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The Rise of the Outrageously Long Commute

theatlantic.com

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Re: The Rise of the Outrageously Long Commute

#31

Post by lrvick »

If you are optimising for having nice accommodations for your family, but never see them, you get points as a provider I guess, but you fail at being a parent or spouse.

I would of waaaay rather of lived in a trailer, and grown up actually having a father around, instead of some distant workaholic male figure that is the "great provider" that allowed an upper middle class lifestyle.

For some I feel being far away making money to send home is the easy way out of having to actually be a parent.

Re: The Rise of the Outrageously Long Commute

#33

Post by staticelf »

ljk wrote: post #12

This made me feel a little better about spending ~4hours a day on the bus commuting... always envy people who leave comments like "even 20 minutes is too long for me"

You know.. IMO you shouldn't and you should consider to relocate or change your job. There are probably towns / cities that allow for a great job and a great place of living close enough that you don't have to commute for 4 hours.

I have as of now, approx. 20 minutes with the subway which I think is kind of long. But in my new job (in the process of changing it) it will be less. At summer time I will be able to bike to work in about 20 minutes.

Also, it is a more meaningful place of work IMO. You can do that kind of change too.

Re: The Rise of the Outrageously Long Commute

#34

Post by skrause »

grrowl wrote: post #14
skrause wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A four hour commute with a self-driving car will be just as painful as four hour communute with a train, except that the cost with the car will be much higher. I honestly don't see self-driving cars changing a lot here.

You can work, read, and telecommute without distraction during an automatic car drive.

You can do that in most trains, too.

Re: The Rise of the Outrageously Long Commute

#35

Post by Tiktaalik »

aaron695 wrote: post #5

Wait till cars become automatic. 4 hour per day commutes could become quite normal. It could really change the structure of living in cities.

That sounds like a nightmare.

Charles Montgomery wrote a book, The Happy City, about how urban design affects people. He cited multiple studies that showed that long commutes are very detrimental to people's happiness. Long commutes dramatically increase divorce rates for example.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/nov/01/secrets-world...

Re: The Rise of the Outrageously Long Commute

#36

Post by voidz »

creshal wrote: post #26

> but what about parental bonding? That's considered paedophilia nowadays. /s

No, it is absolutely not. And your sarcasm qualifier is out of place, because it is no sarcasm, it's not even cynicism, but something even worse, although I lack the vocabulary. Please leave comments like this off HN.

Re: The Rise of the Outrageously Long Commute

#38

Post by voidz »

dba7dba wrote: post #29
dclowd9901 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And they kept saying "I didn't want to uproot my family blah blah." Is there no value in exposing your children to unique and different experiences? I'll have failed if my kids grew up in the same town/city all their lives.

>> I'll have failed if my kids grew up in the same town/city all their lives. I grew up in a family that had to move around a lot, to the point where I attended 3 different elementary schools, 2 different junior highs and 1 high school. We were not rich but poor. And I SO WISH I had grown up in same neighborhood so that I could've have made some friends in my childhood. You can go live in different towns/cities when…

I agree, having grown up similarly. It's very important to be able to grow roots. Not being able to because of frequently relocating can cause a permanent feeling of being disconnected throughout adult lifehood as a result.

Re: The Rise of the Outrageously Long Commute

#39

Post by yitchelle »

albertzeyer wrote: post #23
aaron695 wrote: post #5

Wait till cars become automatic. 4 hour per day commutes could become quite normal. It could really change the structure of living in cities.

I'm doing ~4h per day. Every day, from Monday till Friday. I use the train. 1:40h is one way + some foot walk. But it's really annoying and it feels mostly like wasted or very unproductive time. I would argue that the train is still a better place to work than the car because it has much less abrupt accelerations. I would get motion sick working in a car when driving through a city. Anyway, the mobile Internet connec…

Wow! that is a long commute. I have a friend who commutes from Leichlingen (20mins out of Cologne) to Aachen every day! He catches the RE48 into Cologne, and then ICE to Aachen, about 90mins one way. He said that the changing of the trains really stops him from doing any meaningful work on the laptop. I can understand that

He said that he use to drive, but that was killing his motivation. He told me is biggest fear is his reliance on the public transport with strikes and transport reliability. Fortunately, both are quite rare in Germany when compared to other countries.

Re: The Rise of the Outrageously Long Commute

#40

Post by Cthulhu_ »

trhway wrote: post #20
aaron695 wrote: post #5

Wait till cars become automatic. 4 hour per day commutes could become quite normal. It could really change the structure of living in cities.

>Wait till cars become automatic. 4 hour per day commutes could become quite normal. and now you will be able to work all these additional hours. Your employer will even generously provide you with the good mobile connection, or even with the whole connected autonomous car :)

For four hours commuting I'd rather work from home then. Half the workday spent in a car? No thanks.
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