traffic so that even the approach to the bridge was clogged. And the bridge itself is over 3 miles long. EZ Pass didn’t exist back then, either. On a normal day, the commute was around 35 or 40 minutes. On a bad day, well over 1.5 hours.
180 miles, from Indianapolis to a south suburb of Chicago, though it wasn’t daily. About three hours each way. In the early 90s, I regularly drove up to catch shows and concerts, and ended up getting a weekend job at the all-ages club I frequented. So, after getting out of work Friday afternoon in Indy, I’d drive up and work Friday and Saturday evenings (crashing with a bartender who worked there), then drive down to Indy late on Sunday to start my regular work week. Did that for a year or so, until the club ended up being shut down.
54 miles each way. Country roads. Takes an hour. Much nicer than city/expressway driving.
Saw a sandhill crane on the way in this AM. Tortoises, deer, eagles, hawks, and twice, an ostrich. It escaped from an ostrich farm.