How does your daily commute to work look like?
I'm assuming that most of you are from the US so probably using cars, but lemme know if you use trains, subways, buses, etc.
Me? Back when I was doing an internship I walked to a nearby station for 10 minutes then transited to another train line, which could be an instant or 20 minutes wait. After that I walked for 10 minutes to my work place. So it was probably about 40 minutes of commute. Of course, I live in tropical country so I'm drenched in sweat as I arrive in the office.
Fortunately every year my city's public transportation seems to get better and as a result I barely needed to use cars.
10-second walk down my hallway to my computer.
Same. When I have an appointment with a costumer: usual a combination of private car, train and rental to reach the destination
Edited.
A 30 minute walk across the city center
I live in a medium sized city (~95k) in Europe. It takes me around 15 minutes by bike to get to work.
I live in a small town near Amsterdam and work twice a week in the office in Amsterdam.
My commute is:
What's the bike situation? Do you take it on the train with you or use an app or smthg?
I wonder if they park their own bicycle near the station. Not sure if that's even a thing
It's a thing.
We park the bike near the station. Each station has extensive room for bikes. Larger cities often have underground bike parking.
Pre-pandemic I drove 15 minutes to the BART station, hopefully got parking. Walked 5 minutes to the train platform. Waited for train. 50ish minute train ride to downtown San Francisco. 10 minute walk to office. Pretty typical Bay Area commute.
Now, I take my dogs for a walk, get back home, make coffee, relax. Go upstairs and login to work. WFH is the new normal and it’s great.
50 min feels pretty long. How crowded is BART usually?
Where I got on, not too bad, I usually got a seat, but it quickly got crowded. Nowadays I hear it’s better; ridership hasn’t returned to pre-pandemic levels yet.
4 years back it was a walk to the station and a half hour train ride.
Now I walk downstairs after waking up at 9:30.
TL:DR - Ride my bike along a precarious but not terrible inner city suburb of Melbourne Australia. It takes about 10-15 minutes to go 4km. I have the option of a 25 minute riverside bike ride if I'm willing to give up my sleep in.
I live in an "inner suburb" of Melbourne Australia, and I work at a community centre just a few tiny city suburbs away, 4km.
I have an e-bike that I use as my primary vehicle, because of the way my migraine disorder manifests and overlaps with another condition, I can't drive a car. So I've learned how to get by completely carless - living in the inner city suburbs helps so I'm privileged in that regard. But the ebike has been a game changer.
Before covid I had a job about 6km away and I was wasting so much money on buses and uber, it was two buses and an awkward connecting power-walk that meant frequent missed connections and also pushed me just over onto the more expensive ticket because of how our public transport fee system works. So I would lazily uber to work several times a week. And since I was working part time, it wasn't even worth it some days when I had a 2 hour shift. ~40% of my pay cheque would go to ubering to work.
Then covid hit and our state went into lock down. The community centre ran a food bank so my 2 or 3 hour part time shifts became 12 hour days as demand increased but staffing couldn't. I'd always miss the last bus, and uber drivers were few and far between. I tried riding my bike but the 12km return trip was just a bit too far on top of the 12 hour day, so I bought an ebike.
I got a new job, closer, and a very nice ride. I have multiple route options, one of which is a gorgeous separated shared pedestrian-cycle path that follows the local river which I often ride home - I finish at the optimum dog walking time so I get to meet so many puppies on my leisurely ride home. But it's very slow (because of all the dogs which aren't supposed to be off leash, but are) so, my preferred route to work is the fast way. It cuts right through the the town centre, it's an old industrial dock town so it's pretty highly developed but never highly invested in, meaning the roads are horrible and full of trucks. But the council are working on it, and in the last few years they've installed some halfway decent bike infrastructure. The danger is worth the 15 minutes it saves me in the morning.
It's 16 steps down to my basement office.
I work from home and yes, it's as great as you think. I'm 11 years till retirement and I will NEVER work in an office ever again.
I drive 30 minutes into work, but it's against traffic both ways, so it's a smooth ride.
Well, only because we’ve separated the travel lanes
In the US and currently fully WFH, but if I need to go into the office for some reason, it's a 10-15 minute walk.
Walkability is pretty important to me, so I moved to a city with decent public transportation and don't currently own a car. I use ride sharing apps or traditional car rentals on the rare occasion that I need a car, and even though they feel expensive, my annual car expenses are still significantly less than what I'd pay for parking alone if I owned a car.
How hard is it to find housing there, and how expensive is it? I heard that housing in US isn't in good condition
10-15 minute bike ride. On the way I in traffic can almost be entirely evaded by swapping the section without bike lane for a bit of trail. The return is a bit more janky because the infrastructure designer probably died from aneurysm as they were designing the road layout.
Its a 38 minute drive without tolls and a 33 minute drive with tolls. Ill suffer the 5 minutes to avoid $30 in tolls every month.
I actually live in a more expensive area than where I work, but I do so because the entire state is still somewhat affordable (Kansas) and the city I live in is much more progressive than the one I work in.
Two jobs, both 100% remote (one of them for 22 years).
Try not to trip over the cat.
About a 50 minute drive. That's as close as I could get and still afford a house.
Wow... I hope that there isn't bad traffic on the way...
Half of it is small highways that aren't too bad as long as there isn't ice and/or deer. Once I start getting to the metro area traffic gets congested. Nothing like LA though.
Walk 2.5km from home to mini bus taxi rank. Wait for taxi to fill (15 passengers) and we drive 30km. Get off and walk through a mall to office. Takes about an hour total. Afternoons it's just the opposite. Traffic doesn't matter to South African Taxi drivers.
My commute should be:
however it usually is:
Which is why I work a lot less hours when I go to the office, I start my clock the moment I would sit to work around 9:00, then start packing, go through the whole process, get to the office at around 10:30 or sometimes later, plug in my laptop, grab a coffee, chat with colleagues, read some emails and by this time it's already lunch time. Come back from lunch, do some work, then meetings, then I need to start packing for the journey back if I'm to make it back home by 17:00.
In short I give 9-5 to the company, if they want me to waste 3 of those hours in commute, plugging/unplugging peripherals and essentially not being productive the entire day it's their problem. I can do my job from home, as I did for a long time before WFH policy changed, if they think going to the office is worth the commute time then the commute time comes from their slice of the day. To me it's not worth it, so I wouldn't spend my personal time commuting to the office.
In Australia, I drive about 10-15 minutes.
PT would probably take an hour and be a convoluted mess of changing lines and trams/buses. Cycling would take an hour and not practical in summer.
Live in the northern US and bike 3 miles to work. Icy right now so I have studded tires and bar kits. I wear a ski facemask and skip the glasses cause they fog. Bike light since it's easy to work past sunset this time of year. Even when it was -30F I only wore one hoody (biking is hard work). Takes me around 15 minutes which is the same as driving. There's bike paths 90% of my commute but I still almost get ran over at every other cross walk. Besides the danger, one of the best things I've ever done for my mental health. And I'm not even the road rage type. I just enjoy the ride
2 km bicycle ride to the train station, 25 minutes by train, 2 minutes walk to the office on the other side of the road.
Commuting in Germany.
I’m mostly remote now, but on my in-office day it’s a 25mi/40km trip. (We bought the house years before I got this job, I don’t have the energy to keep a house showing-ready while working full time, and the houses near work aren’t in great shape.)
The morning commute takes about 40 minutes by car, the evening commute is more like 50-60 minutes. There’s technically bus service available, if I wanted to take 2+ hours each way, but I prefer having time to eat real food and do some exercise and mabye a hobby.
Really annoying. The most direct route is this one two lane road that has a single patch where no bicycles are legally allowed. So driving and all it takes is one fender bender and it takes me an extra thirty minutes.
I work from home one day a week the rest have to head in since the factory floor needs me.
A 20 minute bike ride. Not the most beautiful scenery but I still enjoy a bit of exercise in the morning.
I walk from my bedroom after getting out of the shower to the desk in my living room and switch on my work PC. Then I go back to my bedroom to put some clothes on.
Before WFH, it was a 30 minute walk which was uphill both ways due to there being a large valley between my home and work. A lovely walk in the summer but hell in the winter due to poorly plowed sidewalk infrastructure.
When I'm not broken, an 8 mile cycle ride that takes around 30 minutes. I'm currently recovering from a broken kneecap and getting the bus in, which is about 20 minutes and 5 minutes walk each end.
Before switching to full time WFH I had a 20 mile (32km) drive. At rush hour it took a minimum of 60 minutes if there were no “incidents”. Incidents were a regular occurrence and would easily cause the commute to balloon to 90-120 minutes.
I would from time to time check in to see what the public transportation options were. Public transportation looked something like:
15-20min walk to the bus stop. 40 minute bus ride to the light rail terminus. 20 minute train ride 10 minute shuttle ride from the light rail station to the office.
So about 90 minutes of travel on a perfect day with no wait between transportation modes.
I opted to “beat the rush” by leaving at 5:30am. That way it was an under 30 minute drive.
Used to be grueling, 3h total time commuting in South America's biggest metropolis that left me with no time for life out of work. Now I got a bike so every day I'm riding the equivalent to a land rocket with no air bags. But hey, I can do stuff at night!
I get up, let out the dogs & chickens. Bring the dogs back in & feed the cats and dogs. I have coffee, then I go to my office. I've been working from home since 2010 and I'll never go back to an office situation.
Edit: New England, in the US
I either take transit, which takes 35-40 minutes - a combination of bus, metro and a walk, or I bike, which takes 40-50 minutes with time for a shower and changing clothes included. I usually lean towards transit during winter and bad weather, while I lean toward the bike as often as possible otherwise.
I have the option to work from home as much as I want, but I voluntarily go 5 days to the office. I'm planning to shorten down the commute by moving closer to the city center, because I find it to be a bit on the longer side, but I still find going to the office to be a better experience than working from home despite the added time for travel.
US here: I am lucky enough to be able to ride my bike most days as long as the weather isn't terrible. If forced to, I'll drive but I love not worrying about parking and the freedom of a bicycle compared to a car.
I walk 6 min to the closest bus stop, get on the direct bus to the city, 20/40 (summer/winter) min later I am at one of the bus terminals, 2-5 min later I am down on the metro platform, getting on the metro, two stops later I get off and walk 6 min to the office.
Drive 15min to Metro station. Ride train for 40min. Switch lines. Ride for another 20min. Walk 5min to office. Then I do that in reverse 8-ish hours later.
I usually read on the train in the morning and game on the way back so it's been somewhat bearable (I'm the crazy kid playing lvl 28 beatmaps on my phone during evening rush hour)
Family gets in car, two minute drive to wife's work, five minute drive to elementary school, two minute drive to daycare, 1 minute drive back home until time for me to go to work in an hour. 2 minute drive to work.
Depends on the work day. Once all of my offsprings have been delivered to school and daycare and I get back home, I spend 30 seconds rearranging my bed pillows so that I can comfortably sit with my laptop.
Once in a while it involves a 40 minute drive to my local airport, arriving 20 minutes before boarding begins (tiny airport). And from there we're talking everything from 45 minute to 30 hours until I reach my destination.
I live in a city in Germany and work in a office in the suburb:
I live in a NYC suburbs and work in another. It is possible to take a bus/train to NYC from each, but no direct way between them. So I drive the 18 miles. I have to cross a bridge. That makes for a traffic bottleneck. Without traffic, it's less than 30 minutes. With traffic it can be 1.5 hours. One snowstorm made for a 5 hour ride home.
Wake up, drive kids to school, drive home and sit on my desk. Does it count as commute?
Wake at 7am, go to bus/ride bike at 8:30, 9:00 work
reverse it at 6pm
repeat.
Edit: Germany.
It's an eight minute train ride, and I live like 60ft from the station. Wish I could work from home but boss says no. Could be worse tho, I suppose.
Five minute stroll to the bus stop, 3 minute chillout there, hop on the bus, 10 minute ride to the destination and a five minute stroll to the office.
I leave between 6:10 and 6:15am, get on my e-bike and arrive at work 25 min later.
Ii manage a farm. My commute is just walk outside
During the winter:
Rest of the year: Cycle 25 min
Why are you waiting 8 minutes on the bus when it takes you just 2 minutes to get to the bus stop? Leave 5 minutes later and just wait 1 minute instead?
If their public teansport situation is anything like mine, busses have a few min leeway eather way on most stops
Mh, that's not how I know it. Like, being late is common. But if a bus, tram or train is early it usually will wait at the early stop till the scheduled departure time.
But I'm quite spoiled. During peak hours there is a tram every 3.5 minutes where I live. So unless there is a complete blockage, the concept of "missing" the tram doesn't really exist.
When I say wait 8 minutes in bus its because I'm inside the bus, waiting for it to arrive near work
It looks like the carpet between the kitchen and my library. My commute is all of 100 feet or so down a portrait-lined hallway to the computer. And that's it. And I work for myself, (a part time writer) so i don't really have to struggle with the daily grind of cars, buses, trains, etc.
But - we do have a pretty nifty Trax system here in Utah for commuters going cross town or from downtown to the University. I'd probably use that if I was still working.