I had a 90-minute-each-way commute once (public transportation had to take two trains and a bus. Yep- bay area can be really really bad. My 20 mile commute to Santa Monica is on average 1 hr 20 mins (on bad day, 1 hr 40+ mins) so unfortunately, while this is not the national norm, I think it is a norm in SoCal. There was a guy who was caught living in the back of a box truck in the Google parking lot, because he couldnt find an apartment with a decent commute. Call Now To Get Started at 1 . Sure, it was nice to sometimes get home early but being able to reliably plan dinner cooking, meeting up with friends, errands and appointments, etc fits much better into our life. On a good day my commute is 90 minutes, on the worst it has been 3.5 hours. I would say if you love your try, try to relocate. Like many commuters, Neil Shapiro never quite knows what will happen on his . It was 31 miles door to door. You can absolutely take the M train from Bushwick to Broadway-Lafayette in under 45 minutes. You can consider public transit, I took the redline from the SF Valley into downtown for several years as part of my regular commute and I loved it, super convenient. Zero. I stuck it out for a year and my new commute is still 50 minutes but its a solid 50 with little variation and I cannot tell you how much my life has improved with less than an hour commute. DC area is another one where new arrivals should really get local info about traffic before committing to a job and/or housing. Long commutes are the price we pay for a job sometimes. Two hours each way is a totally normal commute for the Los Angeles area even before I left it a decade ago. Agreed, although theres a huge class element to commutes. Get my gun! Frances O'Grady of the Trades Union Congress, which published the figures,. This move added 15-20 minutes each way to our commutes, but it cut our rent in half and got us a bigger apartment. Taking the Metro is consistently 90 minutes, except for that time last week when there was smoke in the tunnel and it took 3 hours. Possibly doing a trial period to see what he thinks. Yikes, two hours one-way is too much for me. Traffic is bad here but luckily there are trains so I dont have to keep a car. I definitely have screenshots saved of the next 3 miles projected at 50+ minutes, both from the 5 in southern california and the Bay Bridge up north. What youve described is pretty much my husbands schedule. Thankfully I found something closer to home. I live in the SFV, two major freeways are short drives away. Welcome to Southern California =). I had a coworker who did Pasadena Playa Del Rey. Its the big reason I havent bought a home, and possible never will (at least until I retire). My spouse and I are in a situation where I have an awesome practically door-to-door public bus commute that takes about 20 minutes, but he drives to work and it takes him 45-60 minutes. That said, I do still miss the beach and weather a ton. I am applying for university and my firm choice is 1.5-2 hours away depending on traffic. My best friend had a 2-hour commute. DH & I live in the Midwest (i.e. im moving from just north of the city to queen anne in a few weeks, my 1+hr bus ride will turn into a 20 minute walk to work. And if your commute cuts through Downtown LA? It turned what used to be a 2-hour commute for me to an hours drive. Im running out of podcasts to binge. Mine is pretty average, then. 1 hour is pretty standard. And that would have to be for a super terrific, well-paid job. That was unsustainable, and eventually higher management began to push back against the practice too (the travel money was expense-able, and it was eating into our profits like woah). City driving is easier on the soul in my opinion. Of course this being LA, die down is relative. But 1.5-2 hours each way? Im an Airbnb host. 5546 (c)). It would be about 10, but businesses here really discourage employees from driving, so I opted for the free bus pass over $18 a day parking! But I know LAs subway system isnt the best, so its not practical for every commute. Even a cab will take me about 30 minutes due to rush hour traffic. They both kept going back and forth about which route is better, which one takes less time, etc. 1. The traffic in was non-existent but the end of day traffic was horrible. Big difference if you avoid the stop and go. Or if you live in suburbs with poor public transit and no BART access (or cant afford BART over bus fare). My commute is 20 minutes IN RUSH HOUR TRAFFIC, and a small part of me wants my mom to sell us her house* so my commute is a more reasonable 5 minutes if I get the traffic light. Then Id get rid of my car and take the bus everywhere. Or he can deal with a long trip from his home to yours to see you. Best of luck finding something new. What kind of life is that? The only way I see people make it work is to have jobs you can start really early like be in the office at 6:00 AM and leave work at 2:oo PM. Eh. :(. You may want to think about this for your next position! I dont think a 2-hour commute is normal, per se, in LA, but the few friends of mine whove suffered hour-plus commutes moved closer or quit their jobs; its generally not a sustainable commute to go more than an hour, from what Ive seen. Today, its more like 2.5. If there was bad traffic, bad weather, etc. Otherwise, consider moving. If I take a Lyft or drive I can get there in only half the time, but I dont currently have a car, so for now its bus/walk/occasionally bike. Part of the reason for this is that DC obviously has a lot of federal employees, but rent in the district (and even just outside of it!) That is normal for L.A., I am sorry to say! Incredibly long wait times before leaving stations? I think this is exactly the problem. If you like music or podcasts or can read while youre in a moving vehicle that might make your commute a lot more enjoyable! Totally do-able (especially when I worked east of Sepulveda and took Laurel Canyon). Its one of those things that you need to figure out what works for you. I have a 20 minute commute by public transit, so if I get off on time, evenings can be used for dates, hanging out with friends or running work outs. Oh yes. However, I know not every long distance job has carpool buddies, so I understand that can be difficult. Unfortunately there are none. Your odds of staying safe on the road are probably not as good as youre assuming. Door to door including the walk from my parking 15 minutes. For example, I live on the Westside. Thats the primary reason why I left Seattle. A couple of my team members fly in for half the week from LA or San Diego. Like I tended to pay much more for housing than folks that lived further out. There are a lot of people selling stuff, panhandling, or just riding the trains to get off the streets. Seattle commutes can be 2 hours for 30 minutes as well. I live in Brooklyn and my commute to downtown Manhattan is usually 40 to 50 minutes. Driving would be too stressful. Every time I get salty about our COL I remember that California is above and far beyond. Say you have a line of 10 cars and the first car has to stop very briefly for some reason. We invite users to post interesting questions about the UK that create informative, good to read, insightful, helpful, or light-hearted discussions. So, yes even in LA, a 2-hour one-way commute is on the extreme end of the bell curve of commute times, particularly for auto commute. There are weird people in the train sometimes, but theyre no worse than weird train people in other cities. Unfortunately, for that area and the commute you are doing 1.5 is the norm. Totally agree. This is one of the major reasons (along with housing prices) that I refuse to live in places like LA, Atlanta, Dallas, etc., places with horrendous traffic and poor public transportation. The holiday rate is payable for all call-back hours which correspond to the employee's regular tour hours (non-overtime hours). When I had a job in the San Fernando Valley the commute was fine because the traffic went in the opposite direction.. I dont have any advice but you have my deepest sympathy. I wish I knew how good I had it back then! Around noon, it takes about 30 minutes sometimes 20 if, for some reason, theres no traffic. Full-time, Part-time . I didnt want to go ahead and find a place in Anaheim and then find out I was gonna have to commute to Burbank every morning. . You could cycle 8 miles in 30 mins. Also lived in LB, commuted to Newport/CDM. I love reading, but I have a really difficult time keeping my focused on audiobooks or podcasts or any kind of talking that I need to pay close attention to, and if Im driving I cant follow it at all. Much better. Hats off to those who can stand commuting long periods like that. I had to try really hard not to laugh. Thats the kind of analysis you have to undertake to avoid a 2-hour commute in that part of SoCal. I used to commute longer and it drove me nuts because, inevitably, pretty much every Friday night on the way home, there would be an accident. I need to take a bus (7 miles) to reach either of those. I feel lame for being so picky, but thats a LOT of time out of your life! my team planned a wine-tasting while Im pregnant, no one is paying attention to my training, and more, coworker sent me his racy photography page, do I need to give my coworkers gifts, and more. I used to work 45 minutes away (office moved farther away) and had a 5:30 am 2 pm shift. At the end of our commutes, we were both exhausted, but he was far more aggravated on top of that, due to the inherent frustration that comes with that kind of slow-moving traffic. Being able to be home at 5:30 and have dinner and a life after work is worth so much more than money to me. Good luck! im so excited. Their two major functions are to suck up money and kill mobility. I had a long distance job and I was able to survive through it with carpooling. Now Im in NM and oh my, its wonderful and I never ever want to go back to a big city. to me. Perhaps this has been suggested already, but can you move closer to your job? (None of this is easy in LA, but its the only solution for long-term happiness.) was I wrong to be put off by interviewing on Bring Your Kids to Work Day? For my next job I am trying very hard to not have to cross the river. Agreed, Anonymoose. I even saw a 20-something female tourist who got slapped in the face by some lady, completely out of the blue (this was the Red Line). Ive lived in SoCal for 48 of my 51 years. When theres no traffic (AKA weekends, or days when OPM has delayed arrival and Im the last to know) I can get there in about 30 minutes. Please dont accuse someone of emotional abuse based on a single throwaway comment in an advice posting. I couldnt take it mentally OR physically. I live 15 miles from all directions from Boston. Groundwork cafe at the north Hollywood intersection of the redline and orange line has glorious gluten free baked goods(Im celiac, so I live by my map of places that I can eat). I need to figure out parking at the new metra stop or find a new job. It once took me 3 hours to drive the 15 miles from west LA to Torrance. Biking isnt doable in every city unfortunately I live in Tampa and am 10 miles from work, which, depending on traffic, can take 20-50 minutes. I will be living at home. My commute for the last 4 years has been 2 hours each way, 90 minutes of which is on a train (Thanks, outdated NJTransit!). Not that Im saying that there hasnt historically been white flight but it happens in pockets instead of concentric circles. Im actually surprised more people dont pursue the option we are, though, because theres really nothing job-wise if youre not a professor or student out where he is. No matter what normal is, you have to go with whats feasible for you. I hated the long drives, but when you have 3 million people going to the same place at the same time, what else can you do ? My commute is an hour, but changing etc adds on 30 minutes (before/after). That commute would not be tolerable for me. The city was definitely designed with cars in mind and commuting by bike would be a nightmare. Im in the Tulsa, OK area and our average commute is 20 minutes so 2 hours is absurd given my frame of reference. Its especially frustrating in a stick shift because your clutch foot gets so tired. Nuts are a healthier way to snack than some other poor choices I couldve made. Am I crazy? Weve considered moving closer. Look for something new. The downsides are that a lot of elderly and disabled take the bus so that slows things down when they have to raise/lower the ramps to let them on/off; and everyone can talk on their cell phones. Makes the journey so much more enjoyable, to the extent that sometimes Im even looking forward to getting into the car for an extended period. I live in West Los Angeles. Folks drive at the limit or (more often) 10-15 miles over limit when theres room to do so. I couldnt imagine doing that every day. nah, you can ride the train home if youve walked in. Think that commute is under an hour. THIS. The fact that you are making time for the gym/yoga is commendable! downtown Berkeley to downtown Oakland, or Oakland to SF). My last contract was about 40 miles away from my domicile and I drove. Cross-London commuting SUCKS. My schedule was 10-7; stopping at the store or if there was an accident? Instead were now spending billions of dollars trying to get our transit system caught up. Most people who work in Burbank cant afford to live here anymore houses in my neighborhood start at over $800k for 1100 square feet. Im pretty sure there are days when it would be faster to *walk* to downtown from my neighborhood than to drive (Google says ~2 hours, and Google thinks people walk slowly, so I could probably do it in 1.5ish). An entire day! It is wonderful. Two of my friends are going to a different uni, which is russell group also, but it is 3 hours away and i wouldn't be able to live at home. This wont always be the case, and eventually I will outgrow my role and probably be priced out of commuting at which point I will probably have to move house, since there are no good jobs local to me. Just because it is normal doesnt mean its sane. The scariest was a semi truck veering across 5 lanes of traffic to land onto the interstate median and surprisingly no other car was involved. I mean, Im screaming inside and my commute is regularly an hour and a half! Everyone has to consider how much more theyre willing to spend to save time getting to work (or how much of a pay cut theyre willing to take to get a job closer to home). Is there an accident on I-75 and I might as well pull off and have dinner at a restaurant right now because I will legitimately get home at the same time as if I try to sit here on the highway? Even stopping to drop kids off at daycare, my total commute whether I take the streets or the freeway is 15 minutes. For context, Im in the DC area and my commute door to door is roughly an hour on mass transit. I listen to audio books that are young adult novels so its harder in my case to lose track. Its not going to get any better. Always awful unless I did seriously shifted hours. If any of those were different, Id change jobs or areas for a better commute. In my job there I did a lot of driving to sites, which stressed me out but eventually I came to love, because I learned about different parts of the area, and our clients various secret tips and so on. Saying that, Im happy to abandon working with my other half if my job application for a job 15 minutes from home is successful ! My commute to work is about 9 miles and usually takes about 40-50 minutes, but can easily be over an hour on a bad day. It was a cost of living/housing/real estate thing at the time. I dont have personal experience with it, but I have heard that EMDR therapy can work well for PTSD. I hope your boyfriend becomes more supportive, and that it wont be much longer before you get a job with a commute that allows you to have a life. Invest in it! $3,600 a year in gas. That leaves 7 to 8 hours free time- let's be generous and call it 8 hours. Seriously. Im a huge fan of Seanan McGuire, but I never listened to her October Daye series in audiobook / wont switch at this point for that series. There was a thread in a Friday open thread awhile back where everyone shared their commute times: https://www.askamanager.org/2016/03/open-thread-march-18-19-2016.html. Youd think a book about traffic would be as boring as traffic is, but everyone Ive recommended it to has found it really interesting. Probably? I dont love it, but I like where I live, I like that my method of commuting is relatively cheap (I could choose another method, but Id pay significantly more to do so), and I like that taking public transit allows me to do other things with my commute time. Yes, this. And that was traveling cross-county (not south towards Atlanta). to my office in Belmont, Mass. That commute is costing you more than four hours a day stuck in traffic: It costs you the hours you would have spent preparing meals, doing errands, taking care of your house/apartment. Not worth it. Just wanted to make the distinction re: commute norms :). This was a really hard habit for me to break, but my quality of life got so much better when I just shrugged and said It is what it is about traffic and commuting. Could easily be an hour. I think you need to try to find something more manageable and not feel bad about it. I am ready to apologize, explain my situation, and start looking around for something closer. If the bus is right there, it is a little quicker. So, a typical commute for me was about 1.5-2 hrs and it absolutely did wear on me. Its not common but, sadly, is becoming more common. My commute could be close to 1 to 2 hours on a good day. Yeah, so when I worked down town, it would take 40 minutes to get in but 15-20 to get home. Doh! The rest of the year would probably be fine weather-wise! My sympathies OP. You might still be spending 2 hours but at least you can read or play a game or something. Brutal. I think the conclusion usually is that life is too short to suffer and waste that kind of time. X-D. Oh dear god, you commute up from Long Beach?!? A bit longer than Id like, but far preferable than the hour-plus Id spend trying to get downtown. What I have found in many cities Ive lived, including Los Angeles, is that even though a circuitous surface route might be slightly more miles, it can often be quicker than taking the freeway. Reearch isnt reality. And, if theres a train incident, then these days, theres always WFH for part of the day. I figured out why I was too tired to go to the gym after work; I spend two to three hours a day behind the wheel. Oh man, try working here in a developing nation in Asia like Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines and youll realize just how fortunate you guys are. I live in LB too. When my family drove to Colorado from San Antonio, we popped those in and it helped the drive a lot. I used to live in Los Angeles. Spoken as an Angelino with a 1 hr public transit commute. I was commuting the equivalent of Bellevue to Shoreline for awhile. The bus is so much better than the subway: no musicians playing, no panhandlers; no homeless people sleeping on the seats (although sometimes there are smelly homeless on the bus); if you get stuck in traffic and youre close to your destination you can just get out at the next stop and walk instead of being trapped underground in a tunnel with someones armpit pressed against your face; better air conditioning in the summer, etc. But some mornings I even freak out and ask my boyfriend to escort me to my car in the morning (445-5 am) if I had to park further away since we live near a dark park. The Bay Area is another place, like LA, where you really have to limit your geographical options when looking for jobs. Agreed. 2 hours commute during rush hour in LA is completely normal. ), I can move back. So 2 hours sounds typical to me! +1 I think normal is relative to where you live. Its a perfect storm. Thats actually a huge thing for me on why I do not want to move. 2 hour commute twice a week. If youre not willing to move, youll have to switch your hours to off-peak commute times or get a new job. If I am lucky, I am in traffic for 1.5 hours. I was going to suggest, shorter term, perhaps finding a gym you like close to where you are working, so as to cut down your commute time by either getting there early in the morning OR staying late to let some of the nonsense thin out. But I will say that routinely taking 2 hours to go only 30 miles is unusual sometimes, sure, but 4 days out of 5 iskind of whacked. But what everyone is saying is true this might be not as uncommon as you think but if its not right for you, its time to look elsewhere for a job thats closer or has flexible scheduling. No one can afford to live where the jobs are, so you move farther out and compensate with an insane commute. Experiment with routes and see if theres some alternatives that work for you. My times are similar maybe a little shorter in the PM coming from near the 101/92 interchange. Hang out for ~2 hours I absolutely love the best of both worlds feel it gives me. My commute is an hour and 10 minutes on average by bus, but I read a lot or nap. You would think they would make a more robust commuter system there, but then again, I am not totally sold on how well we can manage train systems in this country either . I currently live 15 minutes away from work. I would sincerely hate this commute. 2 hours of bad traffic sounds absolutely awful, and I personally would be looking for another job over it. I live 27 miles out of SF and would drive to BART (20-30 minutes) and then ride into the city (30 mins or so). 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