
The True Cost of Commuting - joelhooks
http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/10/06/the-true-cost-of-commuting/
======
cletus
The problems with long commutes all revolve around home ownership.

People want big houses on big yards. Most can't afford that close to work,
which means they make the economic choice to trade the commute time for that
"dream".

That's fine but the problem is that government subsidizes that dream to a
ridiculous degree. Urban sprawl has a huge cost in infrastructure, largely
borne by the taxpayer.

Low-density urban sprawl largely also makes public transport uneconomic
(public transport works best in high density cities and countries).

Lastly, home ownership decreases the flexibility of the labour market. People
are less able and less inclined to pick up and move to find work opting
instead for lower-paid employment or no employment at all.

~~~
melling
There are a couple of places in the US where there is enough population
density to make mass transit work. Unfortunately no one wants to spend the
money to improve it. Train and bus travel is painfully slow. Commuter rail
travel, for example, averages about 30-40 mph, at best. If that doubled,
people could commute from "great distances", or simply live 40 miles from a
major city and have a 30 minute commute. Is the problem really that hard to
solve?

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
We need to both change the way we think about what "mass transit" is and spend
more $$$ advertising it.

I live in a rural area about 40 miles from Minneapolis, the largest city
around here, pop. about 400k. Normally it would take me well over an hour to
get there during rush hour, but I recently discovered that there is a bus that
can do it in 22 minutes if the schedule is to be believed. The buses can drive
on the shoulder, and of course, use the HOV lanes to get there faster than we
can.

I found this out purely by accident because it's really not well publicized. I
had to go to Mpls and didn't want to deal with parking, so I looked into the
bus route and was astounded that it could do the trip from bus depot to
downtown in 20 minutes. The bus stop itself is about 15 minutes from my house,
so I could be downtown in less than 40 minutes. I can't believe Metro Transit
isn't screaming this from the rooftops!

Of course, life being what it is I made it to the bus stop late, missed the
last bus in and had to deal with the 1.5 hour drive into the city anyway :-(

~~~
seles
Wouldn't seeing a bus drive on the shoulder or fly by you in the HOV lane be a
kind of advertisement? I never see buses do that where I live.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
I rarely drive into the city and never do so at rush hour, so I've never
really noticed what the buses do.

------
tomkarlo
All of this assumes that a 30-something professional couple with two earners
can actually both find (and keep) jobs within biking distance of a home they
can reasonable afford.

My experience, along with my fiancee, having lived and worked in 3 different
major US cities in the past 5 years, is that assumption just isn't reasonable.
It's hard enough to find two good jobs in a household in the same _CITY_ right
now, much less the 10-15 mile radius of biking. In areas where it might be
possible, the cost of housing is so high that it eats up that savings.

Examples 1\. New York: Lots of jobs in tight proximity and good public
transport, but even in the "cheaper" boroughs, you're still probably paying
$250K or more extra for a small family residence. 2\. Los Angeles: Cheap
housing. Owning less than two cars with two careers? Possible, but very, very
difficult. Short commutes? Unlikely. 3\. San Francisco: Expensive housing.
Expensive car ownership. Jobs spread throughout the peninsula.

Not to mention what happens when you have kids to transport.

What we really need is to lift restrictions on new housing construction in
dense urban areas like New York and San Francisco. The only way you can have
both high job density and moderate housing prices close together is to allow
enough vertical construction to reduce competition for housing to reasonable
levels. Until you do that, you're inevitable going to see a large part of the
population, especially younger / latecomer families, forced to live away from
the job centers so they can reduce housing costs.

~~~
jquery
> The only way you can have both high job density and moderate housing prices
> close together is to allow enough vertical construction to reduce
> competition for housing to reasonable levels.

I think this is a pipe dream, unfortunately. How could you sell such an idea
to the existing homeowner who comprise the voting base?

~~~
xxpor
Simple, don't let people vote on it.

~~~
SoftwareMaven
For the politician who wants another term, whether she votes on it or the
public does makes little difference when the opposition can claim, "She caused
your house prices to go down 20%".

------
bdunbar
In an earlier life, I lived in the Dallas area. Moving to be near work sounds
great, but it would not have been practical.

\- I lived there for nine years. My average tenure was 18 months for each
employer: Laid-off, right-sized, down-sized. Finding a new house for each new
employer would have been costly.

\- One employer was way the heck out by the airport. There were no houses
within biking distance. Or not ones I could afford.

\- Another employer had me relocate to a new client every few months. I saw a
fair bit of the metro-mess that way.

\- The last employer turned out to be the best: closed the office in Texas and
relocated me to Wisconsin. My house is two miles away from the office. I still
need a car: biking to work in the winter is just crazy.

'The plural of data is not anecdote' but .. sometimes you gotta just get a
place to live and live with a commute that you know is going to change no
matter what.

~~~
dasil003
> _My house is two miles away from the office. I still need a car: biking to
> work in the winter is just crazy._

I grew up in Minneapolis, you should check out the bicycle commuting scene
where you live. It varies by location, but in Minneapolis I was able to
bicycle commute at least 4 days a week all winter long thanks to good plowing
of bike paths, studded tires (only occasionally) and substituting a bus ride
in right after significant snowfalls.

Winter bike commuting is not for everyone, but with the proper gear it's not
as bad as it looks (less uncomfortable than getting in a cold car and waiting
for it to warm up IMHO).

~~~
larrys
"I was about (sic) to bicycle commute at least 4 days a week all winter long"

I think you also have to factor in safety. You will inevitably take chances
over time and one of those chances could lead to an injury that keeps you from
working or gives you lifelong pain. Either from a mistake you make or from
someone in a car or bus. (Of course this can happen in dry weather as well...)

Statistically you can also use the historical weather info on
<http://www.wunderground.com> to look over several years data for the winter.

~~~
pyoung
Don't have any stats to back this up, but driving is probably just as unsafe.

~~~
bdunbar
That feels counter intuitive.

In a car one has restraints, a lot of armor to absorb impact, airbags. On a
bike you've got ... a helmet.

~~~
jarek
Yes, when a collision does happen, a car is undoubtedly a better place to be,
for the same reasons a tank would be better still. However, when it comes to
avoiding a collision, in a car one has a whole lot more kinetic energy, and a
whole lot less visibility and maneuverability.

------
stouset
It's amazing how many excuses people manage to come up with for how it's
impossible for them to follow this kind of advice. Turns out, it's impossible
up until the point that you just shut up and start doing it.

Sweating is only a problem for most of you because you're unhealthy and
overweight. You're overweight because you get no exercise. It's okay: I was
too. Then I started cycling to work and lost 50lb. Now sweating's not a
problem, and I can go significantly faster without showing up to work
drenched.

On my old commute (7.5mi), I ended up getting it down to 20 minutes once I got
in shape. Time to drive? 20 minutes. Except instead of arriving to work tired
and pissed off, I would show up alert, awake, and having enjoyed some time out
in the sun doing something fun. It completely changed my mindset at work, and
got me off to a much better foot every morning.

Showering isn't a problem. Again, go slower until sweating is no longer an
issue, then increase your speed to a point that you can still get to work
without being drenched. If you still show up wet, or if you're wet from rain,
bring a change of clothes. I infrequently had to, but it's not that hard to
ride in wearing cycling clothing (which will, incidentally, keep you much
drier) and bring a change of clothes with you. Go into the bathroom, change,
and be on with your day. It takes less time than it would to find a parking
spot for your SUV anyway.

Weather is, again, not a big deal. We as humans have invented clothing for all
sorts of weather conditions, intersected with the requirements of all sorts of
physical activities. Cycling is no exception. There's cycling clothing for
rain, for cold, and for rain _and_ cold. It costs equivalent to about a week's
worth of driving for you 30-minute commuters. Less if your commute is longer.

I mean, come on. Hacker News is a site supposedly full of entrepreneurial go-
getters. And yet this guy gives you a way to save hundreds of thousands of
dollars, your time, and your sanity, and all I hear is griping about how minor
inconveniences make it completely impossible. Yeah, some of you are trapped
between a rock and a hard place. Some of you are already owning impossible-to-
sell property forty miles out in the 'burbs. But for the rest of you, quit
making excuses and just give it a try — it's seriously not as hard or
inconvenient as you're making it out to be.

Who knows? Maybe the next time your apartment is up for renewal you'll find
yourself moving closer to the city rather than farther away for once. And you
won't ever look back.

~~~
abalashov
_Sweating is only a problem for most of you because you're unhealthy and
overweight_

I don't know about that; body chemistries are very different. But more
importantly, it sounds like you live in a place with reasonably cool, dry air.
Some of us don't have that privilege.

It's good advice, don't get me wrong. I myself lead a largely carless life in
-- of all places, rather improbably -- downtown Atlanta, and walk about a mile
and a half to work each way, and pretty much walk everywhere else too.

But to think I could bike around here without getting sweaty is a practical
impossibility, no matter what condition of fitness or body weight. It's
extremely humid, though not quite as bad as the gulf coast. It's just not
going to happen. So, I'd suggest for anyone in that set of circumstances to be
pragmatic and bring a change of clothes and try to find a place where you can
shower at work.

~~~
stouset
Actually, I live in Atlanta. It's really not as bad as you think — cycling
generates wind, which keeps you cool. You don't have to expend more energy on
a bike than you would otherwise on your walk. So if you can manage to walk
without sweating, you can likely bike it without issue.

I agree with the body chemistry bit, though. Some people just can't do it, one
way or another. But for the majority of people, it's just an excuse. And it's
a convenient one because they frequently are already unhealthy or overweight.

~~~
abalashov
_So if you can manage to walk without sweating_

That can be a quite challenge most months out of the year, and I'm in fairly
good shape. But I walk quite faster than most people (can't really help it).
Even in the winter, I just feel cold from the chilly wind while simultaneously
sweating inside my coat. It's the quintessential "clammy" experience. This
area of the country absolutely sucks, climactically, although not quite as
badly as Houston, where I lived for a while.

------
vacri
His numbers are absolute nonsense - $125k over 10 years is only possible if
you were spending your wage commuting - it's far more than just the $19/day
travel costs he cites.

If you go from a 60 minute commute to a 0 minute commute, you don't suddenly
get 2 hours of extra pay per day.

It's like saying "You don't get paid for that hour of chores you do every day
- which means if you stop doing chores, you'll get more money!"

~~~
keithpeter
I'm glad you said that, I was having problems with that bit of the arithmetic
myself. My time is precious to me, but only earns me money when someone wants
to pay me for it.

------
usaar333
I'm a hater of long commutes (happily with a 1.5 mile one right now), but some
of the analysis is flawed:

1) Commuting cost. The $0.17 as a minimum marginal cost per mile is
reasonable. The IRS' $0.51 really can't be used as a margnal rate. Simply put,
the operating cost of a car is not a linear function of mileage. There are
exceptionally high fixed costs, namely depreciation, insurance, (some)
maintenance and registration. Personally, as I only drive 7000 miles a year
(well below car average), my car ownership costs per mile slightly exceed the
IRS reimbursement rate. But my marginal rate is still extremely low - if I
drove another 1000 miles a year, it'd cost maybe $200 more ($0.2/mile).
Attempting to average a minimum marginal cost and an optimistic estimate of
car ownership per mile does not produce a valid estimate for average marginal
cost.

2) Mileage to time conversion: I have no idea how he concludes that 1 mile = 6
minutes round trip. Living father away generally implies freeway utlization,
where a marginal mile would be closer to 2 minutes round trip. (Anecdote: I
live in SF. Thanks to the lack of freeway system within the city itself, a
commute may be shorter (and use not much more gas) living 20 miles away from
work in the suburbs than 7 miles away within the city borders).

3) Value of time. On a long commute, I'm not necessarily wasting time.
Whenever I had one, I deferred actual reading I would otherwise do to
podcasts.

I've always found the main benefit of a short commute is flexibility (go home
and back in the middle of the day) and reduction of stress (traffic sucks). It
is awesome to have a shorter commute, but in no way is it worth spending
nearly $250k more on a house solely to live 15 miles closer to work for a
typical person.

~~~
kelnos
Yes, the 6 minutes per mile thing seemed weird to me. I live and work in SF
now, but I used to work in Santa Clara, and I would do the drive in about 40
minutes -- just about 1 minute per mile. I drove at non-peak times, and my
off-highway time was usually no more than about 10 minutes.

Then I started working in San Mateo... half the distance, but usually 25-30
minutes. Off-highway time increased, and on-highway decreased. Still, though,
a far cry from 6 min/mile.

But I'm so much happier now that my commute involves only 6 blocks of walking
and a 20 minute bus ride. I can even read on the bus! It's great, though the
lack of control over my transportation still bothers me.

~~~
simoncion
What bus goes from SF to San Mateo in 20 minutes?

------
vsl2
I couldn't finish reading the whole thing, and I'm usually thinking about
maximizing everything all the time.

He completely lost me when he said people could change jobs to reduce the
commute. Isn't there usually a reason that people are working where they are?
Things such as chosen field and salary? We're not talking about teenagers
working fungible minimum wage jobs here...

Everyone tries to minimize their commute times and where they end up living is
a reflection of the compromise between different values. I think this article
points out that people don't prioritize commute time enough because its only
taken in small daily doses and that's a valid point, but that time is also not
completely wasted if you can find something productive to do (e.g. listening
to audiobooks, language lessions or relevant news).

~~~
wnight
> He completely lost me when he said people could change jobs to reduce the
> commute. Isn't there usually a reason that people are working where they
> are?

Sure, but that reason would probably evaporate for a large enough raise. Which
not having to commute is, if you look at it rationally.

------
emu
The author of the article completely ignores public transit. Commuting by
train has at least two advantages: (1) it (can be) cheaper than driving,
although the exact economics depend on a lot of things, and (2) you can do
something else, such as work, during the commute time, so it need not be
wasted time.

Also, commuting an hour to a job sure beats not having a job in the same state
as your significant other (my situation). I'm looking forward to moving to the
same place and commuting soon. Commuting sucks, but you're optimizing for many
things when choosing where to live, not just commute time.

~~~
ChrisLTD
As a related point, podcasts (tech podcasts specifically) have made my driving
commutes more bearable. Sure, I can't do actual work while driving, but I no
longer feel like I'm wasting my time. The result is less stress. Now when my
trips are quick sometimes I'm annoyed I didn't get to hear more of the show!

------
barrkel
I work from home, but I still "commute" to get a fresh breakfast every morning
- by scooter. It is such a joy to ride a scooter in London traffic that I
deliberately go to much farther shops just to extend the amount of time I'm
zooming past the traffic...

Quite frugal on fuel (I get about 70 MPG, but I ride a fast 300cc scooter and
don't have a light throttle hand), and I can do most regular maintenance (oil
& filter mostly) myself.

~~~
mahyarm
Aren't you worried about the higher likelihood of death (4x) and injury (6x)
on motorcycles?

~~~
barrkel
Not really, no; for several reasons. You need to pick apart those statistics
and look at risk factors (e.g. breaking limits, laws, alcohol) and also weigh
up how much fun it is. Skydiving is dangerous but fun - I did it for a year,
but ultimately it wasn't for me. Climbing mountains is dangerous, but there's
a huge sense of accomplishment involved. Riding a motorbike is similar:
there's less risk than the previous, but you can do it much more often, and
the risk is scalable by how aggressively you ride.

I've had a few ~30mph scooter spills in the past three years - a couple of
lowsides from loss of traction owing to cornering too harshly in poor weather
and poor surfaces (scooters exacerbate this owing to not having much lean
angle to play with), as well as an 18 year old kid in a car who pulled out of
a parked position behind a bus and did a u-turn as I was overtaking the bus -
but none the worse for wear other than a scratched visor and a slightly
scraped elbow (and an insurance payout to replace my bike).

Ironically, I've travelled much further in total on my big bike (but over
shorter time periods) with no incidents at all, yet was pushing myself through
twisty mountain roads and much higher speeds. But I had the experience to
watch extra carefully for road surface quality and dial right back in bad
weather.

You've got to die sometime. You only have a short time on this planet. Do you
want to live fearfully and protect all that you have until your grave (when
you'll lose it all anyway), or do you want to go out and live a little?

At least on a motorbike you're more likely to hurt yourself than other people.
I find driving a car, on the other hand, quite a scary experience owing to how
large it is and how little vision you have of everything around you. It would
be so easy to hit something small while reversing (a child, say), or clip
something (like a cyclist) going around a corner.

(I should add that I rarely ever go on my scooter without protective jacket,
and almost never on my big bike without protective trousers and boots too. I
_never_ ride without gloves or full-face helmet.)

~~~
mahyarm
You can say the same about reducing car driving fatality and injury statistics
by not doing stupid things like driving drunk too. The relative risk profiles
would be the same.

What increases the risk profile with motorcycles is other cars hitting you
directly while moving. Inattentive elderly people, young people, people in a
hurry, whatever, it's something you don't have control over or an obvious
indicator such as bad weather.

I too rode a scooter w/ armor for a year during my student days in a Seattle
climate. It is somewhat fun, but there are more fun physical activities out
there with less of a risk profile and non-regular occurrence. There were many
times I wish I could be driving a car instead.

To me, it doesn't pass the 'Would I regret doing this if a somewhat uncommon
screwup happened' test? Especially if I had to do it repeatedly. It's like
having casual sex without a condom. It feels better, but your going to regret
it majorly if you got a girl pregnant who doesn't want an abortion. Your going
to fucking want to kick your past self and tell him to wear a condom. I would
feel the same if I got into a major motorcycle accident.

~~~
barrkel
I never said I thought motorbikes were safer than cars; in fact, I explicitly
said that they _were_ dangerous, but not as dangerous as e.g. skydiving (IMO -
I've seen multiple people break ankles in perhaps 20 days total on dropzones,
and three reserve parachute deployments).

The risks apply differently to motorbikes than cars because of how much less
there is between you, the vehicle, and the environment. Alcohol affects you
worse on a bike; misjudgement affects you worse, because most bikes brake
worse than cars yet accelerate far faster. The temptation to twist the
throttle and feel the acceleration, and the extra relative width of the road
compared to the narrowness of a bike, all make you more likely on average to
speed on a bike. Because of the acceleration, agility and small size, you can
get away with maneuvers you could never do in a car - if you risk it.

In terms of fun - this is obviously a subjective judgement. You asked if I was
put off by the risk profile; I explained why I am not, and clearly part of it
is because I find it more fun than you do. It's particularly fun in London,
because in the UK it is legal to filter / lane split: you generally skip to
the front at red lights, overtake or go down the middle of traffic queues, and
generally never have to stop for long because of traffic, even in the narrow
streets of central London. The UK equivalent of US double-yellow lines are
rare in urban areas; riding on the "wrong" side of the road to skip traffic is
common. If I was condemned to ride in the multi-lane highways of the US, and
forbidden from lane splitting, and didn't have to deal with London-style
traffic, I'd probably drive a car too most days.

(When I ride bikes in California, where I can lane split, it's still not as
fun as the UK, because there isn't enough traffic; the highways are too wide,
too straight, have too many lanes, while the back roads have poor surfaces and
low speed limits. Better than most of the UK again is the Eifel region in
Germany / Belgium / Luxembourg, but it's a different kind of fun.)

As to regret, I believe you end up regretting the things you didn't do more
than the things you did. I regret not learning how to ride sooner; I wish I'd
done it years ago, when I still lived in Ireland. I rode a scooter in the UK
on a provisional license for over a year before I got my full license and was
able to ride something bigger than 125cc, and regret not passing sooner,
having found out how easy it was to pass - it would have lead to lower
insurance rates if nothing else. Growing up, I cycled everywhere, and I was
always ambivalent about cars. I never had a desire to drive, and didn't learn
until I was 29, and it still doesn't appeal to me. I drive reluctantly in
rentals, mostly. But motorbikes were different; with every step, I've become
more and more convinced that this is the motorized transport for me. It's
become part of my identity; it's one of the best things I've ever done, and I
regret much of the time I could have spent riding, but didn't.

------
cschneid
Funny. I drive from Ft Collins, to the same Broomfield he's talking about (yay
Colorado).

I love my 50 minute commute. I use it to listen to podcasts and music. It
gives me time to unwind and think. And most importantly, it came along with a
raise that more than makes up for the monetary costs of driving.

I'd love a mass transit or car pooling solution, but I haven't run across a
viable one yet.

Anyway, I really like my commute. Although, we'll see how it goes in the
winter as roads get gross sometimes.

~~~
saturdaysaint
I agree that technology has eased the psychological pain (if not the financial
impact) - between podcasting, audio books, streaming music, voice journalling
and calling friends, my drive is something I look forward to.

------
brianpan
He's calculating the cost of commuting vs not commuting. That's not a real
comparison for most people.

And even if you do calculate the real cost differential, I think for many
people, living somewhere you really like is similar to taking a job that you
really enjoy. I would take decreases in salary for an awesome work
environment. Call me crazy, but if I have the ability to "pay" for sanity, I
will. It's priceless.

------
heresyforme
I did a quick search through the comments, but didn't see anyone mention crime
and schools. Believe it or not, there are start-ups in the Southern states and
they tend to be in the cities (New Orleans, Baton Rouge LA, Jackson MS) where
crime is pretty bad. If you have children, the public schools are pretty bad,
so you'll want to send them to private school which will run you 6-10K per
child.

The only alternative is the suburbs. It's tricky, but I found a place about 20
minutes and 20 miles away, but we looked for over a year. The schools are
relatively good and the private schools tend to be a bit cheaper.

People don't want big houses (please show me the evidence that they want big
houses), but big houses tend to cost more, which means the neighbors you'll
likely have are people who are educated, well-behaved, friendly and have a
good credit score. "Big houses" is a polite way of saying I don't want to live
by people who can't afford a big house.

...I should also mention. Yeah, bus rides - you don't want to do that.

~~~
rbranson
The lack of good urban schools and healthy mass transit is a self-perpetuating
problem in southern cities, originally stemming from racism. Over decades, a
near separate but equal environment within the framework of existing civil
rights laws came to fruition.

------
wccrawford
"Error establishing a database connection"

So very true. When I lived 60 minutes from work and this would happen, it was
a freaking nightmare. If I was lucky, someone else would be on call, but if I
wasn't, it meant a 2 hour round trip to fix what usually ended up being an
unplugged cable of some sort. Sometimes it just needed a power cycle. -sigh-

... That wasn't the article? I wonder if the article is as insightful?

~~~
wccrawford
Ah, here we go.

"And it also doesn’t count as using up your personal time because it is adding
something that nobody except Olympic athletes is doing enough of anyway –
exercise. You can take your 10 minute bike ride directly out of time you would
have otherwise spent in the gym, or waiting in the doctor’s office for
prescription medication."

I was wondering how he managed to eliminate that from his calculations. He
didn't, of course. Some of us don't do either of the alternatives, so this
really would be stealing the time from their day.

And 10 minutes? 5 minutes each way? I'm pretty sure that's all but impossible
in most major cities.

And some of those car costs don't disappear when the commute does. You still
have to -have- one to go shopping, on trips, and other errands around town.

And so you get to work after your 20 minute bike ride, and what do you do?
Why, you go shower, of course! You were just biking for 20 minutes! Nobody
wants to smell you. That takes more time from your down... Don't forget the
shower when you get home, too! ... Your company doesn't have a shower? Good
luck with that!

And danger! When you've got a ton of steel wrapped around you, you don't think
much of the danger of the open road. But when the only thing keeping your
brain away from the pavement is a little foam hat, the world is quite a bit
scarier... Even if the drivers are playing nice!

Oh, lunch time. My favorite time, I'll just go get... Oh wait. I biked in
today. I can't go very far... Guess I'm eating that bag lunch after all.

I choose my apartments for their proximity to work. And I love having a short
commute... But even when I -could- bike, I rarely did. There were just too
many problems with it.

~~~
roc
My reaction to the article was much the same. The article makes an argument
I've made myself several times.

But the author's examples and 'calculations' are just this side of garbage.

~~~
MrMoneyMustache
Excellent point! I believe Mr. Money Mustache addresses objections of exactly
this type in this related post:
[http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/10/07/how-to-tell-if-
you...](http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/10/07/how-to-tell-if-youre-a-
complainypants/)

;-)

~~~
emu
Wow. After reading this I would downvote this article if I had downvotes.

~~~
dasil003
Why? Because you find it irritating that he finds it irritating that some
people spend more time cutting others down than trying to improve themselves?

~~~
emu
The majority of comments on this post are of the form "his analysis is wrong,
because it doesn't take into account factors x, y, and z". That's great ---
we're having a civil discussion about the merits of his argument.

Linking to his blog post in this way is tantamount to implying that the
commenters on this thread are "complainypants", which I find quite rude. If
that wasn't his intention, then he certainly could have done a much better job
communicating it.

(This is my last post on this topic.)

~~~
dasil003
The post he was responding too wasn't any kind of civil or even logical
discussion. It just said his examples and analysis were borderline garbage
with no justification.

~~~
roc
Which is a fair point. I actually had originally drafted a much longer reply
which included additional problems with the figures and comparisons [1].

But after about 10 minutes I realized that the author wasn't making a
financial argument from the numbers, he was making an emotional argument with
hand-waved numbers for garnish. And that, despite my interest in the issue and
agreement with his conclusion, it simply wasn't worth that kind of time.

[1] e.g. $200/20,000 miles for car costs beyond oil/gas/tires is laughably
low; ignoring parking/toll costs in the no-commute/used-car case; considering
lost time in the commuting case but not lost-personal time in the no-commute
case; assuming financing in the commuting case and savings for a used car in
the no-commute case; ... generally just considering worst-case for the
commuting case and best-case for the no-commute case in almost all things

------
d-roo
I've often thought of the political cost -- frustrated drivers stuck in
traffic listening to Rush Limbaugh.

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juiceandjuice
I lived 7 miles from work in Menlo Park. I worked by the 280, and lived by the
101. It took me 20-30 minutes to get to work through 14 stoplights, depending
on traffic. I didn't even like where I lived, but it was the closest, cheapest
place I could find when I moved here.

I moved to San Francisco, 32 miles away. I was commuting everyday at 9:30 and
7 and getting to/from work in 30 minutes flat. No stoplights. And I enjoyed
living here much more.

Now I have a roommate I commute with that works near me, except she wants to
work at rush hour times, so we spend 40 minutes in traffic each way, which
drives me nuts, but we switch out driving every other week so it's mostly
worth it, and I love where I live now because I can walk places when I get
home and drive less.

It's not always black and white.

------
acak
I live in Chicago. I am moving from the suburbs to downtown next weekend.

The higher cost of rent offsets the savings in travel costs.

It's not inconceivable that many people have their offices in a crowded area
like downtown Chicago - so they'd be facing the same issue.

But I'm doing it to save time and energy.

Although, again, suburban areas tend to have cleaner air and bigger houses -
much better for health than a studio apartment near a high traffic road.

I'd say if you can telecommute, to live in the suburbs is a no-brainer.

If you have to travel, car-pooling and public transport are better options
than driving yourself to work everyday.

------
rbranson
Lest we not forget the number one killer of otherwise healthy people in the US
-- the automobile accident. Curiously, drops in accident fatality rates[1]
correlate with spikes in unemployment[2]. I'll let you draw the conclusion
there.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_in_U.S._by_year)
[2] <http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0104719.html>

------
ronnier
I work in Seattle and have a one hour, one way commute. I live 15 miles away.
Getting to the bus stop, waiting for the bus, and then walking from the bus
stop to work really adds up.

~~~
potatolicious
Seattle proper -> MSFT campus?

That commute is the main reason I've never entertained any thought of joining
MSFT. The choices are to live in comically stereotypical suburbia, or to
suffer that commute daily.

Amazon is hiring...

~~~
ronnier
I live in Kirkland and work at Amazon.

~~~
bokchoi
Avoid the lake and move. I was much happier after I left MSFT and reduced my
commute to 12 minutes.

~~~
ronnier
I prefer the east side for my two kids. My wife also likes it. If it was just
me, I'd have no problem living in Seattle.

------
waqf
I can't understand why everyone commutes at the same time of day. It would be
of HUGE economic benefit if office activities were evenly distributed around
the clock (and the calendar). There would never be rush-hour traffic because
people came and went at all hours. Your favorite public place or activity
wouldn't be crowded Saturday afternoon, because it wouldn't be Saturday for
6/7 of the population.

Yes, there would be some large costs too, but the benefits are staggering.

------
languagehacker
It's kind of funny this guy is couching his arguments in how much they could
be saving on some house they should buy. It can be argued a house is a bad
investment, too. And driving around in a used Kia means a lot less pleasure
and comfort derived from doing your weekly trips to the store and what not.
There's a degree of enjoyment you can get out of life that you can't
necessarily quantify in terms of how it affects your mortgage.

------
dlikhten
I just calculated the cost of me owning my car. I don't commute to work via
car, I pay a bit under 300/mo pre-tax for an express bus to/from work at about
25-45 minute ride.

My wife has been doing bike commuting to work whenever possible.

Hard to get my daughter to her pre-school without car.

Ok so here goes, in 2 years when my lease is up:

I will save $5500 on my car payments + insurance (NYC). I will then save
probably another 3-4k or so on gas costs... So that's about 8-9k give or take.

From 8-9k, subtract about 2k in car needs. We will have additional expenses
that are met with a car like taking kid to doctor that is not easily
reachable. So a cab here or there (eh its not expensive) and renting zipcar
here and there.

We already shop fresh direct so it wont change our shopping too much.

So thats about 6-7k that I save per year. That means I can pay about 500-580
more for an apartment. Or just buy an ipad every month, or just save that
money for future needs. Maybe spend an extra 1-2k on transportation needs a
year. Basically cars are expensive. Incredible that people would work for
minimum wage and still commute like this, its unthinkable.

------
antonioe
Wordpress DB Error

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true-cost-of-
commuting/+The+True+Cost+of+Commuting+\(mrmoneymustache.com&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

------
rbxbx
A friend (and coworker) of mine is working on an app that allows you to
calculate your true drive costs... consequently being <http://drivecosts.com/>

If you're at all interested in this and would like to have a better idea what
your commute is costing you (other than time) check it out :)

------
skrebbel
I wonder how this story would apply to the situation in many European
countries; in the Netherlands, companies typically pay commuting costs. Of
course this money has to come from somewhere, so effectively everyone's salary
is lower, but my salary won't increase when I stop commuting.

This only leaves the cost of time, but IMHO that argument doesn't hold; most
people consider their off time to be worth less, when expressed in dollars,
than their on time. It's the same reason why many people with good incomes
choose to paint their own house rather than work more and hire a painter.

Finally, I think the author forgets about love. If my dream job is 30 miles
this way, and my partner's is 20 miles the other way, the total commuting will
be the same no matter where we live along that line.

------
smackfu
"For each of these miles, you waste about 6 minutes in the round trip..."

This little line here has a huge effect on the computation, because it assumes
you are only traveling at 20 mph on your commute. So all this only applies if
you are in a heavy traffic area or commuting to a city center.

~~~
pib
Some days I _wish_ my average speed was 20mph on my commute. My commute is ~17
miles and it sometimes takes an hour or more.

~~~
kgermino
My commute on bike is 13 and it rarely takes an hour :)

------
mathattack
I abhor commutes. Walking to work is the greatest thing in the world. That
said, I think he's stretching when he says: "But this misconception about what
is a reasonable commute is probably the biggest thing that is keeping most
people in the US and Canada poor."

There are a lot of things keeping people poor. Bad education. Inequality of
opportunity. Poor parenting. Commuting is only one of many. There article is
definitely missing substitution effects. The commute may be reducing your
working hours, but it's also reducing your TV hours. (And family hours!)

I shake my head at colleagues with 3-4 hour daily commutes. I think both their
careers and their personal lives suffer. That said, the article has gone a
litte too extreme.

------
megaframe
My commute is roughly 44miles each way (SF to MV)... but before moving to my
new place I found public transportation that covers all but the last 5min of
my commute. I also made sure I could tether and work remotely before starting
this so I could count my 40min of train time as part of work; but I know
people who drive the same route I do every day to avoid dealing with public
transportation. I have little if no sympathy for them when convenient and
fairly reliable public transportation exists.

I also ran the math on the driving vs. commuting found my car is about
$7.26/trip + my personal lost time. Train is roughly $4.53/trip and there's a
subsidy I take that brings that to ~$1.20/trip

------
evlapix
I love arguments like this, but feel like they're useless in our culture.
Specifically, the "value of time lost" argument. Most Americans take the hour
or two that they gain and piss it away in front of a television anyway.

------
donniefitz2
First off, I really like this blog. Really well written and entertaining. He
has good advice to boot. While I live within 10 miles of my workplace, there's
no way I could bike it (a 25 minute ride all in parks). Reason being, I live
in Arizona and it's about 105 at 9-10am in the summer. There's no way I'm
going to peddle my way to work in that heat let alone ride home in it. I'm
sure many people who live in cold climates (no idea what that's like) would
object too.

------
cafard
A point I would make is that employees are often at the mercy of the employer
for the length of the commute. I knew a man in the Four Corners area of
Montgomery County who had a quick commute to White Oak. The EPA relocated his
office to the Crystal City area of Arlington County, changing his commute from
10 minutes to 45 minutes on a good day. BRAC just pushed a whole lot of jobs
down to Fort Belvoir and quite a few more over to Bethesda Naval Hospital.

------
robryan
Parking is a big part of this not really mentioned, if there was reliable free
parking in the city (Melbourne, Australia) then the commute wouldn't be nearly
as bad. As it you either need to skirt the law in regards to time limits, be
lucky to find that parking at all, pay high daily amounts or get an expensive
permanent park.

I don't think I would drive anyway (usually take the train) but on the off
chance I want to the stress of finding/paying for a park puts me off.

~~~
thmcmahon
The lack of parking in Melbourne's city is a _good thing_. It acts as a cost
on the negative externalities of driving into one of Australia's biggest
cities.

It encourages you to catch the train, which is better for everyone around you,
because you don't have to drive.

~~~
robryan
Yeah I probably come off as if I was arguing for more, which isn't the case.

Was just saying that it is another factor for those from the outer suburbs
wanting to drive have to factor in and probably costs more than petrol or car
maintenance. I definitely wouldn't want to drive, but on the off chance I do
it is something I notice.

It's interesting Melbourne now as the outer suburban fringes, places like
Mernda, are so far away that you be almost crazy to think that buying a house
out there and commuting to the inner city daily for work would be a good idea.

------
ricksta
I used to be all about driving. Then I did the same math this author did and
realized how it doesn't work out. Then I invested in a data plan and a bus
pass. It takes twice as long to bus, but now I get my two daily dose of hacker
news on it. You would be surprised how fast 1hour 30 minutes commute feels
when you are on hackers news the whole way.

------
gwern
He's probably underestimating the costs; cf. the Commuter's Paradox
<http://ftp.iza.org/dp1278.pdf> And then there are the health penalties...
<http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1490117>

------
wallacrw
This is why we need the ability to fund biking infrastructure around the
country ourselves...governments are too risk averse and short-term-focused to
build this infrastructure by the time it's needed. CivicSponsor.org allows the
people to fund it directly, circumventing the entire government process with
more control and transparency.

------
harshaw
I have a 26 mile commute each way. As a biking nut this is nice because I can
get 100 miles in per week if I want although with child care issues 50 miles
is more likely. I usually leave the car over night and bike home and back in
the morning. 1:22 door to door on average. Beats driving the mass pike and 128
:)

------
johngalt
And I commute via air once a week. According to his math; if I could
simultaneously live in five cities at the same time, I'd be a millionaire.

Mobility matters. I'd rather take the highest paying work within 500miles vs.
the highest paying work within 10miles. Also moving is not as trivial as he
would make it seem.

------
nhangen
I drive an hour to and from work each and every day of the work week, and I
hate it. It was great catching up on podcasts...until I ran out.

I'm burning 2 hours of my life, each and every day...depressing.

I will move closer when my lease runs out, but I won't sell the car. I enjoy
being able to travel this great state of Florida.

~~~
artmageddon
I feel your pain. It takes me 2 hours from the time I leave my garage till the
time I get to the seat at my office. It's a mix of rail, car, and walking to
NYC and back to central NJ, twice a day, 5 times per week. (Insert Reddit
rage-face picture here)

Edit: 20 minute drive to the rail station with a five minute wait to board,
then a one-hour train ride, then a 25 minute 1.25 mi walk. Both ways.
Sometimes in snow.

------
Duckpaddle2
That's why I drive a 11 year old Toyota!

------
Hisoka
The true cost of commuting is actually the stress that piles on you, bit by
bit.. it can contribute to divorce, physical disease, high blood pressure,
loneliness, etc. Just ask anyone that has to ride their car into NYC traffic,
or even take the crowded subways on a daily basis.

~~~
smackfu
Yes. Around here in CT, it's fairly common to have a one hour train ride
commute to Manhattan. Sure it is better than driving, but it still is pretty
soul sucking according to my friends who have done it.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
It's even worse going the other way because the trains aren't as frequent - or
at least they weren't back then.

I used to commute from Brooklyn to Darien, CT. I'd leave home at about 6:00 am
and get there just around 8:30. After about 2 months, I'd had enough...

~~~
iqster
Here here. I thought the reverse commute out of Manhattan wasn't too bad.
Subsequently, I experienced first hand how utterly soul sucking it is.

On top of that, it isn't cheap! When you commute out of grand central in the
morning, you pay a peak fare.

