My commute is about 10 miles. I think I would draw the line for myself at 20 miles. After that point, I would not consider it worth the extra time and money and I’d just move closer.
I’ve often wondered that myself. She has a really good government job and couldn’t get anything comparable locally but she really wants to live in the country and she saves a bundle on income and property taxes.
I could still NEVER do that commute. However, the folks that take that bus have developed a tight little club…on the evening commute they will watch movies ( the bus has a VCR system) and they often bring food and booze and have “bus parties”.
The morning commute is a no phone lights out zone and the people that commute regularly have learned to get on the bus and sleep until they hit Manhattan. They claim you get used to it and it’s not so bad…I still don’t get it, though.
My current commute is 8230 miles each way. Luckily, I only have to do this once a month 
I’m 52 miles one way 5 days a week It takes about an hour although in the winter it can take as long as two.
My old commute was 110 miles one way 5 days a week and took right at 2 hours. That kind of sucked but was totally worth it to get to enjoy my 8 hours of sleep someplace that wasn’t Bakersfield.
West side of Arlington to DC - 8.1 miles if I drive…I go in fairly early, so maybe 20 minutes. If I Metro, it’s about 40 minutes, but I get free fares, so it’s worth it.
My commute is about a dozen miles. If there’s no traffic, it’s 15-20 minutes; if I get stuck in rush-hour traffic, it can be an hour and a half.
I had a similar commute for a while, from Panama to Gabon. I haven’t looked up the mileage, but the trip there took about 36 hours via Miami and Paris, and around 20 hours on the return. But once I was there, all I had to do was walk out of my tent and I was at work.
In Panama my commute has been about 20 minutes if it isn’t rush hour, and a half hour if it is. But they just completed a new highway that cuts it to about 12 minutes.
I used to have to commute 60 miles to Boston (and 60 miles back!) every day. that sucked anyway, but the worst was the first couple of snowfalls each year. On more than one occasion the commute took over 5 hours.
Then for a few years I had to commute about 5 feet - from the bed to the desk. That actually kind-of sucked more, because I never left work 
Now I commute about 30 miles into Raleigh NC ever day. A bad traffic day is when I get behind a school bus or a construction vehicle. And it rarely snows.
5 minute bike ride to the train station, 20 minutes on the train, 10 minutes bike ride to my current project (I have a folding bike I can take on the train at no extra charge).
I’m pretty happy with the arrangement. And the biking wakes me up.
Drive 17.3 miles.
Walk across giant parking lot to train station.
Wait for train.
Ride train for 10 minutes.
Walk 10 minutes.
It usually takes me 1:15 to get there. It’s bad.
I used to live and work in Florida. A combination of me moving south and then shortly thereafter my company announcing they were moving 35 miles north left me with a 50 mile drive. It was made worse because I had to leave at 5am so that it would only take me 1 hour to commute.
I had to stay until 5 or 6pm, regardless of arrival time. The drive home was often 2 hours or more.
About 12 miles. Past a cornfield, over a river, one stop sign in town, past a bunch of farms, including the turkey farm in season, along the river, one traffic light, past the golf course, one traffic light, and I’m there.
Pretty nice!
ETA: I just saw a House Hunters where the wife wants to move to cut down her commute – it’s an hour and 45 minutes each way. Oh. my. God.
You may win for shortest commute. I take about 10 steps out of bed, 11 steps down the stairs, and then about 12 feet to the left.
If I’m doing my online job, my “commute” is sitting up in bed, moving the pillows so they make a backrest, and getting the keyboard and mouse off the flour and into my lap.
My real-world job- which isn’t daily- requires a walk down the hill to the bus stop, a 12 minute bus ride, and a very short walk to across a parking lot. It’s about 3.6 miles.
1.5 miles from one side of town to the other. It normally takes from 10 to 15 minutes depending on the 10 traffic lights I encounter on the way. Occasionally I get stuck behind a school bus or garbage truck which slows things down. I start work at 8:00 now, but I used to start at 9:00 and the traffic was a lot heavier just an hour later in the morning. If I had a longer commute I’d listen to good music or books on tape, but as it is I just catch up with the news. I would’ve tried biking, but there’s too much truck traffic and exhaust fumes and I have asthma.
Certainly not the longest commute, but for awhile I think I had the most frustrating commute possible.
My apartment and place of employment were separated by one of the many canyons found in southern California. As the birds fly, they could not have been much more than a mile apart. I could literally see the neighboring apartment complex from my parking spot on the roof of the parking garage. But driving to and from involved either traversing the cluster fuck that is the entrance to and exit from the I-5/805 merge or heading down the 101 where it turns into a stop sign riddled single lane testament to stubborn rich people. The trip, although still only 5 miles, usually took 45 minutes. It could take up to an hour and half.
My wife and I had a great opportunity. We were finishing grad school in Ohio, and she got a job teaching in Vermont. So we rented a place 3 miles away from her work. And then I got a job at the same school. A few months later we wanted to buy a house, so we purposely bought one as close as possible, 3 miles away again. You can see our old apartment from our new house. The commute is maybe 5 minutes.
There are some teachers there who live 1-2 hours away each way. Maybe all the bad angry teachers we remember from high school had a 2 hour commute, that could explain it.
I also teach at the local community college, and one guy I talked to taught a class twice a week 2 hours away, and then another class twice a week 2 hours away in the other direction. At least he had 3 days a week off to tend to the hobby farm he bought here.
My job is 50 miles each way; I do shift work at a horsepital, so whether or not I have to drive in rush hour varies. It’s a fairly reliable 60-65 minutes during off-peak times with no traffic. I try to leave 90 minutes before I have to be there, but I’m usually running late. When I have to get there at 3:30 for swing shift, it usually takes about 75-80 minutes (volume is JUST starting to pick up). If I work the day shift and leave around 4, or work overnight and leave around 8, it’s pretty consistently craptastic at 1:45 - 2 hours. I’ve started sticking around in the morning for rounds when I work overnight, since it’s not worth it to spend twice as much time in the car.
Most weeks, I don’t work five days in a row (part/flex time since I’m still in school), but last week I worked Tuesday-Saturday nights, including 6:30 P Thursday - 8 A Friday. I don’t think I could do much longer of a commute. 50 miles is pretty close to my breaking point, and it’s a good thing I love my job.