I read that also. I would have never guessed the provenance of the word "commute."

My commute consists of a 25 minute walk, or a 10 minute bike ride. I usually opt for walking in that it's some of the only alone time I get.

When in LA, I did some seriously twisted commutes. . .a lot of times 5 different freeways to get to work, depending on where I worked (I did aquatics for LA Schools and was sort of itinerant, all over the city).

He DID say in the article that, for some reason, university towns do not have long commutes, comparatively.

I suspect it's because university towns are compact and offer a full spectrum of employment, along with mixed-use residential/commercial zoning. My town is like that (though it's not a university town).

When I lived in Philly, I had an 8-mile driving commute that always took 33 minutes and was really stressful. It was a shitty way to start the day.

When I left there, I vowed I'd always make an effort to live in the same town I worked in, and so far it's worked. I'm now on my second residence that's walking distance to to work and to a downtown. My house is 1.8 miles from my job, which is in town. It's a 22-minute walk, a 10-minute bike ride, or a 10-minute drive. (The last is explained by the fact that I always catch 2 lights in the car that I can breeze through by bike). I wish I could say I walk and bike a lot, but I'm lucky if I do it once a week. There's always a shopping errand to run, or a meeting or the gym after work, or I have to dress nicely for a presentation, or haul a bunch of materials around, so it often seems more efficient to take the car. This year, my resolution is to walk or bike more often - maybe 2-3 days a week. But it's great to have everything so close together. The article made me realize how much stress, boredom, and wasted time I'm saving.

The one thing I miss about the train and bus commuting I did in NJ is the uninterrupted reading time.

8 minute walk (or 2 minute bus ride) to a 30 minute subway ride. I'm very lucky to live right next to not one but two bus lines (going in perpendicular directios), plus the subway, of course. Not having a car is one of the great joys of my life.

My commute is a mile to the station, sometimes I walk but increasingly I've been driving because I'm always either bringing files home or taking them back to the office.

On a day when I walk, it's really pleasant - 1/3 mile uphill, past the pond, then 2/3 mile downhill. Then the Central Line to Stratford, a quick change to the Docklands Light Railway and another 20 minutes or so until I'm in the office, which is 2 minutes walk from the DLR station.

The whole thing reversed on the way home.

On a good day, it takes under an hour, door to door.

The Underground is very, very unpleasant in the summer. It has limited ventilation and no air-conditioning. Most of my journey on the Underground is, in fact, overground, there's only one short stretch (Stratford-Leyton) which is through a tunnel. But during those summer months, the doors open, you get on the train and it's like being in a sauna. I'm not looking forward to that at all, or having to carry a litre of water with me for the journey.

In the morning I pick up the Metro (free newspaper) and it is just the right size to read it cover to cover before I get to the end of my journey. On the way home, I always have whatever novel I'm reading with me. I can't bear a journey without something to read, but I'm not a fan of music while I travel. I like to hear what's going on around me. I used to carry a Walkman, but it wasn't for me. I like to hear the birds singing while I'm standing on the platform.

I'm an early commuter - I leave home at about 6am, and am home before 5pm. I'm lucky that the office is flexible about working hours. Some people come in at 11am and leave at 7pm. That'd kill me. I love my early mornings, and do my best work before lunchtime. I make it a long morning - I work from 7am to 1pm, then the afternoon is very short, from 2pm to 3.45. My concentration is usually flagging by that point, so I usually catch up on admin before I go home.

What makes my commute bearable is that it's only 3 days a week. I work at home on Wednesdays and Fridays. That makes a whole load of difference to my well-being. Mondays, I'm refreshed from the weekend. Tuesday I know I can have a lie-in the following day. And Thursday is the new Friday - the weekend starts then.

Nowadays, my commute consists of going from the bedroom to the rfrigerator to the computer room. back when I was working I took the N/W to times square then transfered to the downtown 1 and got off at Houston. I enjoyed commuting by public transit, I could read or zone out on the iPod or I could peoplewatch or strike up a conversation or merely look out the window at the city. I also like seeing the mosaic signage in stations I pass through for the first time.

I used to commute by car and except for listening to music while I drove, I loathed it.

I have a 15-minute, 10-mile commute on relatively clear roads (it's a reverse commute - I'm driving counterclockwise while everyone else is driving clockwise!). I wish I could take public transpo, but it's really impossible not having a car in Texas - I've often got to drive from one end of our campus to another, and of course there is no money for golf carts or a general use van!

One of the reasons I'm so devastated about being kicked out of my house is that the commute is practically nonexistent. It's about 2 miles: 7 or 8 minutes by car and then a two block walk from where I park. I have friends who bike it but they're tougher than I am: it's all steep, steep hills. On the way home I usually hit traffic and it takes a bit longer, but really it's nothing.

I lived for three years in far northern Baltimore county, up by Maryland Line and commuted 30 miles every day to work in the city, which took between 45 minutes and an hour. Sometimes more but it was all highway and the traffic wasn't usually that bad. At first I didn't mind it but it got old - by the end I was really fed up. It didn't help that all my friends were in Baltimore so if I wanted to socialize I'd often end up doing that drive three or four times a day. And then the kids had to be driven everywhere; there aren't a lot of options otherwise if you want to have cows for neighbors. I eventually decided that rural living was way overrated: I wasn't actually living in the country, I was living in my car. So one of my most important criteria right now in looking for a house is no real commute, which also translates into my 15 year old being able to get himself around town, by bus or by walking.

I read the article yesterday - I thought it was good but he really didn't explore the kid thing. When my kids were little and I was living in the heart of the city in Baltimore I ended up spending almost as much time "commuting" in the car as I did when I was out in the country - I had to take one kid to one school in another neighborhood across town and the other one to nursery school in a completely different neighborhood and then myself to work. It took almost an hour each way and we ate breakfast in the car every morning.

Mine is about 45 minutes by car (on a good day) and half of that is on I-95. I don't quite understand what the problem with that sort of isolation is - I'm missing out on interacting with all the other peole who are in a rush to cut me off?

I ♥ my commute. It's a 30 minute walk. Completely unstressful, and I love the fact that if need be, I can be home in 10 minutes (taxi).

I'm still trying to figure out my commute to work. There's a bus that stops about a half-block from my house and drops me off about a half-block from my office, all in about 20min., but it's so ridiculously crowded and lurching that I spend the entire ride feeling my blood pressure rise.

I've started walking over to the streetcar, which means a 15-20min. walk that cuts across the Panhandle park (which is filled with birds and grass and eucalyptus and cypress (I think) trees, and often has dogs out playing) and through the edges of the very pretty Cole Valley neighborhood, and then a 15-20min. streetcar/subway ride. I like this much better, partly because the walk in the morning is so pretty and partly because it's not that lurching, stuck-in-traffic bus thing. It takes longer, but makes me happier.

But the streetcar schedule leaves something to be desired, and if I'm running even five minutes late in the morning, I end up almost 20 minutes late for work.

I like listening to the birds and people on the walk to the streetcar, but I do put my ipod on during the actual ride. I also tend to leave my sunglasses on so that I can stare at people without them noticing; so many of the women lately have been wearing really great clothes and jewelry, and I developed the habit of "window shopping" on people when I lived in Venice, where such things are standard.

My school commute, thanks to the new apartment, is a 5min. walk. I recently figured out how to most effectively cut through the main part of campus, which means it's a camellia-lined walk for most of it.

My commute if roughly 2.5 to 3 miles... It's either a 15 minute bus ride, 10 minute car ride (with 15 minute walk from the parking lot) or 30-45 minute walk. 15-20 minutes by bike.

I liked that article - thanks Miko!

My last commute in London used to be 30 minutes by bike, which was fun but a bit scary. Good waterproofs were the key to happiness then. Before I lived in that house, I had a 45-minute tube ride which was hideous - in the summer I used to have to get out at South Kensington (half way point) about twice a week because I felt faint.

Now I work from home, so I actually have to try to lengthen my commute by walking to the corner shop and back in the mornings - otherwise I never really wake up. What I'd really like is a nearby park, but the nearest one is just a little bit too far away to casually walk to.

I have a 12 minute walk to a 30 minute bus ride. It's not too bad.

Before last June, I worked in the city and used public transportation. I walked five minutes to the bus stop, chose between two different buses (each of which terminated at a different subway station), rode the subway either five stops or two stops, and walked five minutes to my office. Now I work in the suburbs and drive 20-25 minutes.

I hate this new commute.

I don't walk as much now (with the accompanying weight gain). I miss getting on the subway at lunch and riding to places to do errands, shop, or just walk around. I miss serendipitous encounters in the subway with people I hadn't seen for years, or people I had just seen the week before. I miss being outside (whether sun, snow or rain). I feel as if I am disconnected from the wondrous, the random, the mundane and the surreal. Well, that's not quite right; now I just get the mundane.

I drive 10-15 minutes to work. It's about 2 miles. I've never considered walking it, because when I walk in this city I seem to either run into strange and somewhat frightening people or I get honked at by passing cars.

My new commute is 15 minutes by bus (which stops directly across the street from my house) and then a 3 minute walk across campus. It'd probably take me 8 minutes to drive and at least 40 minutes to walk. Probably an hour back because my residence is at the top of a 4-8% grade. I'm thinking of biking down and taking the bus back.

35-45 minutes from door-to-desk:

Exit Apt (Greenpoint, Brooklyn) >
G train (Court Square/45 Road. LIC, Queens) >
E train (7th Ave. Manhattan) >
B/D (59th Columbus Circle) >
Work building >
Elevator up (7th Floor) >
Left then right, then left again and finally right again.

I am almost always standing on the trains, mostly reading.

My commute is 0 minutes. I'm pretty sure you have to have a job to have a commute.

The commute to the new practice space no longer involves buses or trains, it's exit the apt thur right and make another right then walk 10 or so blocks and make another right. BTW, those parentheticals above are where I take the train to to catch the other train or exit. It's not so clear upon re-reading it.

10 minute walk to the bus stop, then I catch the 87 bus from Battersea which takes about 30 minutes before it drops me on Millbank at the side of the river. Much nicer than punching my way onto the crowded train at Clapham Junction even though it's a shorter journey. Then 5 minutes walk to my office in Whitehall. I generally use the commute to catch up with podcasts - I'm working my way through quite a good series of Stanford history lectures at the moment.

I live a mile from work. If I didn't live in an area that was frozen / snowy 9 months of the year, if I didn't work such long hours, if I didn't have such a short lunch break (30 mins), I'd probably walk a lot more. A walk is 10 minutes, a drive is about 90 seconds.

Living alone and working from 8 am to 6 pm, my short lunch break is the only time I have to run errands like go to the bank or hit the library. Sometimes during a 10 hour day I just want to get OUT. And sometimes I have meetings or have work-related things that require driving. So I drive. It's embarrassing, but that's the reality.

I used to work in Philly but lived 8 miles away in Jersey. Commute time was normally 45 minutes to an hour with at least 20+ stoplights and a drive over the toll bridge. YUCK. Never again.

What jonmc and dersins said. Bedroom, kitchen, den, bathroom - it's a rough life.

The mister has a 15 minute drive to the West Coast Express (train) station in Mission. The train takes an hour and 13 minutes and lets him off near the SeaBus in Vancouver. There's a short walk to the SeaBus which then takes him to North Vancouver (Lonsdale Quay) in about 15 minutes. From there has a walk of about five minutes to his desk.

His work hours are 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. so he doesn't have to deal with a lot of traffic in the morning (he gets up at 4:30 a.m.). The evening commute takes a bit longer - he gets home between 5:20 p.m. and 5:30 p.m.

He likes taking the train because he doesn't have to deal with weather, other commuters, etc. He can read or snooze or socialize during his afternoon commute. He's met some interesting people.

We looked for homes closer to the train station in Mission, but didn't find any we liked. But this is much, much better than the 2 1/2 hour drive each way that he had before we bought this house.

My best friend's commute up until a little while ago. She now works on the same side of the Sound. (I made up the originating address but not the destination.)

She parked on the island. Once in Seattle, she walked STRAIGHT up the hill, rain or shine. . She was in awesome shape.

My commute is a 20-minute bike ride, which will increase to 35 minutes when I move to Uptown at the end of this month. When my commute changes, I'll be taking the Lakefront path almost the entire way, which means that I'll have to deal with car traffic hardly at all. When the weather's really shitty, it's a 30-minute bus ride, but the weather has to be pretty bad for me not to ride my bike.

My commute is about 15 - 20 minutes by car. I would happily use the bus if there were a direct route, but given my shift (3:30PM - 12:00AM) and the fact that I'd have to transfer busses with a 20 minute wait about a block away from the densest concentration of crackheads in Seattle, that ain't gonna happen. I had enough late-night interactions of that sort while living in Oakland to last a lifetime.

One of the reasons I quit the job I had here in Phoenix was the awful commute--40 mins to an hour each way. It made me miserable. In NYC, Palo Alto and Charlotte I had commutes under 15 minutes. I promised myself the next commute I take on will be more along those lines.

Not that I want to do all the icky social stuff though.

Anyway, this reminds me of an essay I read called "How Not to Buy Happiness"--the author makes the point that inconspicuous consumption, like paying up for a house that results in a short commute, is likely to increase happiness.

I commute sleep into wakefulness, and go from there.

Not that I want to do all the icky social stuff though.

Yeah, me neither. My job involves interacting with other people all day long, nonstop. I don't have a long drive commute, but if I did, the silence would be a relief, just like it is when I get home.

Interesting article, mullacc.

My "commute" is generally 65 feet through the living room, down the hall, and sharp left into the computer room, with a stop in the kitchen for coffee. I take client meetings out, generally at private clubs or professional offices in the area, but occasionally at restaurants. Occasionally, I travel on business, but this is becoming less necessary as I refine my client lists and methods, but for some activities, will be a seasonal requirement so long as I do them.

For a couple of years my commute was from Detroit, MI to Pasadena, CA. Before that, Detroit to Portsmouth, NH.

I do have to say I prefer Pasadena to Portsmouth.

My commute takes me 15-30 seconds. All I have to do is get out of bed and walk to the computer room.

The computer room is actually an old sitting room that is directly outside my bedroom.

Where I used to live in Connecticut, there was an interesting small contingent of people who work for major airlines as pilots and attendants. Their schedule was such that they could easily live 2-3 hours from their base airport, so they had a lot of flexibility to choose a nice location that wasn't necessarily near their job. One woman, I recall, worked a transnational route where she essentially worked four days straight, but then had eighteen days off. With that as your schedule, you can pretty much write your own ticket as to where to live, and not even have to drive your commute very often.