
Readers' tales of extreme commuting - arethuza
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25551393
======
patio11
Back on those halycon days where they'd actually let me leave the office
before 11:30 PM, my salaryman schedule was hitting the last subway at
approximately 12:05 AM to hit the last train at 12:30 AM, which got me into
Ogaki at 1:05 AM and to my apartment at 1:30 AM. If I was able to eat in 30
minutes, that meant I'd get 5 hours and 20 minutes of sleep and still make it
in by 9 AM the next morning.

That's when everything went right and I could actually leave nice and early at
11:30 PM, though. When our schedule was not quite so lax, I got to trade the
commute home for a much shorter commute to one of the local business hotels.
Unfortunately, even shaving an hour off the commute would very rarely leave me
with a restful night's sleep.

Dear reader, if you are offered this schedule, _run screaming_. It _literally_
nearly killed me. By the end of my 3 years I was suffering blackouts on the
return trip.

~~~
koyote
In the end, do you think the 15-16 hour work day was close to being as
productive as two 8 hour work days?

I feel that in the end you will create more harm than good as more mistakes
creep in during the later hours of the day which will then have to fixed the
next day. (aside from your mental/physical health going to shit that is)

~~~
dsr_
Better question: does working a 15-16 hour day, day after day, result in
higher productivity than 8 hour days?

I suspect that there are no creative/logical jobs where that is the case.

~~~
masklinn
I doubt there's _any work_ where this is the case. 8h to eat, wash and rest
does not leave sufficient rest time for physical recuperation any more than
mental, at least in the general case (I'm sure there are people at the end of
the bell curve for whom it's sufficient).

------
rtpg
People spending 6 hours a day driving, I can't imagine that being good for
anyone. I'm trying to find a way to say this without sounding obnoxious (it's
their choice, after all), but the reasoning is so strange for some of these
("I drive 6 hours a day so I can run on the beach"? Just drive to the beach to
run then?)

~~~
wodow
It's difficult to read "I've worked out that the travel is exactly the same as
the cost of renting in London - so therefore a better option" as anything
other than confused or deluded.

Living in London costs the same in terms of money but significantly less in
terms of time spent per day?

~~~
gaius
It depends. If the commute is your "me time" then it can work out. My commute
(by train) is my quality reading time for example. Some people like
audiobooks. Of course there comes a tipping point.

~~~
joefarish
Just have some "me time" at home?

~~~
lmm
There's something enjoyable about being on the train, for some people anyway.
Seeing the countryside go past, and meeting a variety of people in an
environment where socially it's ok to talk to strangers but also ok if you
don't want to.

~~~
mogrim
> socially it's ok to talk to strangers but also ok if you don't want to

I'm guessing you don't live in London, and if you ever visit, please don't
start talking to the rest of the passengers.

:)

~~~
lmm
I do, actually. Even in London it seems like it's ok to talk to strangers on
_trains_ (e.g. Thameslink), just not on the tube. Or the overground. It'll be
interesting to see what becomes the standard on Crossrail.

~~~
mogrim
Fair enough, I hadn't considered Thameslink: I'm more used to the tube, and
would never, ever dare talk to anyone!

------
aaargh
"I've worked out that the travel is exactly the same as the cost of renting in
London - so therefore a better option."

If you don't factor in the fact that you would have 4-6 hours of extra time at
your disposal every day. But what's time, its practically limitless right?

~~~
cdodd
One positive is that you could rent/buy a much larger property outside of
London for the same cost.

~~~
koyote
Or a nice car, because, lets face it, you'll be spending more time in your car
than in your house.

~~~
stefan_kendall
There is no such thing as a "nice car" with respect to long distance travel.
They're just not optimized for it.

Maybe when the cars drive themselves the situation will change a bit.

~~~
cmiller1
I disagree, the luxury and grand tourer segments are much nicer to spend
extended periods of time in than say, a sports car with a heavy clutch.

------
masklinn
> I'd do the train journey in one and a half hours but it cost 250 euros
> (£208) a day

That's certainly correct if you always pay full price (~90€ each way in 2nd,
140 in 1st), but not if you use frequent user programs. IIRC thalys has a
"premium" pass between Brussels and Paris with a flat 30€/way (in 1st unless
train full, so you get a fairly large seat, a meal, slow wifi and a ~100W 220V
plug), specifically for commuters.

------
jablan
As a bicycle commuter in an extremely bicycle-unfriendly city, I expected
"extreme commuting" to mean something other than "spend 6 hours a day sitting
in a 2-tons tin box polluting the environment"...

~~~
Ingon
I wonder how much pollution is generated to make the bike. This is a genuine
question, I don't mean to quarrel. I'm certain that car is polluting far more
then bike of course.

There is certainly some from the paint and the tires (mostly oil right?). I
wonder what else?

EDIT: The initial text was stating that a bike pollutes more then a car which
is obvious shit. This is just my english at its finest. I'm sorry for this.

~~~
joshthewanderer
I'm not entirely sure what your point is here? The pollution generated by
making a bike will be orders of magnitude less than the pollution generated by
making a car.

Following on from that, the pollution generated from day to day upkeep will be
less as well (when was the last time you had to change the oil on your
bicycle?)

Lastly, the energy required to power the bike (the energy that you provide),
is a bit of a sunk cost, you need to eat to stay alive after all, and while
you _might_ need a little more, it's still not going to be equivalent to
driving your car to work and back every day.

~~~
streptomycin
Orders of magnitude? Doubt it. Check out
[http://bicycleuniverse.info/transpo/energy.html](http://bicycleuniverse.info/transpo/energy.html)
\- while biking is typically more efficient than driving, it's not orders of
magnitude. If you play with their calculator, you can find that driving a 50
mpg car and riding a bike really fast both have about the same carbon
emissions. This is just from factoring in increased food consumption.

~~~
colin_mccabe
Thanks for sharing that link. It's interesting to think about this. I don't
agree with the conclusions, though.

First of all, your metabolism isn't going to stop (assuming you're still
alive), so it's not really fair to say that those calories you burned wouldn't
have been burned if you hadn't biked. I exercise a few times every week. If I
bike less, I just have to do more exercise, but i burn about the same number
of calories.

Secondly, most bike trips are short and relatively low speed. Biking
encourages you to explore your local area. Lower speeds mean lower wind
resistances, and shorter trips obviously make the mileage considerations a lot
less important. I really don't think I'd be willing to travel more than a few
miles by mike, since I don't want to spend hours in transit.

------
apostate
Home is where the heart is. Most long commuters I know do it because they have
a significant other at home, and that seemed to be the case with many of the
subjects in the article.

There are far fewer cases in the developed world of a long commute resulting
from a disparity between rents at home vs near the job site. It's not unheard
of however, as evidenced by the one guy who lived 3 hours outside the city and
commuted in because the cost of renting in London is the same as travel (and
presumably cost of living would provide additional savings, even at such a
high opportunity cost).

My situation is a bit odd because I have a good job in the suburbs but I enjoy
living in the city with my SO, so I reverse commute. It is cheaper and less
crowded, but it still takes time, and combined with study, side projects, and
enjoying life, it makes for long days, and I feel it beginning to wear me down
after two years so I may look for other work. I feel like a wimp compared to
the people in the article however however, as my commute is a mere 3 hours
round trip.

------
chrisBob
I commute 6 hours per day and don't want to move "because I'm a fanatical
skier, I live half an hour away from a chair lift." I might have gone with:
move 30 minutes from work, and then get to ski/spend an extra 22 hours a week
with my family.

I can't believe people don't put more value into a short commute when buying
their houses. Why do people say "I could get an extra 1000 square feet of
house for my money" instead of "I can do what I want with an extra 10% of my
life by living closer to work"?

~~~
jackgavigan
Children can affect that decision significantly, particularly when it comes to
finding good schools and a good neighbourhood in which to raise kids.

But in general, I agree with you. My current client's office (I'm a contract
consultant) is 20 minutes walk from home, across the Thames[1] and I'm really
the option of getting home before 6pm.

[1]: From my walk to work this morning:
[http://twitter.com/JackGavigan/statuses/422671719145295872](http://twitter.com/JackGavigan/statuses/422671719145295872)

~~~
agos
Children also like to see their parents from time to time, so the extra time
works, too.

------
Ingon
There was a study some time ago stating that there is a reverse relation
between the time one spends on commute and happiness. The more time you lose
in the commute, less happy you are. Maybe this is something you can do for an
year or two, but I can't imagine doing it for 10 or 20 years.

On the bright side - maybe these people will be amongst the first to adopt
self-driving cars. I even can go so far into the future to imagine that there
is only one means of transport - self-driving, electrical, shared cars. You
just order one from here to there, it comes from the parking lot nearby, takes
you to your destination and finds another spot to a parking lot nearby. Clean,
fast, reliable, able to schedule the travel in non-congestive way. Hm but the
thing is that the buses/trains can have far more people per space, so maybe
the electric, self-driving buses will be the answer to our needs in business
districts on a weekday.

~~~
potatolicious
Personally I expect self-driving cars to solve the unsolved last mile.

Most mass transport today relies on the hub and spoke model. Get yourself to
the nearest hub where there's efficient, speedy, and frequent transport to
another hub, then get from the destination hub to your actual destination.

We've got the middle bit solved pretty well. Even the relatively slow, pokey
commuter trains are plenty fast compared to driving. The main issue is how to
get to/from such hubs.

Park and rides are one thing, but parking capacity is always the limiting
factor. Park and ride lots fill up _fast_ during rush hour, and their physical
space also creates a dead zone around the hub and inhibits local development.

The most common last-mile solution today are buses. They suck in a horrible
way.

IMO in the "self driving cars are universally available" future, we won't see
many long-distance trips with cars at all. Instead, the vast majority of trips
will be to/from the nearest transport hub where you catch something much
faster and much more efficient.

------
hatu
I did maybe 4.5 hours commute a day for a few months (bike - train - bus). The
worst part is, you leave so early and get home so late that you can never do
any errands where you live. Especially when banks etc. are closed on the
weekend. Also when you start thinking about how much time you're wasting per
week it gets depressing. On the train I could at least browse the internet and
play games and read. Sometimes do work but it's not really still the same as
being home to relax for that time.

------
hkmurakami
I remember reading of a businessman flying his own Cessna from Atlanta to
Houston every day, which seemed like a fine way to combine a hobby, living
with family and friends, and an otherwise unbearable commute through a
commercial airline.

~~~
apostate
Never been to Atlanta, however I couldn't help but think of this in the
context of how impossible I've heard it is to walk anywhere in that city :)

------
sshine
Consider the group (R,+). Now that's extreme commuting.

~~~
whoisburbanksy
Well played, Abel.

------
ilamont
I once remember reading about a guy who commuted from Bridgeport or some other
Connecticut city to Boston every day. It was about 3 or 3.5 hours each way in
his pickup (this was in the era of cheap gas). Then I saw this article (1):

 _SIDNEY, Maine -- Boston commuters who grind their teeth during the patience-
fraying gantlet of exhaust-shrouded traffic and bad etiquette should consider
the case of Stephen Jordan. The way to work could be much, much longer.

Jordan, a retirement fund analyst in Boston's Financial District, commutes 340
miles a day, 1,700 miles a week, from a 15-acre spread outside Augusta that he
praises for its proximity to nature and ultra-affordability.

But there is a price: Jordan spends nine hours a day on the road and the
rails, leaving his house at 4:15 a.m. to drive 62 miles to Portland and ride
Amtrak's Downeaster train to North Station. After an eight-hour workday and a
long trip home, Jordan opens his door to greet his wife at 10:15 p.m._

Jordan's story is 10 years old, and I would be very surprised if he had
managed to keep it up ... but he did note that he was able to get a lot of
work done on the train.

1\.
[http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2004...](http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2004/01/31/dont_like_the_traffic_try_this_340_mile_commute/)
(Complete ungated text here:
[http://www.urbanplanet.org/forums/index.php/topic/2082-340-m...](http://www.urbanplanet.org/forums/index.php/topic/2082-340-mile-
commute/) )

------
catmanjan
8 hours sleep, 8 hours work and 2 hours leisure... I have no idea how people
live like this!

~~~
kintamanimatt
Those two hours can probably be struck off. Getting ready in the morning and
evening, eating, and maybe an errand and that's gone.

Makes me wonder if these people are running from spouses they don't want.

~~~
brazzy
[http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2009-02-27/](http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2009-02-27/)

------
golergka
I used to spend 3-4 hours on commuting per day, but I didn't consider this
extreme, as many of my colleagues lived outside the city and spent up to 6 —
this is unfortunately common situation in Moscow, especially for those who use
their own cars instead of trains and subway.

Then I chose a small apartment in the city center instead of a bigger one on
the outer rim. Now I live in 20 minutes walk distance from the office. If I'm
running late, I catch a cab and get there under 5. I feel much more relaxed
and have more energy; overall, I think it was one of the best decisions that I
made in my entire life.

------
scardine
Sadly enough, the average commute time in Sao Paulo (Brazil) is 4h daily.

10 million people live here after almost a century of chaotic, totally
unplanned growth. Currently there are 7 million vehicles licensed in the city,
with more than 1000 brand new hitting the streets daily (3.8 million
considered "active").

At the peak hours, main streets look like parking lots - 500km of jammed
streets is not uncommon on a typical day, worst if it is raining (and it rains
a lot in summer). Public transportation is crap, so people prefer to suffer
inside their own cars - at least they can sit, have AC and music (and even
being forbidden, I see people watching television all the time). Sometimes
after a big rain fall there are floodings and thousands of citizens can't even
make home.

I'm lucky enough to telecommute (why do I live in such a hellish metropolis if
I'm able to work from home is a very good question). Once or twice a week I go
out for some meeting riding my Yamaha Tenere at 60km/h (40 mph) between the
jammed traffic[1]. By average 3 motorcycle riders die daily splitting lanes
like this, and yearly traffic kills are higher than the casualties at Bagdad
and Afghanistan together (on both sides).

[1] [http://www.mundomoto.esp.br/wp-
content/uploads/2013/07/corre...](http://www.mundomoto.esp.br/wp-
content/uploads/2013/07/corredor31.jpg)

------
GotAnyMegadeth
My friend used to commute from Bristol, UK to Munich, DE. Wake up at 04:00
Monday, drive to Heathrow, fly to Munich airport, get a lift to work, in by
13:00. Then do it in reverse on Friday. It's no 6 hours a day, probably a bit
better, but still seemed crazy to me... Not cheep either

~~~
lmm
I had an ex-colleague who did the same thing from Brussels to London. Not as
crazy as it sounds - half-hour walk to the train station, 3 hours on the
train, 20 mins walk to the office in London, and she had a 30-min commute over
the week while staying in London, so a total of around 16hours/week spent
commuting - less than if she'd had a 1 hour daily commute.

------
jaimebuelta
For around 3 months I had a commute of 5~6 hours a day. It involved bus,
train, subway and a small part walking (~15-20 minutes) During the same time I
was getting my driving permit, so I was adding time to attend classes, etc

It was pretty awful, I had to wake up to catch the 4:30 bus most of days to be
at work at 7:30, and then got home at around 8pm

Once I had car permit, I was able to reduce it to 1:30 each trip (if you avoid
traffic jams), which is also bad, but felt like a huge improvement.

After 2 years in that situation (with a lapse in another work at around 20m by
car), I'm now able to walk to work in 30 minutes. It feels AMAZING :-P

------
mdesq
Several years ago Midas gave a Cisco engineer their "America's Longest
Commute" award for his 372 mile round trip commute. [1] The craziest thing is
that it seems he had been doing it for over a decade. I just can't fathom
that. At some point an air taxi subscription or even a private pilot's license
would become a worthwhile investment if you don't want to change the location
of either home or work.

[1]:
[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/04/13/cisco_commute/](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/04/13/cisco_commute/)

------
VLM
Its an interesting puritan relic that commuting is bad / wasted but driving a
service truck around all day is just fine.

I used to work directly with guys who spent well over 80% of their working day
driving trucks full of fiber optic, SONET, and router gear all over the
countryside. If you've got one guy assigned to maintain four POPs each a
hundred miles apart, you can expect to log some serious windshield time. This
does nothing good to mean time to repair if a tech can be working on one
problem and get called to a new outage over three hundred miles away.

~~~
lmm
I think if someone's willing to pay you to spend most of your 8 hour workday
driving around then more fool them (unless you hate driving). But spending
your own time on a commute is a waste.

~~~
VLM
I was aiming more at the "my body parts fall off and I feel like death if I
spend more than an hour driving" or whatever, because I know field techs who
spend a multiple of those commute times on the road without any real problem.

I'm not enthusiastic about my one hour commute, but I flextime and although
paycheck / 11 hours is less than paycheck / 10 hours, I'm still pretty happy
with paycheck / 11\. With an hour lunch thats a 12 hour work day every day.
The way to survive a decade or so of 12 hour days is to never work more than 4
in a row, with (at least) 3 off in a row.

------
nicholassmith
My commute used to be 3 hours if lucky, closer to 4 on average, and once took
6 hours. After doing for 2 years I ended up switching to a job where I'm a
remote worker and my sense of wellbeing and overall happiness is significantly
higher knowing that when I wake up I don't have a commute lying ahead of me.
Spending 6 hours of your life just _traveling_ to make money at a job is as
crazy as the people who think you need to work nothing but 14 hours a day,
every day.

~~~
quaffapint
My commute used to be 'only' a little over an hour each way. Once I began my
remote work, I became much healthier as well, both physically and mentally.

It's a shame not more organizations offer this option.

------
bowlofpetunias
Reading this just makes me feel all the happier that my usual commute it is a
15 minute walk along the Amsterdam canals. (Although currently that is
extended with, the horror, a 10 minute tram ride.)

I gladly pay the price for that in terms of less space for more money. At
least have the time to enjoy being home, and not be exhausted or asleep while
I'm there.

------
carsonreinke
Doesn't this leave zero tolerance for incidents on the road? A 3 hour commute,
could that not turn into 6 hours?

------
ris
I think I can do without the penis measuring contest and enjoy my 2m bed-to-
desk commute.

