Commuting? Have you done the math?

http://www.jefclaes.be/2012/11/commuting-have-you-done-math.html

by Nemmie • 14 years ago

76 59 14 years ago

petercooper3• 14 years ago

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) ;-)

_delirium• 14 years ago

Yeah, it really depends on the kind of transit. In the SF Bay Area, for example, I wouldn't try to do real work on the Muni subway or streetcars, but you can get stuff done on Caltrain.

aidos• 14 years ago

Indeed. For a few years I commuted the other way (from south west London out of town). It was luxury, I'd have a seat (or whole carriage) both ways and could get a lot done. Now I'm working in London I just cycle everywhere. It feels like the right thing to do in every way.

Osmium• 14 years ago

I've grown to be a big fan of public transport. I've had a substantial commute in both Berlin and London, but public transport in both cases. Obviously I'd rather not have to do it, but it's had benefits for me. It's time every day when I'm "unplugged," and have a chance to read, something I'd found I'd done less of in recent years.

So, yeah, commuting can be a gift in disguise. But only if you're "lucky" enough to be able to use public transport. Not to mention the environmental benefits.

pixelcort• 14 years ago

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.

petercooper3• 14 years ago

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).

tedunangst• 14 years ago

In a rush hour subway, you may have room to read on your phone, but probably shouldn't use it without a wrist strap. If you're bumped (and you will be) and drop it, you'll never see your phone again.

snogglethorpe• 14 years ago

There's of course a range of densities. :]

In the worst crush loads I've experienced commuting in Tokyo, I could read a small book only by holding it above my head and looking up... Most days weren't quite that bad, but "can't really move" was common.

[I tried to go in late so my morning commute was often downright pleasant, lazily reading in the morning sun... I also liked commuting because it took me through a range of interesting and popular station areas, and sometimes I'd get off and go shopping or meet someone for dinner or something; I found this much easier (mentally) than making a special trip to do the same after a hard day's work. Now I walk to work and sort of miss my commute...]

mijustin• 14 years ago

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).

walshemj2• 14 years ago

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• 14 years ago

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).

dasil003• 14 years ago

35 minutes from Bedford to Holborn!? Do you sleep under the platform and have a private zipline from the station to your office?

praptak2• 14 years ago

It boils down to what factors you chose to treat as fixed. To each his own (obviously) but I think that most people undervalue the long commute and (comparatively) overvalue the hassle of changing jobs or moving.

petercooper3• 14 years ago

And even if it did work out somehow (take all the hours spent commuting, work out their value, etc.) the chance of an average person getting a deposit saved and a mortgage on the remainder on a £600k property is next to zero even if you were earning £100k, say.

bengl3rt• 14 years ago

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• 14 years ago

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• 14 years ago

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.

rayiner3• 14 years ago

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.

incision2• 14 years ago

>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.

rayiner3• 14 years ago

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.

goostavos• 14 years ago

I've got a sibling that probably makes about 1.5x as much as I do, but in order to get to that higher paying job, she spends a cumulative 3 hours per day in a high traffic commute. I do not fathom how people live that way. By the time she gets home, most of her day is gone. So it's food, an hour of TV or internet, and then bed so you can do it all over the next day.

Nightmarish.

pc86• 14 years ago

I once very briefly considered taking a job in DC (I live in south central Pennsylvania).

It would have been a 2 hour drive not accounting for traffic, then a 30-minute metro ride into the city. Accounting for traffic I'd likely have to be out the door between 4 and 4:30 just to make it into the office by 8.

tel• 14 years ago

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

LeafStorm• 14 years ago

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.

Evbn2• 14 years ago

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• 14 years ago

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.

praptak2• 14 years ago

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

barrkel2• 14 years ago

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.

Hinrik• 14 years ago

Along the same lines, but more rewarding, healthier, and energy efficient: use a bicycle. Though unfortunately many Americans' commutes are prohibitively long and the surrounding infrastructure not very inviting to bicycles.

seanmcdirmid2• 14 years ago

Try roller blading to work. Same principle, it's quite exciting so you don't get bored. You also move a bit slower than a bike so traffic becomes less important.

softbuilder2• 14 years ago

"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...

barrkel2• 14 years ago

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/...

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

twp• 14 years ago

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• 14 years ago

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.

Evbn2• 14 years ago

For many items, you still need shipping home.

nmridul• 14 years ago

It depends on how many times a year you have to ship things to your home. And even for them, I try to have it scheduled around the weekends. Going to supermarket is another thing, but I mostly purchase the stuff during weekends. So very rarely I have to make a purchase during the weekday. And those are things that I try to get from the nearest convenient store.

wcchandler• 14 years ago

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.

A__MJ• 14 years ago

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.

seanmcdirmid2• 14 years ago

I hop in a taxi cab and practice Chinese with the driver. Sometimes traffic is so bad in Beijing that I'm looking at an hour to commute 20km. I don't bother with the subway, which is cheaper and faster, but the time is entirely dead, it's too crammed to use my computer.

erjiang• 14 years ago

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!

confluence• 14 years ago

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.

te_chris• 14 years ago

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.

zandomatter• 14 years ago

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).

gwern• 14 years ago

Another person rediscovers "the commuting paradox".

tikhonj• 14 years ago

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.

BjoernKW• 14 years ago

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.

jmspring• 14 years ago

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.

bajsejohannes• 14 years ago

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

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

Osiris• 14 years ago

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.

fitandfunction• 14 years ago

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.

mashgin• 14 years ago

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.

Commuting? Have you done the math?

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