daisylu
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Post by daisylu on Oct 17, 2012 7:03:20 GMT -5
Our commute is 19 miles - all highway. Takes 20 minutes door-to-door. Currently, I drop DS off at school in the morning, which is a little more than halfway to work. Even with walking him into the school, signing him in, and chit-chatting I make it work between 30 and 35 minutes from the time I leave the house. I love the location of my home and would consider a commute that was double, but anything over 45 minutes would drive me crazy. Like Dark, I also live in area that is central to a lot of areas with a lot of employment opputunities. For me though, it also depends on the route. My last commute was 40 minutes, but about half the distance was single lanes through the mountains and was used heavily by semis. Everyone knew that when they got to the single lanes they would most likely be slowed down by the semis, so you also had to deal with the crazies weaving in and out as you got closer to the lane shift. Now, I just curse the people who are clogging up the left lane because they have to turn left in 8 miles.
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steph08
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Post by steph08 on Oct 17, 2012 7:22:27 GMT -5
My commute is 40 miles each way. DH's is about the same now that he has a job. I have done it for 5 years, and he is complaining after 5 weeks. It each takes us about 55 minutes. It does start to suck after a while, and I hope that our next house is within a half hour to each of our jobs. It just takes up so much time out of the day. Some days I don't mind it, but some days I am tired and just want to be home!
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michelyn8
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Post by michelyn8 on Oct 17, 2012 8:12:34 GMT -5
I commute between 25-30 miles and it can take me anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour depending on the route I take. If I stay off the highway, I pretty much turn off my street and stay on the same road until it T's with the road I work on (3-4 turns tops). If I take highway, more turns but I can drive 70-80 for the first 15 miles and knock some time off before I have to deal with the stop and go traffic. And if I leave early enough, I can see the hookers going home when I get off the highway. I've been making this drive 3 years and there has been some kind of road work going on on the last 1/3 of my drive the whole time and they just started another multi-year project on my route last month. I was spoiled for a long time. I was able to work in the county I lived in and had commutes from 2-20 minutes depending on where I lived/worked. I miss my 2 minute commute but right now I'd been happy if I could get back my 20 minute. I've crunched the numbers and I can't move closer to work without taking on more expenses. I have low rent now and one utility bill (electricity). If I moved closer, I'd pay a higher rent and have to pay water/sewer/trash pickup in addition to electricity. What I pay in gas and my time is always less than those increased expenses. Plus, I'd lose the enjoyment of living in a rual neighborhood where my neighbors are at least 1/2 acre or more away.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 17, 2012 8:47:16 GMT -5
10 minutes; 7 if I make the light. ;D
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busymom
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Post by busymom on Oct 17, 2012 8:55:17 GMT -5
When DH & I were first married, I had an hour commute to my job from home. I HATED it. And then if there was snow, or an accident on the route, it wasn't unusual for the trip to be 2 hours or more. Needless to say, my next job was closer to home!
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mandyms
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Post by mandyms on Oct 17, 2012 9:06:22 GMT -5
How are you estimated the time it takes you to get from the new place to your job? I lived in Cleveland, on google maps it said that I lived 15 minutes from my job. But with traffic, highways, weather, and dropping DD off at daycare; it was a 35 commute on a really good day, 45-60 (once a 90 minute) average one way.
Since moving to a smaller city, I have a 15 minutes commute (include dropping DD off at dc). It's fabulous.
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alabamagal
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Post by alabamagal on Oct 17, 2012 10:07:49 GMT -5
I have 7 mile commute, 10 mins tops and I LOVE it. Much better than the 25 minute commute that I had for 23 years. Also, since the place I work at runs 24/7 there are times I have to come in on evenings/weekends and don't mind too much.
My last full tank of gas lasted 3 weeks!
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Post by Deleted on Oct 17, 2012 10:19:45 GMT -5
DH and I used to each have an hour long commute in opposite directions. It wasn't too bad because we didn't have a kid. Now DH has a 3.5 minute commute.
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raeoflyte
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Post by raeoflyte on Oct 17, 2012 10:54:44 GMT -5
Definitely drive it a couple times to and from M-F during normal working hours.
We were house hunting and found an area we liked and could afford, and like Shenandoah the drive on the weekends wasn't bad we felt like it was a great spot. We had an inspection done on an house we were under contract on, and the inspection had some issues we were concerned with, but what convinced us to walk was driving home on a Thursday at 5pm. NFW.
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raeoflyte
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Post by raeoflyte on Oct 17, 2012 11:16:35 GMT -5
Wrongside--is he working swings and if so, how much sleep does he get between shifts?
I have very strongly opposed dh looking for overnight work at clinics that would be an hour of highway driving. The last thing I need to worry about is him driving home safely after 3 13 hour shifts where he has slept maybe 10 hours since the beginning of those shifts. My dh is awful about staying up between shifts though, so it might not be an issue for you.
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Bluerobin
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Post by Bluerobin on Oct 17, 2012 14:17:51 GMT -5
Wrong for most of my career, I had a 25 to 40 minute commute. About 30 minutes is good - it gives you time to ramp up and wind down. The reason for the variant in the time, was that traffic increased. If traffic is heavy now and it takes 35 minutes, it will be up to 45 in a few years.
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❤ mollymouser ❤
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Post by ❤ mollymouser ❤ on Oct 17, 2012 19:28:59 GMT -5
My wonderful DH's commute from home to the base is about 35 minutes, cross-town.
When I worked downtown, I had about a 30 minute commute, depending on time of day.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 18, 2012 5:44:52 GMT -5
We are thinking about moving after 10 years to shorten DH's commute. He has a job offer that will add 10 minutes each way to his commute. He would love to have a really short commute, but the schools/area just aren't that good close to any job he has worked. The closest neighbourhood we are considering will shorten his commute from 55 minutes each way to 35. He is on the fence about whether he thinks it is worth moving to drop his commute 40 minutes a day.
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skubikky
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Post by skubikky on Oct 18, 2012 7:57:58 GMT -5
My commute is 30 miles each way. I'm on the road by 6:00am and it takes about 35 minutes. On the way home, maybe 40 minutes. DH's commute is 40 miles in the opposite direction. We've lived where we are for the past 22 years and love it. We wanted to live in a rural area.
I never minded the commute because I get to go home to a quiet, peaceful, beautiful, private setting. At the time(1990), the cost of building this home was less on our 5 acres than it would have been on a typical suburban lot.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 18, 2012 8:25:07 GMT -5
I went from a 2 minute commute, to a 5 minute commute to a 10 minute commute. I'm feeling hard done by with the 10 minute commute. It can take up to 15 minutes if I get caught at lights, behind a school bus or the train goes by at the wrong time. I can't imagine having a life if I had a 2 hour round trip commute.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 18, 2012 9:49:56 GMT -5
Over the years I have had long and short commutes. My longest was 2 hours door to door - I live in the suburbs of Chicago and took the train downtown. In the morning, I would read the newspaper and do the puzzles. On the train home, I would watch movies. I could get through 3-5 a week loved my Netflix. But between timing of picking up DD from DayCare (DW would drop her off in the morning, I would pick up in the evening) sometimes the trains would run late/have problems and DW would have to drop everything to get DD before daycare closed. Add to the fact that I worked in the Sears Tower when 9/11 happened and DW was not too pleased that I was in 'such a prime target'. Eventually I got a job in the burbs, but it was 27 miles one way and it took me almost an hour due to the fact that there was no highway route that I could take, so I was stuck on 'side/main' roads the entire way with a lot of traffic and TONS of stoplights. It was particularly miserable in the winter when my commute could take up to 3 hours each way. Then I ended up getting luck and finding my current job - as the crow flies it is less than two miles away from home, but I don't fly. I now drop off DD at school in the morning and pick her up from daycare every day and even then my commute is only 15 minutes. ;D Of course what happened in the meanwhile?? DW got a job downtown and is taking the train now. But my job now is a LOT closer to home than her job was (she was a 35-40 minute drive) and my job is a true 8-5 job with no overtime (other than scheduled on call one night a week) so it is not an issue if her train runs late. The other great thing about my commute, I am active at DD's school and I have gone to the school multiple times on my lunch hour to help out the teacher by doing copies, etc. So -back to the OP - what is too long? I can't really say - it depends on your personal situation. When I took the train, I loved it...I had me time and watched a ton of movies DW would never watch. But now, I personally wouldn't do the long train commute - I like being close to DD's school so if something happens, or if the teacher needs assistance doing something, I can help out...
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on Oct 18, 2012 9:59:12 GMT -5
LOL and
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tskeeter
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Post by tskeeter on Oct 22, 2012 13:32:11 GMT -5
One thing to consider is the normal commute. But you should also consider what the commute could be like when absolutely everything goes wrong.
I had about a 75 minute commute home on one job. Could be a bit longer on holiday weekends, etc. However, one Friday afternoon preceding a three day holiday weekend everything went wrong. Stalled car after stalled car either stopped traffic completely, or reduced it to a strolling pace. Took 4 1/2 hours to get the 32 miles home. And that was after I managed to get out of the stop, no go, freeway traffic and on to surface streets well away from the freeway. Seemed like the commute home would get into the two hour plus range two or three times a year.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 22, 2012 15:09:46 GMT -5
DH and I each have around 15 mile commutes...takes us about 20 minutes as it's mostly highway. This is as far as I'd want to drive. As it is we spend about $350/month on gas which seems ridiculous to me. Of course, if I were to get some high paying job in the next town down that would pay enough to make it worth while I would certainly consider it.
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nalto
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Post by nalto on Oct 22, 2012 16:05:23 GMT -5
I live about 5.5 miles from work, and my commute (driving) takes a half hour. Bus would be about an hour.
My brother, OTOH, lives about 20 miles away and his bus takes him about 45 minutes to an hour (we work at the same place.)
I'm still looking at moving, and it makes me wonder if it wouldn't be too bad to live 20-30 miles out of downtown Seattle...
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