
Commuting? Have you done the math? - Nemmie
http://www.jefclaes.be/2012/11/commuting-have-you-done-math.html
======
rayiner
Thank god for commuter rail. My commute is 20 miles. I take Metro North every
day into Manhattan, and it's absolutely the most civilized way to commute. The
trains run frequently (~4 an hour), are pretty cheap (~200 pre-tax), and are
never very crowded. It's ~30 minutes at the beginning of the day where I can
check my e-mail, plan the day, etc, without anyone bugging me.

I used to car commute that distance from the DC suburbs into DC, and it was
hellish. 2 hours of my life each day wasted in ungodly traffic. That's not how
people were meant to live. I'd much rather have Biden's 100 mile Amtrak
commute into DC from Wilmington than the 20 mile car commute into DC from the
suburbs.

~~~
incision
>I used to car commute that distance from the DC suburbs into DC, and it was
hellish. 2 hours of my life each day wasted in ungodly traffic. That's not how
people were meant to live. I'd much rather have Biden's 100 mile Amtrak
commute into DC from Wilmington than the 20 mile car commute into DC from the
suburbs.

I'm always surprised by how many people drive in and out of DC every day
rather than take Metro and/or MARC / VRE.

I understand the shortcomings of Metro as well as anyone and better than most,
but still consider the time I can spend reading or otherwise engaged while in
the system preferable to slogging through traffic.

~~~
rayiner
Those systems are extremeley limited in terms of coverage relative to Metro
North/LIRR in NYC or Metra in Chicago. A huge amount of the residential
development in northern VA is out in Fairfax County, and that area is just now
getting a Metro line. Moreover, the metro stops in Vienna, Fairfax, etc, are
god-awful. They're built in the middle of the woods so you have to drive to
them. A sensible rail system needs to have high density development around the
station.

Meanwhile, Metro North, LIRR, and NJT go pretty much anywhere people live in
Westchester, Long Island, or NJ. And the train stations are all approachable
on foot. I walk 4 minutes from a 40 story high-rise in Westchester to the
train station. That's 4 minutes from getting on my elevator to being on the
platform.

~~~
incision
>Those systems are extremeley limited in terms of coverage relative to Metro
North/LIRR in NYC or Metra in Chicago. A huge amount of the residential
development in northern VA is out in Fairfax County, and that area is just now
getting a Metro line. Moreover, the metro stops in Vienna, Fairfax, etc, are
god-awful. They're built in the middle of the woods so you have to drive to
them. A sensible rail system needs to have high density development around the
station.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here?

The DC area systems are pretty young relative to the ones you're comparing it
them to. The NY subway has been around since 1904. The DC Metro broke ground
in 1969 and opened 1976. This is significantly different from systems like
Metra or NJT which subsumed existing commercial tracks.

How densely populated will Fairfax be in 2084?

DC versus wherever else was never my point though. It's about people with cars
who choose to brave some of the worst traffic in the country rather than
driving the local Metro station and zipping on in.

Personally, driving all the way downtown takes about 1:15, taking the Metro is
12 minute drive to the station followed by a 35 minute train ride which I can
spend reading to within a block of my workplace.

>Meanwhile, Metro North, LIRR, and NJT go pretty much anywhere people live in
Westchester, Long Island, or NJ. And the train stations are all approachable
on foot. I walk 4 minutes from a 40 story high-rise in Westchester to the
train station. That's 4 minutes from getting on my elevator to being on the
platform.

That's great. Plenty of people who ride the DC Metro have the same experience,
there are 85 stations.

How many of those approachable train stations have 3500+ parking spaces or are
served by 50+ buses?

Apples to oranges.

They're different systems serving different geography at different points in
their development - any of which is surely better than driving.

~~~
rayiner
You asked why people don't take the Metro or MARC/VRE. I explained that it
doesn't go to where people want. Having to use two modes, driving then rail,
is a huge deal breaker. From where I used to live, I'd have to fight through
route 7 traffic for 20 min to take a 35 minute train ride, or I could just
keep driving for another 45 min. When you factor in parking the time saving is
nothing. Yet in the NYC metro, I live as far away as I did in DC, and can
easily walk to the train. As a result, something like 10x as many people use
commuter rail in the NYC metro per capita. And Westchester isn't exactly super
densely populated. It's just smartly designed, unlike the horribly sprawling
DC suburbs. You have walkable little towns of 5,000 people served by a rail
station instead of the cluster fuck that is Fairfax County.

Traffic is god's punishment to northern Virginia for letting subdivision
developers basically do all the urban planning for the last 50 years.

~~~
pwthornton
I don't get why anyone would live in the DC region and not live near a rail
station. I don't see the allure of NoVa outside of Arlington and Alexandria.

NoVa is getting a bit better with some town center developments in Fairfax,
but it's quality of life is far behind other jurisdictions.

I live in Montgomery County right by a red line station. I have the good
suburban schools, relatively low crime, plenty of stuff to walk to and an easy
commute into DC via the metro (or buses). I just don't get the people in the
DC region who spend hours upon hours commuting in cars. Yes, we Marc and VRE
aren't the same level of what some other cities have, but we do have rail
service and metro is one of the top public transportation systems in the
country (second most used behind a much larger city).

------
twp
Reasonable math. Personal anecdotal support:

Daily commute is 1.5 hours each way by public transport. 75% of that time is
useful. Net result is 5 * 2 * 1.5 = 15 hours spent sitting on the train each
week, of which just(1 - 0.25) * 15 = 3.75 is wasted (mainly in changing from
one vehicle to the next). This, superficially, doesn't sound so bad. My
employer is understanding so I travel outside rush hour so I always get a seat
and can do stuff on my laptop. This means that I arrive at the office late and
leave the office late. My colleagues just say that I work in a slightly
different time zone.

What really kicks hard is that when you're at work you're 1.5 hours from home,
the simple stuff - like going to the supermarket or the post office - becomes
complicated. I leave before the supermarket opens, and I get home after it
closes. Tricky things like being at home in the morning to receive a parcel
become really complicated and end up costing much more than half a day.

tl;dr the math is good, but the model is too simple. Living a commuting life
costs more than you'd calculate.

~~~
njs12345
One thing I do is get deliveries sent to my office instead of my house. That
definitely makes receiving stuff a whole lot easier, if your employer will let
you do it.

~~~
Evbn
For many items, you still need shipping home.

~~~
pavel_lishin
The only thing that we've absolutely had to have shipped home was delivered
furniture.

------
wcchandler
Another option is to commute with a significant other.

My wife and I both have a commute by car that is 25-35 minutes each. We
recently changed our schedules to make it easier for us to commute --
together. So now, instead of having an hour out of the day that couldn't have
been spent with each other, we now have it together. We can talk about our
day, talk about any issues going on, plan various "things." It's really quite
nice.

------
mijustin
For me, the answer was to relocate and move within cycling distance of my
office.

Compared to driving, cycling is incredibly life-giving. I get exercise, and
can maneuver around downtown with ease (I never have to worry about a parking
spot).

~~~
walshemj
Doesn't work for major cities an example from the UK 2 bed flat in Bedford a
35/50 min commute is £115,000 red lion square near our office its £625,000.

~~~
lazerwalker
There are lot more factors at play than simple cost of housing. Financially
speaking, there's the cost of commuting to be factored in, which depending on
whether you drive or use public transit might or might not be substantial.
More significantly, there's comfort: would you rather live in the middle of
the city, or the burbs? How much is it worth to you to be able to bike to
work?

I've made a point of living biking distance from every job I've had. It's
definitely cost me much more in rent than it's saved me in automobile costs
because of the astronomical price of living in an urban center (downtown San
Francisco and Manhattan, in my case), but for me the financial aspect was
dwarfed by quality-of-life preferences (and the good fortune to be in a
situation where I could make such a trade-off).

~~~
cawhitworth
I made the same decision when we moved to Cambridge (UK). It's a really,
really big cycling town and there's a noticable drop off in property prices
once you go beyond about a half-hour cycle commute to the science/business
park part of the city. The A14 (the main commuter road to that part of
Cambridge) is basically a carpark during peak times, and I can cycle to work
on (relatively) quiet cycle paths in less than half the time it would take me
to drive.

------
LeafStorm
One of my coworkers and I both live around the same area. I commute to work
via bus, he drives (occasionally we carpool, but our schedules are different
most days). He doesn't understand why I would take the bus when it's a fifty-
minute ride via bus and a twenty-five-minute ride by car.

However, I can use the time on the bus to catch up on email and news (I'm paid
by the hour, so no point in working on the bus if I'm going to put in an
8-hour day anyway), or even doze off slightly. By contrast, when you're
driving, your attention has to be entirely focused on the freeway. So while he
has 50 minutes of being locked up driving, I have 100 minutes of time to
relax.

~~~
Evbn
Does your bus go door to door the moment you need it? My to/from/wait time for
the bus is longer than drive time.

~~~
xyzzy123
Which is even less fun in windy or rainy conditions :(

Even when there are bus shelters, often such effort has been put into making
them uncomfortable for the homeless that they offer no protection from the
elements at all.

------
petercooper
_If possible, use public transport. Even if your total time enroute increases,
you will have more time to do something productive_

If you're lucky! I commuted on public transport for a while in the south east
of England and if your face wasn't smashed into someone's armpit for the
entire journey, you were doing well (or working unsociable hours) ;-)

~~~
pixelcort
I've always wondered, in these situations, do you at least have enough room to
use a smartphone, or is even that asking too much in the crowds? Where I live,
public transportation doesn't typically get that congested.

~~~
petercooper
Probably, it's been 15 years since I commuted.. ;-) I'm not sure I could do
anything "productive" standing on a smartphone though but I imagine it'd be
great for catching up with Letterpress(!)

The south east of England is notorious for crowded public transport. You're
basically looking at several million people hitting it at the same time (and
driving is a nightmare so public transport is very busy).

------
praptak
See also "The True Cost of Commuting"
[http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/10/06/the-true-cost-
of-c...](http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/10/06/the-true-cost-of-
commuting/) with some more math.

------
confluence
I take a 40 minute train trip either way and get a seat at the same time by
pushing my work hours off peak. I just sit there and relax with my kindle and
have read hundreds of books that way distraction free.

More people should push work off peak - who's bloody idea was it to get people
to work 9 to 5? Why not 10 - 4 like me?

Hurried, stressed people under commuter pressure don't work well anyway and
those extra hours are just wasted with busy work. I'm talking office workers
here - blue collar workers have it completely different.

------
bengl3rt
I will soon be graduating from school and have accepted a job offer that I
know will involve some commuting - probably driving.

My rationale is that I'll only do it for a few years, and it's worth it to
have the company in question on my resumé. I think the fact that we all aren't
working from home 2-3 days a week is frankly ridiculous, but the sea change is
already in progress and can't be stopped. Eventually working remotely 50-80%
of the time will be the norm.

~~~
JoshTriplett
Any particular reason you only plan to work for that company for a few years?
"to have the company in question on my resumé" seems like a poor reason; if
you actually _want_ to work there, why not work there for a substantial
fraction of your career?

Also, have you considered the possibility of finding an apartment close to
work? Unless you already own a home, moving to shorten your commute will save
you huge amounts of money and time.

~~~
james-chipper
Many companies see working at the same company for more than 2-3 years as a
negative. Even if you love the company, you will be seen as stagnant and lazy.

~~~
ZanderEarth32
That is a scary line of thinking IMO. If you work for 40 years and lived by
that philosophy you'd have worked for nearly 20 companies. While if you're a
freelancer that might seem normal, but as a normal salaried employee, that
seems like quite a bit. I realize that "getting the gold watch" and hanging
around a company for 40 years isn't the norm these days, but to be counted as
a negative just because you stay at one company for merely 2 or 3 years seems
harsh. Have you had experience with this sentiment? I haven't encountered it
yet.

------
A__MJ
I've actually had a different experience with commuting. Even with the
downsides you can make a lot of use of that time for a finite time period.

Things I've done with the time (which otherwise would have never happened):

-Used Pimsleur I-III to learn some Mandarin, and more importantly, HOW to learn a new language(/other things). Spoken Mandarin is less intimidating than westerners think, and the grammar is simpler than English in a lot of ways. (Caveat: My Mandarin is by no means good. I couldn't find any good systematic ways to keep going after Pimsleur III)

-Listened to podcasts on nutrition and got very in-tune with how what I eat effects how I feel, how productive I am, and what happens during my gym time.

-Neuroscience podcasts, ditto. That stuff is interesting. Especially relating to dopamine, if you're a heavy internet user and you check your email every thirty seconds on your phone.

-Developed a better idea of how successful freelancers operate and how they've transitioned into that (Kalzumeus podcast, Ruby Freelancers). Ditto for very successful startup founders (Techzing, Stanford's Innovation Thought Leaders podcast).

-Developed my musical taste.

-Developed my rock climbing grip by using a grip trainer.

-Learned to calm my mind and relax and not waste mental energy on situations I have no immediate control over. Shitty traffic is a great time to practice this specifically because it's so aggravating.

That said - the key thing is that this is for a finite period of time, and you
have to act on stuff you learn. The eventual endgame is that you gradually run
out of interesting things that you can pick up from a podcast and then do on
your own. You want to use the time to work on something more specific.

In addition to the time cost, sitting in one position and staring in one
direction for an hour destroys any kind of flow that you have. It doesn't
matter whether you leave work energized and ready to rock - when you get home,
sitting in a car for an hour will usually make you tired. If you work on
complex side projects or like to go out after work, this has a pretty
substantial impact.

~~~
erjiang
Unrelated to topic, but for Mandarin you should check out chineseclass101.com.
They have some cliched advertising, but they have a lot of audio lessons that
range from zero to quite advanced, and the lessons themselves are much more
entertaining and "real-world" than Pimsleur's imo.

Also, flashcards using Anki to memorize vocab and characters are effective,
but not something you should be doing while driving!

------
jmspring
My current job has me commuting 45mi each way 2x/week. So about 90mi of
driving each time I go in. The other three days I am at home during the week.
A good part of what I do involves working across time zones, so I am generally
"on the clock" outside business hours as well. I love the flexibility, the
time not getting annoyed in a car, and the ability to live in a place that has
both world class mountain biking and surfing.

Whenever I get a ping from a recruiter, flexibility is the first thing I ask
them about -- both core hours as well as working at home options. My favorite
response was, "well, once you are established, you might be able to work at
home on friday now and then". The worst of the responses usually come from
established companies rather than startups.

I understand the need to time to collaborate, face time, and the like. Some
people need more of it than others. That said, the best teams I have
seen/worked with were ones that provided some flexibility to allow their
employees to work in the manner most suited to their lifestyle. (I don't mean
complete capitulation, but a base that has some give and take for both the
company and the individual).

I do like driving. I take road trips regularly, but the day to day grind of
other people in their metal cages, stressed, distracted, etc. isn't driving,
it is commuting. For where I live, public transport to Silicon Valley from
where I live involves a bus and/or train, which is 1.5-2 hrs each way, not
really reasonable for me.

------
tel
I felt somewhat betrayed that this had much less to do with algebra than I
initially expected.

------
mashgin
I was travelling from Leuven to Antwerp everyday for ~1.5 years. During the 1
hour ride each side I worked on my laptop and used my phone's 3G. It was
mostly fine, except the signal kept dropping as soon as the train was out of
populated areas. That was annoying. I wish there be 3G coverage properly
everywhere first instead of getting LTE/4G to big cities.

------
zandomatter
I did the math for my first year of working - 3 hours of commuting a day, 48
weeks, 5 days a week. 30 full days spent sitting on public transport.

I wouldn't like to drive (wouldn't be much faster), but I'm still nowhere near
as relaxed or productive on public transport than I could be at home - it's
stuffy, limited space (leg room, anyone?), and you can't always get a seat.
Account for the 6 months it took to get used to reading on a moving vehicle
without feeling ill within 10 minutes, and I've lost even more time.

I enjoyed it for a while (I thought the time would force me to achieve
something), but as I started using my spare time differently the commute
became the biggest time suck of anything, and there was very little I could do
about it (mostly due to infrequent and badly aligning public transport
schedules).

------
Osiris
When I was offered a job earlier this year, the salary was substantially
higher than my current salary, but that was not including the extra expenses I
would incur.

My previous job I worked from home and traveled by air. My travel to the
airport was covered by mileage reimbursement. Basically, I never paid for gas
for work.

In my new job, I new I'd have a 25 mile (1-way) commute, coming to $160+ a
month in gas. That took $2,000 right out of the higher salary.

On the same note, when I moved from the Bay Area to Denver, I stopped having
to pay $140/mn in BART passes and worked from home instead, which was a nice
savings in both money and time.

However, I did enjoy my time on BART. I had my laptop out the entire time
working on code, except when I was unlucky enough to have to get on at
Embarcadero and not get a seat until El Cerrito.

------
tikhonj
In the recent past, I've spent a decent amount of time commuting by train.
I've used Caltrain (which is fine), Bart (which is usually nicer) and even
both (which is... less nice).

I've actually found the train ride to be _valuable_. It gave me an hour or two
a day of uninterrupted time when I could focus on what _I_ wanted to do:
either work on my side projects or read books.

In the recent past, I've been too busy to read much fiction; having time on a
train which was "useless" anyhow let me get back into it. I enjoyed a whole
bunch of fantasy and SF novels thanks to having a commute. This is where
something like a Kindle _really_ helps: it's light and convenient enough to
read even if I can't get a seat, and I can carry as many books at once as I
want. It also let me re-read the Wheel of Time series on the train, which
would not have been practical with hardcover (or even paperback) copies of the
books :P.

If I did manage to get a seat--and, since I often travelled at off-peak hours,
I usually did--I had other options as well. For one, I could work on my own
projects. This was particularly nice because I had a very limited amount of
time, say exactly 40 minutes. This helped me focus on specific tasks, like
fixing some bugs, that would have been less interesting if I was planning to
work for several hours at home.

Another option was reading non-fiction. I actually learned a good deal about
theoretical CS, programming languages and type theory last summer. Partly,
this was because I was working at an awesome startup; however, reading
academic material on the train also helped immensely. Since the train had less
distractions than virtually anywhere else I spend time, I was able to get
through denser passages without any compulsions to do something else (like go
on HN :P).

I've also found the train a good place to read CS papers; since the time I can
spend on it is inherently limited, it helps me get a quick overview that is
neither too deep nor too shallow. Given an unbounded amount of time, I tend to
either quickly skim a paper and get distracted or spend far too much time
thinking about particular details. Reading something on a train helps me get a
holistic and useful first impression.

One thing I've learned from experience: if at all possible, avoid transfers.
This is especially bad between different services like Caltrain and Bart, but
even Bart's timed transfers are decidedly sub-optimal. Two 20-minute chunks
with a five-minute break in the middle are _significantly_ less useful than a
single 40-minute chunk. Also, knowing you will have to get up to transfer soon
definitely creates more of an overhead for opening your laptop or getting a
book out of your bag.

Anyhow, in total, I'm actually pretty happy if I can commute by train. Even
though it does take up a fair amount of time, the time can actually be useful.
I've even found the constraints make me more productive for certain things
than just having that time at home.

------
barrkel
Consider taking up motorbikes, especially if you can legally filter /
lanesplit. What would otherwise be dead time can be a whole lot of fun.
Traffic makes it far more interesting.

~~~
softbuilder
"Motorcyclists were 35 times more likely than passenger car occupants to die
in a crash in 2006, per vehicle mile traveled, and 8 times more likely to be
injured."[1]

I'm all for recreational motorcycling but I'm not as convinced it is a great
solution for commuting overall.

[1] [http://trafficsafety.org/safety/sharing/motorcycle/motor-
fac...](http://trafficsafety.org/safety/sharing/motorcycle/motor-facts/motor-
injuries-fatalities)

~~~
barrkel
Life is a fatal condition; if there was no risk, it wouldn't be as much fun. I
used to skydive, but I enjoy riding more. Horse riding is 20x more
dangerous[1]. Riding my bike is the _most_ fun I have all day; YMMV.

[1]
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2007/...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2007/03_march/23/riding.shtml)

Here's a SF commuter's perspective: <http://thesundaybe.st/cracks-in-the-
clockwork/>

~~~
softbuilder
That video was a lot of fun!

Definitely if your commute is also your hobby, that's awesome.

------
fitandfunction
Yup. I've done the math. I think this math is a large determinant of the
property values in dense cities (SF, NYC, etc).

For a few years, I took the subway (BART) from Berkeley to SF. In theory, I
could have used that 45 min commute to do something useful. In practice, I
spent most of it standing, packed in like sardines.

At first, it was hard to justify the huge increase in living expense by moving
from Berkeley to SF. But the move decreased my commute from 45 min on public
transportation to a 10 min walk.

Totally worth it.

------
bajsejohannes
This is such a common mistake that it's even got a name: The Commuting
Paradox.

<http://ftp.iza.org/dp1278.pdf>

------
BjoernKW
No, time wasted due to commuting definitely isn't just a Belgian phenomenon.
What's most annoying about this is that this terrible waste of time could be
alleviated so easily by having people work remotely. However, most employers
still just don't seem to get how letting people work remotely has huge
advantages for employers as well.

------
te_chris
It takes me ~10 minutes to bike from home to work in central Auckland (NZ). I
am planning on moving next year and I really don't know if I'm willing to give
that up.

------
gwern
Another person rediscovers "the commuting paradox".

