The Commute!

[Radahr Manasponge]

So anyhow, I have a monster commute. Atlanta may have worse volume, and the beltway in DC is situationally worse with construction and wrecks...but on a day to day basis, nowhere in the U.S. that I've been has worse traffic than south Florida. These fucking people cannot drive.

I go about ~125 miles a day, mix of turnpike/highway and city driving.

Thank the gods for NPR.

If there's a Rite-Aid or Walgreens in your town, and you're east of the Miss'ippi river, then I've been there putting a new satellite uplink, cabling, and server in it. Literally. I went to all of them. So I've seen pretty much all the kinds of traffic you can see.

That said, thankfully NPR has Morning Edition and All Things Considered, and one of those is often on during my commute. However, not all NPR local affiliates have the same schedule and programming, so depending on where I am, that can vary.

How the fuck do y'all deal with this much time in the car? I've been doing it for years and I'm gettin pretty near the end of my rope. I don't even like talking on the phone while I'm driving, cause not concentrating 100% on the road (and more importantly the other cars) down here is a recipie for disaster.

Edited cause speeling is hard!

[Rhuobhe]

I live in Miami. I got tired of driving the long commute way long ago.

I live and work near the metro rail. I have gotten so accustomed to this that I cannot imagine ever working or living anywhere outside the range of the train ever again. (downtown, US1, Dadeland, hospitals).

solution: If you live up north in or near Broward. Look for a job THERE or move to Miami. I don't know how people can drive the turnpike, i75 or the palmetto back and forth every day. You lose so much time and gas.


I used to work with a guy who drove his Nissan Titan from oakland park (near west palm) all the way to south kendall (sunset drive) every day. In my head, I would call that guy an idiot behind his back.

[Phoenix]

Before I deployed I had about a one minute walk to work .

[Phelps McManus]

I lived 17 miles from my office in Atlanta. That was a 45 minute drive during rush hour (6:15am-10am, 3:15pm-7pm) with no delays, 90-120 minutes if there was an accident.

After my talk radio station flipped to Spanish, I got Sirius Satellite Radio. This was particularly nice for listening to news channels during the Iraq invasion and 2004 election. Eventually, Howard Stern joined and I listened to him pretty much exclusively during my commutes.

[Tallyn]

In all seriousness, move your home closer to your job or your job closer to your home. I'm in Atlanta as well and finally had to suck it up and get a smaller place inside the perimeter. My wife's commute went from an hour to six minutes and mine is similar. It has done amazing things for our quality of life.

[Phelps McManus]

My employer did end up moving the office about 5 miles further out, which probably cut that 45 minutes down to 20 since the waits get exponentially longer as you approach the city.

I ended up getting another job in a new city, with a 12-mile, 15 minute commute.

[Lyrical]

Originally Posted by Phelps McManus

I lived 17 miles from my office in Atlanta. That was a 45 minute drive during rush hour (6:15am-10am, 3:15pm-7pm) with no delays, 90-120 minutes if there was an accident.

After my talk radio station flipped to Spanish, I got Sirius Satellite Radio. This was particularly nice for listening to news channels during the Iraq invasion and 2004 election. Eventually, Howard Stern joined and I listened to him pretty much exclusively during my commutes.

Atlanta traffic is the worst I have ever seen. We live in Duluth. It takes my wife 45 minutes to get to her job that is three miles away (but that includes dropping the baby off at daycare). The city really needs to push more public transit. I am not sure there is room to add in more highways.

[Etoille]

*shrug* morning shows.

I had Drex in Chicago, Elliot here in DC now. I can't listen to NPR in the morning it puts me to sleep I need to laugh.

[Zitar]

Originally Posted by Phelps McManus

After my talk radio station flipped to Spanish, I got Sirius Satellite Radio. This was particularly nice for listening to news channels during the Iraq invasion and 2004 election. Eventually, Howard Stern joined and I listened to him pretty much exclusively during my commutes.

Same thing happened to me. Sirius gets me through my commute. Regular radio here is horrible.

[Tallyn]

Unfortunately, long commute times is not a problem that city planners can really fix in the long term by building more transportation infrastructure. People have a time tolerance for travel. If you make it easy for them to travel long distances quickly (good highways), then they will live farther and farther from their place of employment until they reach their maximum willingness to travel. Atlanta has gone through at least a couple of iterations of this already with the construction of 400. Public transportation only sort of helps. While it makes commute times low for those who are near it, in the long term it raises real estate prices so that people self-select their access. This is clearly visible in places like Boston and DC.

Basically, commuting sucks.

[Abysmal]

Originally Posted by Radahr Manasponge

How the fuck do y'all deal with this much time in the car? I've been doing it for years and I'm gettin pretty near the end of my rope. I don't even like talking on the phone while I'm driving, cause not concentrating 100% on the road (and more importantly the other cars) down here is a recipie for disaster.

Edited cause speeling is hard!

i have commuted up to 150 miles a day give or take. when i had an econobox car i hated driving period, never mind commuting. once i bought a sports car i started to love driving, so for me it was all about liking the car. everyone hates gridlocked traffic, but once you have a fun car that turns a few heads driving becomes so much better.

[Lyrical]

Originally Posted by Tallyn

Unfortunately, long commute times is not a problem that city planners can really fix in the long term by building more transportation infrastructure. People have a time tolerance for travel. If you make it easy for them to travel long distances quickly (good highways), then they will live farther and farther from their place of employment until they reach their maximum willingness to travel. Atlanta has gone through at least a couple of iterations of this already with the construction of 400. Public transportation only sort of helps. While it makes commute times low for those who are near it, in the long term it raises real estate prices so that people self-select their access. This is clearly visible in places like Boston and DC.

Basically, commuting sucks.

One of my professors, who had a PhD in economics argued that the only answer is public transportation (outside of toll roads). He argued that we couldn't add more roads to most major cities. He argued that in order to save time, it would be easier to just fit 30 people onto a bus versus allowing 1 person to drive in a car. He almost argued that people should be forced to carpool. He said that too many people thought that their right to drive was a constitutional right, and that driving was not a right. So he argued that the roads should be toll roads, so that it would push people to use buses or other forms of mass transit. Its a bit draconian, but it does make you wonder. I could get to work in 15 minutes non-rush hour, or 1.5 hours in it.

He said that politicians would never make tough choices like this, but that it needed to be done so that we aren't wasting 3-4 hours a day on the road.

BOTTOM LINE: He said we need to disincentivize people from driving one person to a car, and incentivize car pools and public transportation. Even if only 15% of the people switched, it might cut down commute times for everyone by more than 15% (maybe 25%+) according to queueing theory.

[Abysmal]

people learning how to drive properly would also do wonders. highways come to a stop when traffic picks up because no one can figure out how to merge. incoming traffic is not aggressive enough and traffic already on the highway won't leaving enough following distance to let anyone in. before you know it no one is moving.

[Nakilos]

My last job was about 100 miles total round trip daily driving into Milwaukee. Pretty easy trip, even in the winter drivers weren't that bad. Florida has some god awful drivers though. It is a combination of the old people and the tourists not knowing where to go. I can safely say if I never go back to Florida in my lifetime that would be perfectly fine.

There was a radio show I listened to regularly that I really enjoyed a lot. Alternatively I just made cds and listened to those to combat boredom. I debated getting one of those docks for my Zune in my car, or also considered satellite radio. The guys in my home office in DE are really happy with it.

[Bralkan]

Atlanta kills my soul. It really does. If you live in GA, during the next Legislative Session you need to hassle your representatives and senators and get them to look into Citizens for Progressive Transit

http://www.cfpt.org/documents/worldclass_map.pdf

God, I would die if they actually appropriated the moneys for this. That is the big thing, though....

The republicans in control would never appropriate the moneys for this. It would require HUGE public pushing to get them to do it - really threaten their re-election.

They are looking into the "Brain Train" Georgia Brain Train Group - A Commuter Rail, passenger train, Atlanta rail, college connector rail which would be a train from Atlanta to Athens, but it really needs to reach out in other places past the perimeter. It is a start, though.

BUT, as to the topic...
Get some audio-books, they help. NPR and the BBC is great, but they repeat after awhile....