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Your Take: How Long Is Your Commute?
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CNN Money played with the 2008 Census data released on Monday and discovered that the nationwide average commute is 25.5 minutes. If you work five days a week and fifty weeks a year, that’s 12,750 minutes spent in the car. For the math whizzes out there, that’s 212.5 hours or 8.85 days.
The average American spend over a week sitting in his or her car driving to or from work. It’s no wonder driving is more dangerous than flying, we spent over a week in the car just getting to and from work. This doesn’t count the time we spend on vacation, going out, whatever.
The longest commute belonged to citizens of East Stroudsburg, PA where many of the residents commute the 60 miles to work in NYC, spending 40.6 minutes a trip. The shortest belonged to folks of Grand Forks, ND where the average commute was a scant 14.3 minutes each way.
When I used to drive to work, mine was about 25 minutes to the home office each way. At one point I supported a client around the Washington DC area and my commute ranged anywhere from 45 minutes to several hours if the weather or traffic wasn’t cooperative. I passed the time listening to some audiobooks, sports talk radio, and/or NPR shows.
How long is your commute? And what do you use to kill the time?
(Photo: ethandb)
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About three minutes, on foot. Make that 10 or 15, since I normally pick up/drop off my small children at the child center a block away from my office.
I could earn more in another job, but I don’t want to sacrifice the time I’d lose in a car or on a bus.
my husband just got a job offer. until we can relocate he will drive 2:05 on way.
Ten minutes, but when the weather is nice I walk (35 mins).
35 minutes to work, 1 hour home. Same route both ways. Reverse commute in NYC. The commute sucks, I listen to the radio (z100).
My commute is literally 5 mins (if not less). I’m very lucky to have bought a house so close to work. It’s going to be a hard adjustment when/if I change jobs.
Mine is about 15 minutes. I wish it could be closer, but it’s much better than my commute was before. One day I hope to have no commute and work at home
Thankfully, I now live in a fairly small city, and the commute is only 8-10 minutes, depending on lights.
I do, however, have plenty of relatives who have 1-2+ hour commutes in the Northeast.
To kill time, I usually listen to talk radio or just sit in silence. It’s really my “down time.”
I’m in Queens NYC and work in Manhattan. I take the express bus and my commute can be anything from 35 minutes to about an hour and a half. Fun times!
Currently commute is walking down one flight of stairs.
As a trader, for many years I had a 45 minute walk to work. Loved that.
I travel 52 miles and about 50 minutes to work everyday. I hate it. I loathe it. It is a total waste of time. I’d rather have a job where I can work from home. I’d take a cut in pay if I could work from home.
i live in the DFW area, and it’s about 26 miles from my home to the office. If i leave home by 6:15am, it takes 30 minutes. Leaving the house after 6:20 adds at least 10 minutes to the drive. The drive home at 4pm takes at least 40 minutes.
90% of the time, i take the train. i live 3 miles from a TRE (Trinity Railway Express, which runs between Dallas & Ft Worth) station, where i get on at 6:03am. This takes me to downtown Dallas, where i deboard and hop on a light rail DART train that takes me to within steps of my building. Train commute time: 1 hour, each way.
Taking the train is so worth it, especially since my company pays for my annual pass. i spend that hour listening to tunes, reading, dozing or just zoning out. Ahhhhh….
My commute is usually about 15 minutes to work, and 20 or so home. Traffic is slightly worse in the afternoon, depending on what time I get to the “main” street. Still, it’s very reasonable.
I work 4 miles from my house with a total commute time of about 5 to 10 mins depending what lights I catch.
I love it, and literally brag to almost everyone that asks.
Wow, even though mine isn’t all that long I’m jealous. If I catch all the lights I think my commute can be as short as 10 min, but there are 6 or 7 lights so its hard to do.
I’m a very lucky lady. I work from home so my commute is a couple feet away! I commuted from Long Island to NYC for 8 months and hated it, so I did the complete opposite and worked from home!
“…the residents commute the 60 miles to work in NYC, spending 40.6 minutes a trip…”
So, these residents average 88 mph on their daily commutes?
Well, it’s averages and averages can be misleading… but maybe.
No. Many residents making the commute to NYC bring the average up, since the average also includes people who work in town, possibly even those who work from home.
I think I heard that they all drive Deloreans.
As Neil alludes to:
- The 40.6 is the average for all commuters in that town.
- The 60 miles is a common commute for those folks, but NOT the average. “Many” commute 60 miles, but is “many” 20%? 50%? The folks with shorter commutes would drag down the average.
Thus, we shouldn’t expect a particularly strong correlation between the two.
Currently I work a 7 minute drive or a 40 minute walk from my office. To get this commute I took a 25% pay cut, and it was the best decision I ever made, previously I worked nearly 2 hours each way from my home.
My husband commutes in his car- it is about 25 minutes in the morning and about an hour at night, he needs that alone time to talk to himself about his day–otherwise he comes home and tells me about every conversation he had during the day. He loves his job, and is in charge, but he has a couple of annoying employees (they have been with the company 25 years).
Down here in Houston I live fairly close compared to others. My commute is about 20 minutes but still get stuck in stop and go traffic on the way in. About 30 minutes to go home because of one poorly designed interchange.
I know some in my office commute 60+ miles each day and with traffic it sucks, some times they work late just to avoid the traffic.
I’m in Houston too, and commute about 20-30 minutes(sometimes 40-60 with a wreck on I-10) from a suburb instide the beltway to downtown. It’s not too bad but the rude drivers are starting to get to me.
20 minutes, 25 if the highway onramp is closed down.
Does this specify car commute – because if its just the length of commute, there’s no guarantee that all these people are spending that time in their cars.
My commute is 10 minutes summer biking, 15 minutes winter biking or by bus, and 32 minutes on foot.
My commute is 147 feet. I googled it. Love it!
I no longer have a commute. I used to go 27 miles; 35-45 minutes. I really miss it. I love driving, and don’t mind traffic. The sad thing is, even though I have all this extra time I get less stuff done.
it’s 7 miles which takes about 15 minutes. i listen to the radio while i pay attention to driving.
1.5 hours each way. It doesn’t feel like it though. Over half the time is spent on the train and I get to do work on the laptop or read. I live south of Boston and I know some people who do the same commute and drive, which saves them like 15-20 minutes but I hate dealing with the traffic and would much rather enjoy a 50 minute train ride.
45-60 minutes each way every weekday for over 12 years now. I’m very tired of this drive although I do enjoy listening to NPR.
I live 5 miles from work and I bike. It takes me about 15 minutes or so. That’s just a guess though, I have too much fun riding to really care how long it takes…
Thanks to our recent move my commute just dropped from 50 minutes down to about 15. Once our new office is finished in December it will probably only be about 10 minutes.
Live in Staten Island, work in midtown NYC the commute is roughly an hour. Can be more when there is traffic (matinee Wednesdays) or less (summer months, no school, 3rd graders stop driving). I have 3 methods of transport: Staten Island ferry then train or bus, bus over Verrazano then train through Brooklyn to Manhattan or my favorite and most expensive: the express bus. On the bus I pass my time by sleeping. On the train/ferry I catch up on my magazines.
How do you drive 60 miles to NYC in 40 minutes?
Mondays a colleague who commutes in from Sacramento picks me up at a BART station near my house and we get to the office (24 miles) in about 30-35 minutes thanks to the carpool lane. Monday evenings he stays in town, so he drops me at a BART station near his weekday place, and it takes me about 20 minutes to get back to where I left my car, then 5-10 minutes home. I’m rarely home less than an hour after leaving the office, but I spend 20 minutes of it reading or doing crossword puzzles, so that’s cool. Tuesdays-Thursdays I alternate driving with a guy from my neighborhood who works in the same office park. It takes us about 35 minutes in the morning and close to an hour in the evening, but there’s no toll, and we save half the expense of driving solo, plus we get to use the carpool lanes. Friday, the Sacramento guy picks me up at BART again, and we go over the bridge to work, then he takes me back to BART or, depending on whether he’s going straight back to Sac, he might drive me back to the BART station where I left my car.
Not too bad of a commute here, mid-sized city in SE Washington state.
Right at 10 miles, driving or cycling. Driving its 20 minutes in the morning, 25 in the evening. Riding I take my time, about 40-45 minutes ride time, but also figure in ~10 minutes to cool down and change clothes before/after riding.
under 10 minutes if I take our vehicle. It’s about 45 minutes on the bus, but a good chunk of that is walking to the bus stops.
I usually bus.
My commute is 25 miles across a metro area. There is no viable option for bus or train. It takes 35 minutes in the morning and 45-60 minutes at night. There is always more traffic going home. Accidents and weather complicates both directions.
I used to be able to walk to work in less than 10 minutes, but I got laid off. Grrr.
Walk to work, 10 minutes when I’m dragging in the AM, 7 when I’m anxious to get home in the PM
I only live about 7 miles from work, but I pass an elementary school, and the buses slow me down. It takes me about 20 minutes, by far the shortest commute that I’ve ever had. I generally listen to my iPod or to a sports radio show to kill time.
Door-to-door I consistently average 75 minutes one-way. If there is an accident or significant construction then that can jump to 2+ hours, but that is only once or twice a month at most.
I have a pretty consistent 27 minute commute each way. It has really never been a problem for me. I spend that time mentally transitioning from one set of responsibilities to another. Consequently, my wife and family have rarely heard me complain about what’s happening at work. They like that and I do too!
17 minutes door-to-door, 0 minutes in car. Being able to commute by bicycle is truly awesome.
4.8 miles. It takes 10-15 minutes, depending on lights and traffic.
I ride a scooter except during winter. I don’t listen to anything while scooter. In the winter I listen to NPR (talk or classical, depending on the mood).
Around 20 minutes each way for me. My husband and I work together so we usually chat the whole way about whatever is going on in our lives.
When we drive separately, I listen to audiobooks. I am a total fan of audiobooks. Usually I hate commuting at all but since I started listening to books on the way, I am almost happy when something slows me down like an accident or bad weather because it gives me more time to find out what happens next in my book…
Does being unemployed mean I have no commute? Well, I live in flushing, Queens. I would take a bus to the 7 train and then depending on where I had to go, either switch at Grand Central for the Lex trains or go to Times Square and get the 7th Ave trains and head south. On a good day, it’s 1 hour and 15 minutes to the Ground Zero area. On a bad day, well, don’t ask. Going home, same time-frame. And due to people with earbuds, and the noise they generate, I have to use headphones so I don’t hear what to me is the same as fingernails on a blackboard.
So, if anyone is looking for an OpenVMS System Administrator here in NYC, let me know. Thanks.
15 minutes on good days, 30 minutes on bad days. The worst day ever, I believe it took me about 45 minutes. I always listen to NPR on the drive to/from and I don’t feel that it’s a waste of time at all. I catch up on a bit of news that I probably wouldn’t otherwise have absorbed. It’s definitely how I stay informed about the world.
My commute is 45 to 50 minutes one-way. Listen to XM – usually Bloomburg or some talk radio.
20 minutes, door to door. I live in Chicago, in the Bucktown neighborhood on the blue line el. It’s extraordinarily convenient for us to not only get downtown, but to the airport too (which is great since I travel so much for work!)
My commute is 20 footsteps – from one end of my “railroad flat” apartment to the other, where my office occupied 1 1/2 rooms.
My current commute is a few steps away from my bedroom to my study/office. Prior to that, it was about 15 minutes via car and 1 hour via public transportation each way. Because of the long public transportation commute, I drove most days.
When I start looking for a job again after disability, there’s no telling how long my commute will be. I now live in Portland and I’m hoping I can stay in the city.
I’m lucky to only have to commute about 15 minutes each way. I used to drive about 50 minutes one way,and double that on the way back because of traffic.
My commute is just 5-10 minutes by car depending on when exactly I leave. What stinks is finding parking by my job since there is alternate side parking two days a week.
My commute in Hartford, CT is 30-35 minutes (traffic dependent). I typically schedule phone meetings for that time with Europe or Asia (their late morning / early evening.)
My commute is about 15 minutes, although with all the road construction lately it’s been closer to 25.
7 minutes flat back when they offered overtime on Saturdays starting at 6am
I sold my 2600 sf house to buy a 1600 sf house (for the same money) in a more expensive area that is less than 10 minutes from work. My commute went from 45-60 minutes to 10 or less. Also, I am now in the center of town and can travel to any other part of the city in less time and fewer miles. The mileage on my car is down about 50%.
About 1:55 each way. Drive 10.5 miles to the train station. Take the train to Hoboken, NJ and then the light rail to my office in Jersey City…I read a lot – about 1 book a week. Sometimes I doze off on the way home – not something I would recommend if you drive!
15-45 minutes in the AM and 20-60 in the PM depending on the time I leave and the weather. This is only 11 miles away. Some days it is 0 because I can work from home. Actually the commute has gotten a lot better since the road work in Denver was finished a few years ago.
My commute is 20-25 minutes depending on traffic. Of that, I spend at least 8-11 minutes waiting for traffic lights (and I use the main artery through town!).
For nearly twenty years in two different states I had commutes of 50 – 60 miles and up to two hours. I had become de-synthesized.
With my last relocation I purchased a house that is 2.2 miles from the office. I had no idea until now how much the drive was sucking from my work/life balance.
I see my wife for lunch and home and save money by not going out, save gas not driving and save brain cells by not getting ticked off!
After this experience, I will never commute again!
It is just one more step to eliminating the muda!
After 13 years of a ever-lengthening commute (due to increasing traffic) I gave up my 45-60 minute, 23 mile commute and moved 3 miles away from the office two years ago.
It’s been a life-changing event; I’m so much happier and productive at home now.
My commute is about 15 minutes each way. Moving to our new home in a couple of months, my commute will remain about the same. Some of my colleagues commute for over an hour each way! They say they need to do so for the quality of life they get for living out in some of the remote bay area suburbs. My take: 10 hours of lost time PER WEEK is no quality of life. I am not even talking about the cost of gas, car maintenance and environmental impact.
Currently, not one minute of my commute is spent driving in a car, but my 75+-minute commute twice a day is still ungodly long. Just ran the numbers, and I spend 26.04 *days* commuting.
Yep, I pretty much spend the entire month of February in transit to/from work.
90 mins each way. 45 miles. 2nd shortest commute of my life. NPR, conference calls, coffee – the fillers of time.
My commute is about 5-10 minutes each way.
Takes me about 15 minutes by the express bus to downtown San Francisco! Average wait for the bus is around 5 minutes, so 20 min total. The good thing is, the bus stop is only one blog away, and drops me off right at work.
Public transportation rocks!
Live in Seattle….
15 min. drive, 60 min. ferry ride, then 5 min. drive = 80 min.
It’s really a temporary fix, until we save enough for a house where we really want to live.
“commute the 60 miles to work in NYC, spending 40.6 minutes a trip.”
That works out to an average of 90 mph…for real???
I have a nice leisurely fifteen minute walk to work, which is actually shorter than all but one coworker’s drive, depending on traffic. And yes, I did pick my current housing based partly on being able to walk.
I made the decision years ago to have a home office so that I could be around as much as possible to participate and enjoy my kids growing up. With the technology today I can pretty much work where ever I want to. Even rolling down the freeway at 70 mph surfing the internet on my net book with a built in wireless card. (That would be only if I was riding shotgun, of course
65 miles 1 hour 7 minutes