
Extreme Commuting - wallflower
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/21/realestate/extreme-commuting.html
======
madamelic
I did this exact commute (Phillipsburg, NJ) to Port Authority for a few months
when I first graduated college and was living with my to-be-in-laws.

It was grueling and miserable. I would wake up at 5:30, stand outside in the
cold at 6:45, arrive at PABT at 9 to be in at work by 9:30 - 10. Leave at 6:30
to be home by... 10:30 , eat cold dinner in bed then go to sleep to start all
over.

I broke down one day and couldn't do it anymore so I got an apartment in the
city (It was harder than it sounds. Searching for a non-craphole place in a
good area then throwing down like $6k just to get in. Yikes.)

I don't understand people who do this as a lifestyle. It is miserable and you
spend an inordinate amount of your life on a bus: Get a new job.

~~~
mcone
I agree with you. But in their defense, many of the people in the article have
children. As a parent, I can understand why you would want to give your
children a space away from the city. Some people are willing to make a
personal sacrifice to improve the rest of the family's life.

~~~
humanrebar
I understand that as well. I'm not sure going from 2 parents to 1.2 parents is
worth a yard though.

And there are other options, like taking another job in a smaller city.
Running a small business in a suburb isn't sexy, but you can afford a yard and
have time to teach your daughter about robots and be there when your son gets
bullied on the bus ride home.

~~~
cristianpascu
Not only the children don't get to see you, but neither your partner. American
nightmare, I'd say. Relationships break, and all the grass in the world will
not make up for it.

------
rb808
If you can't understand why anyone would do this, here is the logic:

* Most of the best & middling jobs in the region are in Manhattan

* You can live in Manhattan but you can imagine its super expensive. Good for singles, yuppies and wealthy families.

* The NYC suburbs/NJ across the river are a 30-60 commute, they are expensive too and largely apartments and small town houses. Public schools are often sub-optimal, traffic is bad, sometimes crime.

* City Fringe - LI/Westchester/Northern NJ - 60-90 min commute (when trains/buses are running): big houses, lots beautiful suburbs, good schools, backyard, maybe close to beach. The American dream. Some places are affordable but still expensive.

* Extreme Commutes - Much cheaper, wide variety of cities and towns, some great schools. Affordable for normal people. 2hr + commute for one of the parents

Other points

* in the 80s with high crime lots of firms moved out to the suburbs. This is now no longer in fashion as newer generations are happier to live in apartments and office parks are empty.

* The geography of NY is tough with the Hudson River & harbor making access difficult, and suburbs more remote than say LA or London.

* Other towns in the North East are struggling. Upstate NY, Connecticut, Southern NJ all suffer from shuttering firms, low employment and low wages so people will commute to get to NYC from those areas.

* Trains and Buses are super slow, the final few miles into Manhattan are often stop/start. updated infrastructure will help a lot. Would also increase urban sprawl though.

I chose to raise my kids in an apartment and avoid the commute. But I know
they're missing out on a lot, maybe I'm selfish and the extreme commuters are
the sensible ones.

~~~
xzel
Some of this is responding to you but I think it got a little away from what I
originally was going to say :)

I agree Manhattan real estate can be crazy expensive but there are plenty more
affordable apartments in Harlem, Brooklyn, Long Island and Queens. They are
still expensive compared to the national average but I live in one of those
areas and pay a third of what many of my friends do that live in UW/LW/UE/LE
sides.

From this article it seems the most important things to them are the space and
schools they are able to get from moving outside of manhattan. Which is nice
but certainly a personal preference. I value things to do over my commute so I
actually live in NYC and do an hour to work outside of the city.

Either way, what do you think they're missing out living in some place like
Bethlehem? Most people move there because there is nothing there, and as
someone who has spent some time, there really is nothing to do there. Most
cities have parks, rec leagues etc. for kids to enjoy. Not having a yard won't
deprive you kid of most activities besides not having to walk a few blocks to
find somewhere to play.

~~~
mtalantikite
To add to that, having easy access to all the cultural events that a place
like NYC provides is great for kids. All of my friends that are native New
Yorkers got exposed to a whole lot more at a much earlier age than those that
didn't grow up here. For a curious kid there is a whole lot more to explore in
a city like New York than in a suburban backyard where things are only
accessible by car.

------
fhood
“Our little guy goes to bed at 9 p.m., which is not so cool, but he loves the
backyard and neighborhood, so it’s completely worth it.”

I somehow feel that having a backyard does not justify leaving before your
child wakes up and returning after he goes to bed.

~~~
laumars
It very much depends on how valuable your time with the kids is. How many days
of holiday do you get and do you spend nearly all of the weekend playing with
the kids?

I only have a 45min commute and I still only get to spend around 1 to 2 hours
with my kids during the week. Some days I'm too tired to even make best use of
my time with them. I'm currently looking for a new job in London which will
put my commute just shy of "extreme commuting" knowing I might not see much -
if any - of my kids during the week. But I can live with that because of the
opportunities it creates for our family and the most valuable time I spend
with them is the days I don't work anyway.

~~~
zanny
It isn't about you, it is developmentally harmful to children to only ever see
one of their parents. Even just seeing the father at breakfast and dinner for
10 minutes of chatting is magnitudes better. Even if your routine gives you
extra days, the younger the children the more consistency is important. Having
3 days to see your children and 4 where you are missing from their lives can
cause developmental complications even if it is done for noble causes.

~~~
bb611
The scientific data on this is at best controversial, there are plenty of
studies claiming the effect is real, and a bunch of counters that the data is
fundamentally flawed in complex ways, and doesn't appropriately account for a
lot of other variables that can affect child development. It is also likely
that high income offsets many of the most correlated negative effects, i.e.
educational attainment.

My first career was in education, I worked with and saw many kids with a
breadwinning parent who was absent most of the week, and they generally
developed on the same spectrum as parents of equally present two parent
households.

Anecdotally, my mother worked extremely long hours from her first child (I'm
the youngest of my siblings by a decade) until I was a teenager, I routinely
only saw her to say goodbye in the morning and on weekends. My siblings and I
all ended up pretty far ahead on any developmental scale you choose, even
though we basically only saw her on weekends.

------
simonsquiff
I currently have a 2hr+ commute, one way (so 4hr+ a day) and surprisingly it's
not a problem for me.

Key is that you have to embrace the commute and not fight it. But some
important factors make it possible for me:

-it's by train, and the bulk of that (1hr 25) is a single train leg. It's far enough out that I'm guaranteed a seat every trip, and it's only really the final two stops where things fill up. Really it feels like my commute is the bit after that train.

\- that train journey is great: it's quality 'me time'. I can do some work, I
can surf the web, I can play some games. Previously, on a 30 min commute, I'd
get home and need unwind time on the sofa doing the same - no longer necessary
now

-home is properly amazing and a real escape. I live 2 mins walk from the sea and it's the opposite of London. Ie the destination feels worth it

-many others in my office have similar or worse commutes (2.5 hrs is common, and the CEO has this length), so culturally no-one bats an eyelid at leaving the office whenever

\- I always leave the office at 5:20 to catch my train, and if I need to work
I just do that on the train. So I'm never back particularly late

-when things are busy that extra quiet time on the train in each direction is a god-send and can be super productive

\- I can walk to the station so no additional leg in the car, and hence no
buffer needed for traffic etc. It basically feels like I'm still at a tube
station just one further away

\- I work from home 1 or 2 days a week

A few years ago I would have strongly said I'd never live a long commute away
and always want a <30 min commute. I was wrong. With the right ingredients not
just doable but weirdly enjoyable

~~~
nugator
Seems like this works great until you get children. If you want to spend time
with them and take responsibility for the household. Or am I wrong?

~~~
simonsquiff
My guess is that I could still make work. But as mentioned I don't get home
horribly late - 7:40 or so, so similar to those with a normal commute and a
longer office day. And I work from home a day or two. So on balance I think
it's workable even with children. I think I'd even appreciate the 'me time'
more :) and the quality of life difference for them being by the sea and not
in London would feel more valuable I think

If I had to work a longer office day or no working from home then of course
that would be a very different picture.

------
fredley
I must admit this is something I do not understand the appeal of. I have a 15
minute walk as my commute, and one of the things holding me in place right now
is the inability to contemplate sacrificing this luxury. I used to do a ~40
minute commute, and I hated it - 1.5 hours of my day I considered wasted.

I appreciate many of these extreme commuters can get some stuff done during
their commute, but what's the point of having a nice place to live if it's
quite so far away? I find it hard to see any benefit in these lifestyles over
staying central Monday to Friday and commuting home for the weekends. You're
not getting anything back by going home every night.

~~~
nsgi
How does 2x40min add up to three hours?

~~~
dijit
Public transport?

I used to go to college less than 30 minutes drive away, but I did not have a
license or money to drive (Europe) and public transport took 3h in real terms
to do that journey.

Sometimes it is not economical to have a car (lack of parking, excessive costs
etc;)

~~~
mikewhy
Do people really measure their commute time using a method of transportation
they don't use?

~~~
dijit
Americans I've met have certainly done this.

Americans tend to measure distance in "time" which doesn't work when you're
dealing with alternative transport methods.

For instance someone told me the Philadelphia is "just 3 hours away, so it
can't be that far" when I asked him how long it took by train. (it took 5hours
in the end)

~~~
dsr_
Americans frequently cite long distances by time: the assumption is that you
are taking a car and that the traffic is whatever they perceive as normal.

For very long distances, this correlates to 50-60 miles per hour.

For trips inside an urban area, it's rarely accurate to the nearest 10
minutes.

------
humanrebar
> [An extreme commuter] typically logs a 10- to 12-hour workday, returning
> home at close to midnight.... “Our little guy goes to bed at 9 p.m., which
> is not so cool, but he loves the backyard and neighborhood, so it’s
> completely worth it.”

I'm not judging this guy, but I can't understand the mental math here. So much
of parenting is just being there as life happens. Noticing when things are
off. Giving impromptu love, advice, and correction.

How do we make sure we're not just suffering from confirmation bias when we
say these choices are a net win?

~~~
LeifCarrotson
> So much of parenting is just being there as life happens.

It's easy in our consumerist, materialist culture for parents to become
confused about this concept, and emphasize making sure that the life that
happens for your child is as good as possible by providing them with luxuries
like backyards and designer clothes and buying them the best toys and tech and
clubs and sports and vacations. And when you even dip your toe into this
danger by spending a bit more than you budgeted for at Christmas or for a
birthday, you can become trapped into keeping up with your new neigbors (who
are probably playing the same game you are) and feel forced to maintain a
front of being just a few percent more wealthy than you are.

Not saying that it's _smart_ , but it's happening all the time.

~~~
matt_s
Is a backyard a luxury? I can't think of any kid that would prefer living in a
concrete jungle vs having a back yard they go play in without having to plan a
trip to a park.

I'm with ya though on the keeping up with the Jones stuff.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I grew up in a city and didn't have a back yard. I never minded it. The cool
thing about being a kid is that you don't have many expectations - you accept
things you see as the way the world works.

~~~
Anasufovic
I didn't have backyard until I moved to America and we bought a house. People
very rarely used their backyards including kids, but it was great for having
people over once in a while. Parks were always more fun growing up because
other kids would be there too. But I realize the the culture shift of being
more protective of children and not letting them out on their own when younger
makes visiting parks more difficult.

------
akie
In my opinion this guy has his priorities reversed, basically admitting he
never sees his kid yet somehow finds it worth it (he comes home at midnight
and gets up at 5am):

“Our little guy goes to bed at 9 p.m., which is not so cool, but he loves the
backyard and neighborhood, so it’s completely worth it.”

~~~
mi100hael
I do not understand how a maximum of 5 hours of sleep per day on a long-term
basis is sufficient. How has this guy not had a melt-down?

~~~
scott00
Sleep needs vary. I honestly believe 5 hours a day long term would kill me.
But I have friends who voluntarily sleep that little.

~~~
Sleeep
I knew a guy who slept that little and he thought he was fine with it but he
routinely fell asleep for a few seconds at a time during various
times/activities and, strangely enough, had no idea he had fell asleep. I had
to record him doing it before he believed me.

------
malux85
Coming to London (From New Zealand) I was blown away at some of the extreme
commutes I saw here, the worst was a guy who:

Drove from his house to the closest town. Got a Bus to the train station.
Trained into Central London. Took another train to the office.

(The intermediate bus stop was required because parking was too expensive near
the train station)

It took him about 2.5 hours _each way_ every day!

~~~
Jaruzel
Londoner here. I am lucky enough to be able to work from home 95% of the time,
but for the first 22 years of my career it wasn't so. I commuted from various
locations on the edge of South East London to the The City (London's original
Financial District, near Tower Bridge) every working day. A typical journey
would take about 90 minutes each way, IF the trains were running on time. If
they weren't, and that is unfortunately a regular occurrence, I could be
experiencing 2-3 hours each way instead.

Property prices in London are insane, but even worse within walking distance
of a train station. To even get to my local train station required a 15 minute
drive from my house, and that's when I moved in; 10 years later from the same
property that journey has become 30 minutes due to increase traffic levels.
Once at the station, it costs about £8 a day to park in the station-side car
park, however if you got there after 09:30, there are typically no free
spaces, and with nowhere to park near the station either, you'd just have to
give up _and drive back home_. I put myself down on a list to get a season
ticket, which although still didn't guarantee me a parking space, did at least
grant me access to the season ticket holders parking area before 09:30. It
took three years of waiting before I finally got the season ticket. This
season ticket for parking costs £1,200 a year.

Once on the train, unless I get a train that departs for London before 06:30,
it will be packed solid with commuters, leaving squeezed standing room only.
The journey is typically about 45 minutes (again if no delays), with the train
stopping at many stations en route, and even more people trying to squeeze on.
For this enjoyable daily privilege, I pay about £180 a month on a travel pass.

The 90 minute commute comes from factoring in the unpredictable traffic for
the drive to the station, plus waiting time at the station, plus the train
journey, plus the walk to the office at the other end. And then I have to do
it all again 8-10 hours later, to go home. All because I wanted a nice house
with a good garden for my family.

I have worked with many people whose commutes into London take longer (From
Norwich, or York), but those people always have a seat with a table, Wifi, and
food service, so it's way less of an ordeal.

London sucks. Don't work there if you don't have to.

~~~
Nimitz14
...or you just made some suboptimal decisions and that's on you?

~~~
dang
Would you please stop posting uncivil and/or unsubstantive comments to Hacker
News? We're trying for a better quality of discussion here.

------
albertgoeswoof
These commutes can look OK on paper, but there are so many points of failure.
All it takes is 15 minutes oversleep, a missed your connection, a delayed
train, failure to get a seat and you can have an entire morning or evening
taken out and a boatload of stress with it.

------
raverbashing
Let me say it: It is not worth it

Yes, having a big lawn, a big house, etc, are wonderful things to have.

It is not worth it if you have to sacrifice so much personal time to be in a
moving box for 2 or 3 hours per day

It's worth even less if you're isolated and needs the car for pretty much any
errand that you need to run

Also cars need maintenance, bikes get stolen or they break down. Then what?
Your Uber ride will be in the 3 digit range I guess

Bonus question: what happens if you have an emergency at home and you need to
be there. Especially at non-peak commuter times

In sum: no

~~~
phil21
And that's just looking at it from an individual rationality point of view.

If you expand this lifestyle into it's externalities it's clearly a huge loss
for everyone involved; with those participating in it only funding a tiny
fraction of it's costs.

Not only are these types of lifestyles by far the most subsidized in the US
(not even a tiny fraction of suburbs are sustainable financially long-term),
this lifestyle is actively destroying the social cohesion of the country.

I think the lense of history will show the suburban development model to be
laughably obviously not sustainable in a financial/energy sense of the word;
but I think in the end those will be footnotes. The true destruction and
externality is the divisiveness and social dysfunction. You cannot have the
vast majority of your "best" middle class population sequester themselves into
little boxes (house, car, cube, big box store and back again) with exceedingly
little forced social interaction and not expect the outcomes we are seeing.

Basically it's the balkanization of America, and done for almost the sole
reason of propping up single family home values.

~~~
Boothroid
Indeed, I think things are so out of whack. We are talking about emotional,
spiritual, social death due to the imperatives of capitalism.

------
bsaul
People in the valley, doing 2 hours commute, paying incredible fees for kids
school, incredible rent : do everyone a favor and just leave this hell. This
is more balsy than creating a startup, but also more disruptive. the only
reason this situation exists is because people tolerate it, and perpetuate the
vicious circle between companies going where people are, and people going
where jobs are.

------
Demoneeri
This is crazy. We made the choice to live in the city. We have a townhouse
with a 300-square-foot backyard, a 20-minute subway ride to the office or a
15-minute bike ride. Friends choose the suburb, have I don't know how many
square feet backyard, a bigger house and a 1.5-hour car commute. I don't know
how they do it plus all the time spending maintaining this big house and
backyard.

~~~
OhHeyItsE
Which city? In NYC, a stand-alone townhouse in need of TLC with any outdoor
space would probably start somewhere around $4-6 million (Manhattan). $2-3
Million in the outer boroughs (the ones that are up-and-coming, some of the
gentrified neighborhoods are approaching Manhattan prices). All of those
neighborhoods have poor public schools (yes, I know there are exceptions these
days. But they are just that - exceptional. Not the norm). You would most
likely have to send your child to private school. Minimum $20k/yr/child
starting in kindergarten. Many push $40k/yr/child.

In surrounding suburbs with top public schools and ~45min rail commutes, a
well-kept ~2k sqft house would be around $700-800k. New construction with all
the trimmings: $1m+.

For many, this isn't really a "choice".

~~~
Demoneeri
Not every city has delusional real estate price. The point I made in another
comment is that the "choice" of going into the suburb has a price put on
everybody else. Urban sprawl has a real price (Highways, interchange,
pollution, etc.). Here in Montreal you can have a decent townhouse for 500K to
800KCAD.

~~~
cfmcdonald
That's nice, but the article is about NYC, not Montreal. For $500K CAD (i.e.
400K USD) you could maybe get a 1 bedroom in one of the more remote parts of
Manhattan or the nearer parts of Brooklyn/Queens.

------
nfriedly
I really love my 5-6 minute bicycle commute - it's short enough that I come
home for lunch most days!

I don't think I could take another job where I had to commute by car.

~~~
dijit
I echo this sentiment. I came from London to Malmo, Sweden. I went from riding
30 minutes in horrible crazy traffic to 6 minutes along a quiet cycle path
surrounded by trees.

My commute in London was one of the "Luxury" ones (IE; I was in Zone 2 to the
east and commuted to an "eastern central" part of the center.) (if you know
London think: Bow -> Shoreditch)

I paid through the nose for this "Luxury" "Central" commute. I can't imagine
it being worse than that, but for most people it is.

It's definitely something I have a strong consideration for now. Commuting is
basically "unpaid work" time in my mind, it's time I could spend doing other
things and I only commute for my work.

------
ChuckMcM
Extreme commuting has always fascinated me. I don't like to commute and so
early in my life my wife and I worked very hard to get into a small 'starter
house' in the middle of things. It was a good choice for me, given how much I
don't like commuting. But a good friend of mine who worked at NetApp lived in
Livermore which is 40 miles away in exchange for a bigger house and a larger
lot, a lot of the reason that was 'ok' for them was the 'ace' commuter
train(1). When I worked at Google there was a good friend of mine that lived
in Marin county (about 75 miles away) and took the Google shuttle.

What all of these things have in common is that for most of the commute if you
aren't driving and can do 'productive' work, the time isn't really "wasted".

And that kind of thing leads to all sorts of speculative questions;

Like what if a town outside of New York invested in their own train that would
take residents to downtown Manhattan? If you compare the sales tax and
property tax revenue of those people with the cost of operating a small
passenger service to Manhattan how does it compare? How about a bus service
like Google does for its employees?

At what point would it make sense to have a train that _was_ the office? Given
the price of real estate when does a company benefit from having a train that
rolls in a loop amongst some number of cities and people get on and get off
when the train returns to their city. Could you topologically arrange it so
that a city was re-visited every 8 hours?

How will self driving cars change this? Clearly a commute isn't as big a deal
if the car is driving you (its your own commuter bus to work, but with all
your stuff and you are in control of who rides with you). Should we be buying
up property in the Exurbs in anticipation of the huge demand? What about
'driverless car roads' that go from the exurbs to major cities?

It is a lot of fun to speculate about.

[1] [http://www.acerail.com/Home](http://www.acerail.com/Home)

~~~
nugget
I'll do you one better: combine super comfortable van dwelling type vans,
autonomous vehicles, and extreme commuting. Can I fall asleep in my van in my
driveway 2 hours away from Manhattan but program it to start driving me in
about 90 minutes before I wake up? And then perhaps take a nap again on the
way home.

------
blktiger
This is why remote work is the future. Live wherever you want, spend 0 time
commuting to work. Even if you have a modest 30 minute commute, you are losing
1 hour every day that you could be spending doing something else.

BTW, my employer is 100% remote and is hiring.
[https://www.sonatype.com/careers-sonatype](https://www.sonatype.com/careers-
sonatype)

------
awjr
I was contract working in London, commuting from Glastonbury and that was a
good 2.5 hours+ each way.

I moved to Bath and cut the commute to only 1.5 hours :D

I was lucky. I had an innate ability to sleep anywhere.

BUT my key requirement with any role is that I should not have to drive. Train
+ Cycle is my preference giving me time to work/relax and exercise/chill.

Any contract where I end up driving 1hour each way just takes my edge off.

------
sethammons
My commute is about two hours each way (a bit longer in the afternoon), and
about to get longer due to the office moving locations. I've commented on here
before when super commuting came up. Since then, things have improved for me a
lot.

Why do I do it? I love living in the mountains. I'm in SoCal and I live with
great views, bears, deer, mountain lions, raccoons, bird songs, summer time
crickets in the evening, frog croaks, mountain biking, creeks, snow, rain,
seasons, and nearly no light pollution. I'm raising my kids in the same house
I grew up in around many of the neighbors I grew up with. I have dogs, cats,
fish, and chickens, a nice garden, a large yard, and still have high speed
internet.

I get up at about 4:15am, commute about 30 minutes to the gym, workout for an
hour, drive for 5 more minutes and hop on a train at 7am. I work on the train
for a little under an hour. About 8am, I get off the train and walk for about
5 minutes to the office. This train ride is increasing about 20 minutes about
8 months from now. I leave the office and hop back on the train about 4pm, get
off the train about 5pm (having worked while on the train most of the time),
and walk in the door around 6pm. Getting home at 6? Yeah, not bad at all.
Getting up at 4? Meh, I'm a morning person.

With the new office move, I get to keep the same train schedule. I'll just be
working more on the train.

Oh, and I negotiated working from home two days a week. Previously, I was on a
different train schedule and working form the office five days a week. I was
out of the house from 6am to 7:30pm every day. Now things are sustainable and
great.

~~~
meddlepal
Do you have a family? Do you usually get eight hours of sleep?

~~~
sethammons
Yup. Wife and three kids. I tend to go to bed around 9pm. So usually around 7
hours of sleep. I still get up early on the days I don't commute to go to the
gym.

~~~
meddlepal
Cool! Thanks for the reply. Awesome that you can make that work for you :)

------
heydonovan
Used to spend 40+ min in Austin traffic. I don't believe that people working
in tech should have to commute, since all the work can be accomplished over
the Internet. Yet, several friends of mine are not allowed to work from home
(SysAdmins and Developers), and so have to endure the pain of commute for no
reason.

~~~
criddell
I live in Austin and sometimes commute via bicycle. When I do, it takes me
about 40 minutes to get there. Enduring the pain of the commute is kind of the
point. :)

~~~
stevenwoo
I used to work in Austin about 20 years ago, what is the general start/end of
your commute to work? Curious about how much things have changed.

~~~
criddell
The traffic does get bad, but it's very predictable. I drive through a few
school zones and if I time it poorly, it takes probably 40 minutes for me
drive. When I time it well (that is, leave early or late), half that. During
the summer, 15 minutes.

Everybody complains about the traffic, but it really isn't all that bad most
of the time. I listen to a lot of podcasts and I enjoy my time in the car.

------
maxxxxx
I think self driving cars will make this even more viable. I bet you'll see
people sleeping in their cars while doing commutes several hours long.

~~~
adrianN
At what point do you live in the car as opposed to the nice home that your
commuting lifestyle affords you?

~~~
isostatic
What point do you live in the office? If you ignore time asleep at 56 hours a
week, that leaves 112 hours a week. If you work 60 hours a week you're already
living at the office.

~~~
adrianN
That's why normal people work 40 hours at most...

------
humanrebar
I'd like to encourage employers and corporate leaders to consider whether they
have sustainable salaries for their employees. Can employees raise a family
while affording the requisite housing and commuting a reasonable amount?

I'm not saying extreme commutes are the employers fault alone, but employers
obviously do math when they locate their employees in Manhattan. Things that
don't end up in the equation like commute times are paid by someone else, like
employees.

Flexible scheduling, remote work, satellite offices, etc. should be considered
as part of being a responsible employer, not just a begrudged "perk" because
it's too hard to keep good employees.

~~~
ProblemFactory
"Sustainable salaries" won't fix this issue, as real estate is a competitive
market. If you double the salaries of everyone who works in Manhattan, you
will still have the same number of people living near work, just paying more
rent. A salary increase only helps you move closer to work _if other people
don 't get an increase_ and you can price them out.

In the end, there are only three options: build more housing where people want
to work and live (but it has to be high-rises, not houses with backyards),
better remote work options, or better transport infrastructure.

~~~
humanrebar
I'm saying employers contribute to the poor salary/rent ratio in cities,
especially when we factor in commute times. They should acknowledge the
problem and help solve it as a strategic priority.

Working towards your list of ideas is a viable approach. Having core butts-in-
seats hours that coincide with rush hour and not paying people enough to keep
the commute down is not.

------
CycnuS
I did it for family and industry experience.

For 2 years I commuted from central Virginia into DC. Would wake up at 0300,
arrive in DC around 0500, go to the gym, then head into the office around
0700. This job was near 100% travel as well, so I would be in the DC office
for a day, then another city for a day, etc...

I calculated that each week I was only at my house from Saturday at 0100 -
Monday at 0300.

So, why did I do this? There are a number of reasons. 1) Money. Where I live
in Virginia there are no information security jobs OR they pay 60K. The amount
of money I was making allowed me to pay down debts and provide a nice
lifestyle for my family. 2) Housing. If we were to live in DC, we could not
afford a house, so we would be stuck in a 1300SF apartment. Nice if your
single or have a significant other, not so much fun with a wife and twins. For
the same price of this 1300SF apartment in DC I can afford a 4000SF house
where I am currently at. 3) Industry experience. I knew that by working at
this organization in DC it would legitimize me as a security professional - I
would be able to get out when I needed to and find another info sec job. 4)
Landscape. No offense to DC, but it is flat and ugly. I live in the Shenandoah
valley - the scenery alone gives me great joy.

I now work near 100% remote. I have to commute once every 6 weeks or so into
our corporate office (about 4 1/2 hours away), but it allows me to be home for
5 weeks with the kids. Without the sacrifice earlier working out of DC, I
would never have landed in the role I have now.

------
carapace
Montreal to Brooklyn. Not as bad as it sounds: You walk a few blocks to the
Metro station, take that downtown, walk to the train station. Take the train
to Grand Central Terminal. Then the subway to a stop a few blocks from your
destination. Total blocks walked about ten.

The train ride was though some very beautiful country. Crossing the border
took a while but wasn't onerous. No wi-fi at that time but if you had a good
book or some offline work to be about it was great.

~~~
isostatic
You do that every day?

~~~
carapace
Down for a week or two, then back up.

------
Obi_Juan_Kenobi
One thing I'm noticing in the article and the comments is the disconnect
between daily commute hours and weekly commute hours. Both are high, but the
weekly time seems to be holding much more steady as people work from home one
or two days.

So yes, you may commute for 4 hours a day, but only commuting 60% as often
means you're in the ballpark of a 1 hour commute (each way). Average 'commute
tolerance' isn't drastically changing.

------
Sleeep
I am seriously baffled, I have some extended family in Newburgh, NY and I have
no idea why this woman would commute two hours to live there. Not only is
there absolutely nothing special about it (other than seeing the American
Chopper cast in the grocery store) it's got a problem with crime [1][2] and is
#5 on some random "10 worst places to live in New York State" list.[3] if
you're just looking for "not Manhattan" you could do a lot better.

[1][https://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/12/nyregion/12newburgh.html?...](https://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/12/nyregion/12newburgh.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)

[2] [https://tcf.org/content/commentary/welcome-to-newburgh-
murde...](https://tcf.org/content/commentary/welcome-to-newburgh-murder-
capital-of-new-york/)

[3][https://www.roadsnacks.net/worst-places-to-live-in-new-
york-...](https://www.roadsnacks.net/worst-places-to-live-in-new-york-state/)

------
CurtMonash
The earliest mention of this problem I can recall is in the 1948 movie Mr.
Blanding Builds His Dream House.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Blandings_Builds_His_Dream...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Blandings_Builds_His_Dream_House)

Admittedly, that wasn't the extreme form. Rather, they had misread the train
schedule, and available trains ran at very inconvenient times.

~~~
CurtMonash
Also, it was a big deal when I visited Tokyo in 1979.

------
staticelf
I have 15 minutes by car or 40 minutes by bike and I think that is far and I
only commute on the days I do not work from home. I moved to a smaller city to
get a more relaxed lifestyle and that is also what I've got.

I used to have 40-50 minutes commute in a packed train and hated every second
of it. Compared to taing the train or bus I love driving that 15 minutes to
work.

Just me and my dog, excited to being allowed to tag along.

------
edward
A commute of over two hours is very wrong. These people should find a job
within biking distance of where they live.

See [http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/10/06/the-true-cost-
of-c...](http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/10/06/the-true-cost-of-
commuting/)

~~~
ghaff
I actually agree with your first sentence. At a minimum, it doesn't seem
sustainable over any significant period without something giving.

That said, there are reasonable places that are in-between living very near
the office or commuting for two hours. Given that the link is mostly focused
on the monetary aspect, let's think about it. For people who do not work from
home, he is basically saying that 1.) the constraint probably can't be
satisfied for a two income couple; 2.) if you own a home you will probably
have to sell it every time you switch jobs--which doesn't seem very
economically sound; and/or 3.) you will have to be very selective about
switching jobs.

I actually did have an extremely short commute for a long time but it went up
to an IMO still reasonably sensible 25 minutes when I bought a house. I've
kept the house through several job changes. The commute veered into the
somewhat unreasonable range for a year or so but it's otherwise been well
under an hour with an increasing amount of WFH and travel mixed in.

------
emartinelli
I live in a neighbor city of São Paulo city, Brazil.

I have a 2hrs+ commute , 4hrs+ a day. I take a train (~1hr), a subway(~30min)
and another train(~30min), I work next to train station.

The train use to be crowded with no seats to take. I try to make the travel as
pleasant and productive as I can, I read news and books - almost finishing
Uncle Bob's "Clean Code" -, listen to podcasts and music, watch movies etc..

I am SW developer in a big electronics vendor, we are not allowed to work from
home, I lived some time in São Paulo during graduation and working full time,
but it was expensive and lonely for me, I live with my parents and near of all
my relatives now, but I am thinking to move back soon.

We have no many jobs in my city, so even people that no have skilled jobs use
to have long commutes.

------
lilbobbytables
Cool! My commute is on here (Newburgh / Beacon, NY), although mine is a hair
better.

My commute usually ranges from 1:50 to 2 hours. I get up at 6:30, a 10 minute
walk to the Beacon train station for the 7:08 train which brings me straight
to Grand Central.

I'm working from home right now, but I was literally always there first person
into the office at about 9am.

The fact that no car is involved and it's only one mode of transportation to
get into the city is what makes the commute very easy for me.

With my phone or iPad as a hotspot I can easy work, Reddit, or just play on my
computer. Grab a book and now you've got some good dedicated reading time.

To top it all off, you ride along the Hudson for the entire trip.

At times I certainly didn't love it, but I found it surprisingly bearable.

------
rayiner
I was almost in extreme commuter territory--for two years, my wife and I
commuted 1.5 hours each way in opposite directions from Baltimore (her to
Delaware, me to D.C.). It was okay. The unpredictability of Amtrak bothered me
more than the time.

We then did a shorter commute for a bit (15 minutes Uber for me, 5 minute walk
for my wife). But recently we traded it in again for a long, but very
predictable (hour and ten minutes each way) commute from Annapolis to D.C. I
don't really miss the short commute. My wife chat during the mostly-shared
part of our commute, and the cab ride from union station lets me catch up on
emails. On the upside, I don't have to live in D.C. or send my kid to school
in the D.C. bubble.

------
chmaynard
I commuted to North Beach from Los Altos twice a week in 2013. Each round-trip
commute took around four hours on public transit. I felt like an idiot. Yes,
humans can adapt to almost anything, but why bother for a lousy job that can
easily be done from home?

------
enkay
Reminds me of this: [http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thisisthat/canadian-man-
drives-1-944...](http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thisisthat/canadian-man-
drives-1-944km-every-day-to-work-as-barista-1.3666285)

------
bryanlarsen
Some of those people work on the train, and then spend 8 hours in the office.
Madness. It could be palatable if you work for 2 hours on the train, 4 in the
office and then 2 on the train again. Or you spend your 4 hour commute
sleeping.

------
walshemj
2 hours is extreme? I live 60 miles (Bedford) or so from work in London and my
commute is 1.5 hours and there are thousands of commuters do the same trip and
there at are plenty who commute from further out on the same line.

~~~
isostatic
10 years ago I knew guys who loved in eastern Kent who would spend 5 hours a
day commuting.

I'm a home worker now, but still have to go to London far too frequently.
Getting from Cheshire to Euston isn't bad - leave home at 0820, 0841 train
arrives Euston at 10.25. The next 30-50 minutes slogging it out to zone 2 is a
pain though.

Going the other way is where it all falls apart, as the train is only really
hourly due to the connection. To guarentee making it it takes an hour to get
the first 6 miles to Euston (I really should dust off the bike), 90 minutes
for the next 160 miles to Crewe, then the last 5 miles can take all sorts of
time.

Now I think about it giving the Brompton a service would make this far more
consistent, although for maybe once every 2 weeks doesn't seem worthwhile

------
pilom
If I ever founded a company, we'd be remote only from the start simply so that
I wouldn't force people to do silly commutes. I would see any of my employees
doing a 2 hour commute as a major failure on my part.

------
danans
As difficult as doing a 2hr+ commute is (I did it for years), at least the
people featured in this article don't have to drive. NYC, as an old city whose
structure predates the automobile, has a centralized business zone (Manhattan)
with established and comprehensive public transit infrastructure (bus, rail,
etc).

Areas where transit systems were built as an afterthought, and where places of
employment are sparsely distributed and far from transit hubs (i.e Silicon
Valley), lead to situations where people have 1 hour commutes to travel little
more than 10 miles in their cars.

------
Touche
This doesn't seem too fair to their spouses, who essentially are responsible
for all weekday chores. Perhaps the commuters can do stuff like personal
finances on the train... but that's basically it.

~~~
humanrebar
They're almost single parents when you think about it.

~~~
Coincoin
They're almost single, yes, but they are not almost single parents. There is a
big difference.

The money the other parent brings home they would still need to earn it if
they were single parents.

~~~
humanrebar
Some extreme commuter spouses also have jobs. Some single parents get child
support. But I did use the word "almost".

------
throwawayNa2772
Sounds to me like the Eastern seaboard needs some Shinkansen in its life.

~~~
mattl
Shinkansen is known as the bullet train, for those unfamiliar with the term.

------
tmaly
I have a 45 min to 60 min commute one way to work each day. If I take Metro
North it turns into a 2 hour commute. It really consumes a ton of time if you
add it all up across the years.

~~~
isostatic
If you are reading books for 4 hours on your commute vs sitting in traffic
listening to weenie and the butt for 2 hours, which is "consuming time"

~~~
tmaly
I agree with your point. I listen to audio books or some type of podcast now
where I can learn something new.

------
wheezy_express
I currently have a 4 hour commute each way. On Monday morning, 15 min taxi
from home to the airport (medium sized midwest city). 3 hour direct flight to
LGA (incl. security and whatnot). 30 min taxi to the office in Manhattan. Stay
in a hotel next to the office until Friday then fly back. I do this commute
about 4 times per year. The rest of the time I work from home.

It's great.

~~~
isostatic
That's not a commute, that's a business trip.

------
fundabulousrIII
Northern Virginia. Used to commute to silver spring from lorton/woodbridge
every morning via metro. Took about two hours each way depending on traffic.
Then Arlington to Ashburn, that lasted about 6 months. Then Aberdeen MD to
Fairfax Va, about a year. That was the worst. Now work from home. Maybe go
into DC 2x weekly. This area is terrible for commutes.

------
wernercd
I just ended a job that involved a 1:45 minute drive each direction...
interesting to know that doesn't count as "Extreme" commuting since it wasn't
2:00+.

It's not something I would do forever... but the experience was worth it and
the pay was/is better than I get nearby. Nearby being the 140 acres of family
farm land I'm lucky enough to live on.

------
atonse
All this tells me is that there's a huge untapped potential market for an
increasingly remote workforce.

------
roye
I wonder how driverless cars will effect this. Similarly I'm wondering if
ride-sharing apps already are. Single cars picking up 4 adults that would
otherwise be driving could potentially hugely reduce the number of cars on the
road, making commutes shorter for all involved.

~~~
tfinniga
The first impact of self-driving cars will be much worse traffic. While ride-
sharing and public transit are helpful, they are nowhere near as good as self-
driving cars.

If you had a self-driving car you'd be able to set up a truly productive or
relaxing environment, which you're unable to fully replicate on public
transit. For example, stick in a mattress with your favorite pillow, add a
shower, have a desk with nice big monitors, a webcam to take video calls, etc.
Aside from just being transportation, a car is also a bubble of quiet,
cleanliness, and personal security. It is a mini house on wheels, a portable
locker, and a refuge.

And since you're not driving, who cares about the traffic?

~~~
mathperson
Eh I can't find citations right now because I am trying to be productive but
modellers and people who study this argue that a lot of traffic is caused by
sub-optimal driver behavior. Specifically issues with merging/ and phantom
waves that build up and cause phantom jams. Accordingly people think the self
driving cars will not be susceptible to this -> less traffic(?). I do not know
I agree with these claims since I haven't looked at the math but I am not so
sure self driving cars will lead to "much worse" traffic than human driven
cars.

------
bhartzer
When I was commuting, I would have done anything to sit on a bus or a train.
Drove 89 miles door-to-door (each way) to the office, typically anywhere from
2-3 hours' commute.

Waze helped, but could only really spend time making calls or listening to the
radio or podcasts.

------
seanmcdirmid
For my current job at HARC LA, I got an apartment two blocks from our office.
This has worked out very well, I'm pretty spoiled now.

------
lawn
> It’s true, we are living the American dream, with deer running around in our
> yard, and bald eagles, too.

Sounds like an American nightmare. Damn.

------
holydude
Sometimes you do not have a choice. Or your only choice is to leave everything
behind.

------
Mankhool
Live close to where you work, or find employment close to where you want to
live.

------
6d6b73
I also do a form of extreme commuting, but on the other side of the spectrum -
I commute 1 mile (1.6km). I had to endure one hour long commute for a year,
and it simply was not worth it.

------
losteverything
Commutes change over time. Dictated by employment. I doubt anyone thinks they
won't change employers over a work-life

------
SirLJ
Wow, to think that my commute is less than 1 minute, a short walk to my home
office... talking about quality of life...

~~~
isostatic
My commute is far longer - takes longer than a minute to boil the kettle l,
and I don't start the morning stand up without first sitting down with a cup
of tea.

~~~
SirLJ
Yep the time will change for sure if we coun the detour to the kitchen for the
espresso machine and after that to the "throne" room for a bit of self
reflection and posting few articles to the HN...

------
bane
If only there were parts of Manhattan north of 110th and/or other boroughs
nearby.

More seriously, lots of the comments here talk about the closeness of
relatives to help with kids and so on. And I get that. But for people not in
that situation, I'm never quite clear on the protein folding level computation
that seems to go into just finding where you want to live, and then moving
linearly out along transit routes until you find a reasonable mix of cost and
distance.

Let's play a game, can I find _homes_ (not Apartments) near NYC and SF for
around $500k (a home a family making around $100k/yr can easily
afford...that's two people with $50k/yr jobs) that are around 1 hr daily
commute _on public transit_.

Let's let the NYC round begin:

[1] Yonkers, estimate is under $500k.

Okay, that's a shitty commute to midtown, but I spent 30 seconds figuring out
this life quandry.

[2] a half hour shaved off the commute

[3] if you don't mind other people's houses touching yours and can pay $50k
more, daily commute under 1 hr on public transit

Mission accomplished - total research time, 5 minutes.

Now for the San Francisco round:

[4] 30-40 minutes from this ~$500k property to the Castro in SF.

[5] - I did this one absolutely blind. Just picked a spot on the map that was
about an hour commute by public transport. <$549k.

Mission accomplished - total research time, 3 minutes.

The first guy in the article, I mean goodness, is there _nothing_ he can do
around where he lives so he and his wife can afford a $375k home? A _combined_
income of <$65,000 can afford that house. They each need full-time jobs that
pay around $15/hr to make that work. What the hell kind of chef job does he
have if he's not breaking $30/hr in NYC? That's small restaurant manager pay.

Here's an entire craigslist for their area full of jobs that pay what they
need. [6] Now they can both see their kids.

1 - [https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/110-Sweetfield-Cir-
Yon...](https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/110-Sweetfield-Cir-Yonkers,-New-
York_rb/?fromHomePage=true&shouldFireSellPageImplicitClaimGA=false&fromHomePageTab=buy)

2 -
[https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/house,mobile_type/2095...](https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/house,mobile_type/2095535544_zpid/2-_baths/399958-899905_price/1475-3319_mp/globalrelevanceex_sort/40.730271,-73.731732,40.723847,-73.745572_rect/16_zm/)

3 -
[https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/house,mobile_type/3064...](https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/house,mobile_type/30646417_zpid/2-_baths/399958-899905_price/1475-3319_mp/globalrelevanceex_sort/40.672676,-73.861712,40.666247,-73.875552_rect/16_zm/)

4 - [https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/Oakland-
CA/house,mobil...](https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/Oakland-
CA/house,mobile_type/24779863_zpid/13072_rid/2-_baths/399958-899905_price/1475-3319_mp/globalrelevanceex_sort/37.803239,-122.16209,37.749645,-122.272811_rect/13_zm/)

5 -
[https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/house,mobile_type/2496...](https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/house,mobile_type/24962942_zpid/2-_baths/399958-549958_price/1475-2028_mp/globalrelevanceex_sort/37.744317,-122.012187,37.637004,-122.23363_rect/12_zm/)

6 -
[https://allentown.craigslist.org/search/fbh](https://allentown.craigslist.org/search/fbh)

