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FH and I are discussing a move that would increase my commute from 20-22 minutes to 45-50 minutes. I work 4.5 days a week (the full days are 8-5:30 or 6), plus one Saturday morning a month. I am wondering if this will be too much. I don't like driving- I do it because I have to. Also, it makes me a little sad to think I won't get home til fairly late, and to rarely get to enjoy sunshine. I enjoy running outside (not in the dark) and sun definitely improves my mood).
So to the bees who have had long commutes, is this reasonable? Am I being wimpy? Any tips to make it tolerable?
45 is long for me but not for many people. i have a 4 min commute to work. I used to commute 1 1/2 hours but have been commuting for 4 min for 7 years now. My FI ( and me a lil too) want to move about an hour away...I freak out if it takes me longer than 20 min anywhere.
I personally have always preferred a short commute and so does DH. It's very important that DH be no more than 15 minutes away due to him basically being on call 24/7.
For me, I like a shorter commute, but if I have to, I'll drive. Anything longer than 40 minutes is too long for me. Even 30 is pushing it. That's an extra hour everyday that I'm away from home. I had a commute that long last year while wedding planning, plus I had terrible hours at work, so I felt like I was never home.
5yrs ago my daily commute was 1hr each way and most of it stuck sitting in traffic - never again.
my current commute is less than 15mins and we are moving offices in march and when my boss told me they were looking at something 40mins away i flat out told him i would quit - we now moving up the road from where we currently are so it will be about 10mins or i could walk it in about 30mins
My longest daily commute was 1 - 1.5 hrs each way. The worst part was it was ONLY 25 miles but traffic was horrendous. I did that for 2 years.
After that I moved to a 30 min walking & subway commute. That felt really short.
I don't think I've ever had a commute shorter than that and probably won't since I'll need to use mass transit and even if the commute is only 15min I'll have to allow at least half an hour for possible transit delays, etc.
@guitargirl:My commute is in DC< so the "40" minute commute is really ALWAYS 1 hour to 1 hr 20, and sometimes worse.
NEVER AGAIN. When we move, I am never living more than 30 minutes from work unless I am not driving (e.g. walking=45min acceptable commute).
I miss all the sun and warmth and don't get much time at home with my hubby before I have to go back to bed.
I agree with spaneshal. I used to do 40minutes, which was short for me (lived 20minutes from the nearest town) but my SO regularly does 1hr10 (living in London with rubbish public transport/ bad traffic). When I stay at his it's nearly 2 hours to my place of study, but I do it a couple of times a week, it doesn't feel long because I've got used to it but I wouldn't want to do it everyday. 20minute walk to mine from college atm.
My commute is 1 hour to an hour and 15 mins each way, everyday. Plus I am on call for a week every 6 weeks, which means usually coming back to work an additional 2-3 times that week.
It sucks, but I like my job (and this position is not available on every street corner), I also don't want to live any closer to my work so I don't have much of a choice unless a closer job were to open up.
45-50 minutes sounds like a normal commute to me. My first job was a 75-90 commute each way in normal traffic, 50 minutes if I could zooooom the whole way. Next job was about 35 minutes and that seemed like heaven. Now, its 30 minutes no traffic, up to 50 minutes traffic. There are some guys at work here whos daily commute is 2-2.5 hours and sometimes even 3 hours on Fridays with Cape Cod traffic. People around here just dont have the option to live 15 minutes from their job with the housing marking being so expensive. You live where you can afford it, you work whereever there is work.
@PasteMoo: I completely understand. I commute from Southern Maryland into DC every day. I do 25 miles to the closest metro station (about 40-45 minutes of driving) and then take the metro downtown (another 25-35 minutes of sitting). Each way, every day. I used to commute to Rockville, which some mornings took me 2.5 hours. After that commute from hell I've decided I can deal with just about anything commute wise, but I'm looking to move closer to the city and just have to metro, no driving.
@guitargirl: my old job was about 20-25 min which I dream about now that my new one is about 50 minutes. If your going to be somewhere you love than it makes the commute worth while.
I'm an hour each way, more with traffic, and I hate it. If I didn't love my job so much, I'd work closer to home, definitely.
I am about 40-50 minutes one way with light traffic ( thankfully I leave early enough that traffic isn't THAT bad yet), but coming home it is closer to an hour. I work 7-4, so it makes for a verrrry early morning, but I still have my afternoons so it makes up for it!
@pinkshoes: That's what I'm in right now (your old commute)--it's miserable. I would say if you can avoid a long commute, do so, but if you can't...well. I'd rather be employed than unemployed, so this was my only option!
With such a bad economy (and I work in the public sector, so even fewer jobs for city gov't employees), sometimes you just have to do what you have to do. I'm surviving but I would switch to someplace closer in a heartbeat!
My daily commute is 1hr 45mins each way. It sucks. I would kill to have a 45-50min commute.
@BunnyBrideToBe: It is pretty miserable, but you kind of get used to it too. In the morning it wasnt so bad... just relax to some music, sip my morning coffee. I was lucky that I was always going against traffic too so I was at least moving. When I looked at the other side of 128/95 that was just sitting still, I thanked my lucky stars I at least wasnt on that side of the road even though it was still taking me about an hour.
"You live where you can afford it, you work whereever there is work." This is right. I have to commute a bit over an hour each way...oh well.
30 minutes is the max for me unless I just am desperate to have a job. My current commute is 10 minutes door-to-door in a place with very little traffic :)
There have been a bunch of studies done on this (my B.A. in Urban Planning is paying off!). Without additional incentive, people's willingness to commute maxes out at about an hour. However I did read a NYT article about "supercommuters": people living just outside major cities that would commute 2-3 hours each way. NUTS!
A 45 minute commute seems to be pretty average around me. I am spoiled and have a 10 minute commute and I keep saying I would never take a job or move if my commute would be any more then that haha. I used to commute 1 1/2 - 2 hours each way and I was miserable. I think the most I would be willing to increase to is 30 minutes.
I prefer a very short commute, I try not go over 30 minutes especially in traffic, otherwise I am so wound up when I get home I have to spend another hour just relaxing before I am fit to be around others. I suppose I could go a bit longer if it was a good commute with nice roads and little traffic.
@Kant: Ditto...I'd kill for a 40-45 minute commute!
Mine is about an hour and 15 minutes each way on a good day. On days that my train is late or has a lot of traffic, I'm looking at upwards to an hour and a half to an hour and 45 minutes. So 40-45 minutes sounds like a piece of cake to me!
I think it depends on what your commute entails (ie traffic, public transportation). I commute about 45 up the NJTP every day. I have Sirius/XM and I don't sit in any traffic. I enjoy that time to prepare for the day or unwind on the way home.
I've also commuted via train and subway for probably the same amount of time or longer, but I always felt I could never relax for fear of falling asleep and missing my stops.
If you're not sitting in traffic, I don't think 45-50 minutes is bad. As long as you like your job and its worth the commute!
I think its personal tolerance... Alot of people at my job have 1-1.5 hour commutes and a token number have liek 2-2.5 hr commutes. I would never do that but some people really want to live in a certain place. Also, is that 45 mins with or without rush hour traffic. I set it up where I am like 20-25 mins from my job but with traffic its taken me 45 mins to get home sometimes.
Right now I commute about 30 mins each way. My first job out of college I commuted about 45 minutes and it wasnt too terrible but I would prefer shorter over longer. I don't think 45 mins is TOO far, but it's all about personal preference!
My SO read somewhere that the shorter your commute, the happier you were (generally). He drives over an hour each day and I can see the toll it takes on him-- when we move together, I want to look at places near his job so he won't have to do this anymore! (Right now we're in an LDR, not living together before marriage.)
I only drive ten minutes to school/work. Last year I could walk from my apartment, but I upgraded to a better complex and accepted the drive as part of the new place. (It's much cleaner and better staffed, I think it's a fair trade.) However, I did spend last weekend housesitting for a professor who lived ~35 minutes away... I was not happy with the commute!
ETA: I definitely agree that the style of commute makes a difference. My SO sits in traffic for over an hour for a 25 mile drive which is brutal. I wouldn't mind sitting on a bus/metro for an hour though!
Anything over 30 minutes starts to verge on too long for me.
I spent about a year with a 55 minute commute and I HATED it. I felt like by the time I spent 2 hours on the road each day plus a full day at work, I had no time in the evenings to do anything. Make dinner, eat, go to bed. And if I had any errands to run, the whole evening was shot.
I listen to Pandora via my iPhone while I drive. I made my drives more tolerable by caughing up the cash for a paid subscription (no commercials).
If I didn't have to drive, I would think nothing of a 45-50 minute commute. I'd sit on the skytrain/bus and read or play on my iPhone or whatnot. But driving is just too tedious for me, at least in the city. It currently takes me 20 minutes to get to work in the morning, and 30 minutes to get home in rush hour traffic, which is okay, but I think any longer than that and I would beat myself unconscious against the steering wheel.
My work commute is 30 minutes. It's sometimes too long, sometimes just right. Anything over that and I was miserable...however, 40 minutes isn't so bad. Getting in that 50-60 minute range and count me out.
Before I got married I lived about 35 mins away from my job but with traffic it usually took 45mins to an hour. I hated it but I got used to it and on the rare days when there wasnt too much traffic it wasnt too bad. Now I'm only 15 mins away and its such a relief to know I dont have to be stuck in traffic for that long.
My commute is a little over an hour each way. I leave the house right before 7 and I get home right after 6. I hate it. I'm not a person who likes driving and that really leaves me drained at the end of the day. We're moving soon and I'll have a 25 min commute which I'm SO excited for!
If I could take public transportation and actually do something (read, laptop, etc.) during the commute it wouldn't be as bad. It's having to sit in the car, concentrate on driving for that long and being stuck in traffic that drives me nuts.
When I lived in Boston, 45 minutes was standard. The same trip took 15 minutes on a Saturday morning.
Now, I walk less than a mile to work. I LOVE it! It cracks me up that people outside of major cities don't see convenience as a high value factor. Most of the expensive homes here are miles and miles outside of the city. Suckers! ;)
If you LOVE the job- or in this case- the new location of the move, then I might consider it. I used to commute an hour to school so I could live on a trout stream in a cabin and fish everyday. Fly fish. It was so worth it! I used the drive to drink coffee, clear my head...
@bdemps11:I would LOVE to just do metro! I can do 1.5 hr commute if it's on the bus/walking, so I can SLEEP or read or zone out. 1.5 hours of driving is just KILLER.
This is my FIRST driving commute in my life. I always used to move if I got a new job, so that I could walk there. It was worth more than anything else to me to be able to walk to work, even if it meant I was living with drug addicts, strippers and whatnot. Looking back--it was totally worth it. I would do that again over a driving commute of ANY length (even 20 minutes). I hate driving.
My current commute is about 45 min - 1 hr each way every day, and while I definitely hate it most of the time, it's livable. It would be a lot more livable if I made more money, but I absolutely don't regret taking my job.
I read a study that 45 minutes is the line in the sand commute, that people need to be paid more for because their quality of life is so impacted. I used to have a 90-minute (each way) commute (on top of a 10-12 hour workday), and I was definitely hating life. I now commute 10 minutes to work. I will hopefully never commute more than half an hour each way again.
I think any longer than an hour each way is too long, unless you get really good pay--I mean, gas prices being so high, and the toll it takes on people for that extra driving time...
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