Commuting sucks.

[Cyragnome]

I loathe many of the commutes in the DC area, generally...right now I'm doing Falls Church to Herndon (not bad) about 17 miles in 25 minutes at 6:20 AM.

I've had to head up to Annapolis Junction/Laurel a few times and it has been pure misery (worse than when I had the only slightly shorter Falls Church to NASA Goddard commute).

That whole section around Silver Spring can be a mess (one of the gaming group lives up that aways).

 

[Old One]

Well - I'm from a town where you can get anywhere in essentially 10 minutes. Any farther than that and you are leaving the city limits.

Now I live in the Washington, DC metro area and it sucks. Before we moved to Silver Spring, MD (from Alexandria, VA), I could catch the 8:33am train, the 8:42 bus, and make it to work by 9. Now that we have relocated, I have to make the 7:25 bus to make the 8:01 train all in hopes of making the 8:42 bus to work again! (which - this morning I didn't. It was nice out, so the walk from the train station to work wasn't *so* bad... but it's still highly annoying!)

I've moved 20 miles or so and my commute has inflated from 30 minutes (which is very short for the area) to over 1.5 hours!

Do you commute? How long does it take you? What's the absolute longest commute you'd be willing to put up with?

Rant with me!!

Bah!

I don't want to hear it !

I commute from Hunt Valley, MD (get out the maps, kiddies, it's north of Baltimore) to Old Town Alexandria, VA 4x per week when I am not traveling on business. Exactly 75 miles from garage to parking garage (+ a 5-min walk).

I get up between 4:50 and 5:10 AM to be on the road between 5:30 and 5:45. The AM commute isn't too terrible...provided some jack*ss(es) don't decide to have a "block all the lanes accident" along 83S/695W/95S/295S/US1 into Old Town. Usually takes me ~ 1:20 to 1:40 hours.

It's the drive home that sucks with a capital "S". The Woodrow Wilson Bridge project has reduced outbound Alexandria to MD traffic to a crawl. I typically try to leave the office by 3:00 PM...and I have still had it take me 45 minutes + to cross the bridge (about 3 miles as the crow flies). Afternoon commutes typically take 1:45 to 2:45 hours, depending on the alignment of the stars.

I have been doing it for almost 2 years and have become pretty "numb" to the whole thing. Also, I have started learning Italian via audio CD for my upcoming Tuscany Trip...so I should be fluent with 3+ hours a day for the next 7 weeks !

Why, you ask? Because I love what I do and they pay me pretty good money !

~ OO

 

[kenobi65]

I don't envy you commuters; it's one of those things that can just drain the life out of you. I used to drive about 30 min to work and hated it. Now my commute is about 10 minutes. And I'm driving against the traffic (from the 'big city' to the suburb). Works out great.

That's one of the reasons I miss Madison. When I was in grad school, and living way out on the far west side (Old Middleton Road), it was a 10-minute drive to the center of campus. 15 if traffic was bad. ("Bad" being relative...I had no idea how bad traffic could be until I moved to Chicago.)

Edit: What do you mass-transit users do on your long commutes? I assume reading's one thing; anyone listen to music or the radio?

Since I'm on the train for 80% of my commute, I read. Newspaper in the morning, usually a gaming book or a novel on the way home.

 

[EricNoah]

That's one of the reasons I miss Madison. When I was in grad school, and living way out on the far west side (Old Middleton Road), it was a 10-minute drive to the center of campus. 15 if traffic was bad.

Ah, but parking on UW campus? Not so easy. When I was in grad school it was a 20 minute walk from my parking spot to my class, and I was one of the lucky ones!

 

[BiggusGeekus]

The DC metro blows large ammounts of blowable things.

Anyway, QD, this is your punishment for not moving closer to Reston.

 

[Queen_Dopplepopolis]

The DC metro blows large ammounts of blowable things.

Anyway, QD, this is your punishment for not moving closer to Reston.

Ha! Reston is for fools!!

Really - we were looking at places in the McLean area (where The Universe currently works). But - in the end - he was offered a job at Ft. Meade and so we had to move north.

So - we almost moved closer!!

 

[kenobi65]

Ah, but parking on UW campus? Not so easy. When I was in grad school it was a 20 minute walk from my parking spot to my class, and I was one of the lucky ones!

Very true. I managed to find a monthly lot just south of SERF, which was fairly close to my graduate-assistant job (in the Towers), but a hike to the main part of campus.

Still, I'd kill for a 15- or 20-minute commute these days.

 

[JamesDJarvis]

argggghhhhhhhhhhhh

It took me 2.5 hours to drive 37.5 miles today (35 miles of that highway). The weather was fine. There were no accidents of note. Just about 25% of the drivers on the road driving that shouldn't be allowed to from what i could tell : lots of zigging and zagging, treating the directional like optional equipment, being clearly unaware of basic traffic rules and regulatuions, driving down breakdown lanes, crossing double yellow lines and more.

How about some random spot driving tests? I bet ya 25% of the folsk on the road at any one time could not pass a driving test.
I bet you there'd be even less drunk driving incidents if there were less unfit drivers on the road (i'm assuming of course that drunk drivers are more likely to be bad drivers in the first place).

 

[Shadeus]

Another veteran of Chicago rush hour. I live near O'hare airport and take the expressway in to the city, through the city and down to the University of Chicago campus (in Hyde Park, near the museum of science and industry). It's about 22 miles door to door. It's 25 minutes of pure driving, but regularly takes me 50 minutes.

The longest its taken me was 2 hrs 45 minutes. I was on my way to a softball game and it started raining....so it got cancelled. Fortunately, it was the same day Revenge of the Sith opened, so that's what we saw instead.

I love it though. I usually pop in a CD and relax a bit from the stress of work. It's a way for me to unwind from my day. But I have a stressful job.

 

[kenobi65]

I love it though. I usually pop in a CD and relax a bit from the stress of work. It's a way for me to unwind from my day. But I have a stressful job.

That's probably one of the few positives I can ascribe to a long commute...the ride home gives me the time to mentally separate myself from work. Unless I'm really stressed out over something, by the time I get home, I'm able to have left work behind until the following morning.