I had a painful deja vu moment last week when I left the house for a meeting in downtown at 9am. It was the same route (and same building) which I had trekked to MegaCorp for more than a dozen years at the start of my career. It was also a route that was choked from start to finish with an unending traffic jam. As an early retiree, I generally do my best to avoid rush hour all together and hadn’t jumped in the fray for quite a while.
Here is the view from my SUV’s navigation system:
The total route is only 20 miles, but as you can see, it was a solid red line the whole way – partly because of construction, but mostly because of congestion. One of our metro newspapers (we still have two) had a big article on traffic congestion a few weeks ago. The story was simple – it’s bad, and it’s getting worse as 95% of the spending is going into light rail and bicycle lanes (don’t get me started on the practicality of those).
This one-hour commute (average speed 20mph) did remind me of all of the time I’ve spent in traffic over the years. For almost 24 years, I had a 45-60 minute commute each way. The last three years, I took a job close to our house – which was a god send. All together, I had a 27 year career across three MegaCorps and estimate that I spent about 4.3 years (@ 40 hours a week) stuck in traffic. Staggering, isn’t it?
I never complained too much about the commute over the years. I would listen to the radio news in the morning and decompress/make calls on the way home. Early in my career, I even took the commuter bus or drove with my wife who also worked downtown. When I switched companies and worked close to home it was an incredible change.
How far do you live from work? How do you handle the congestion?
Image Credit: Pixabay
MrFireStation 
I’m so glad I live in rural MN! I live about 15 miles away from work and there is absolutely no traffic-except for the tractors that we also share the road with occasionally!
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Rural MN – awesome! Country commutes are great – I bet you don’t touch your brake pedal most of the way.
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I used to have to travel 25 miles. 50 round trip a day. On a good day 45 minutes, on bad days 1.5 to 2 hours. The radio and my thoughts were my best friend. Now I’m 8 miles from home, all side roads. I barely get a few songs in. 🙂
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Yes – that’s not much time to even tune in a station. I finally canceled my XM subscription.
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We sold our house an hour and a half and 15 miles from work a decade ago. These day we live 4 miles from work these days and it’s a four minute drive. It was such an influence we ate the moving costs.
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4 minute commute – that’s fantastic. What a lifestyle change!
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I think my commute was about 28 miles which I don’t think is bad but I drive a lot and there isn’t that many traffic jams unless there is an accident. To help me pass the time I listen to podcasts and actually started liking my commute (I know I am weird). My fiancé on the other hand cannot stand traffic or driving far so it’s sometimes a battle lol
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Podcasts are great when you have a long commute. The radio station I most like to listen to has every show posted within an hour of their broadcast – commercial free!
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“Rush Hour” always struck me as an inaccurate expression, Chief. Commuting is glacial and clogged, so there is no “rush” about it. “Hour” is a wish for those in the Northeast corridor. I called those “Crush Hours.” Living 60 miles from NYC, on the best of days, door-to-door was two hours for me. Twice a day. In retrospect, I realize I was insane for decades. But I loved my work. And NYC was the center of the world for an ad man.
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I remember talking about your horrific commute. You took the train for part of it, didn’t you? Don’t do the math on what 4 hours a day x decades equals. You won’t want to know.
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I once calculated that over 4 years of my life (24/7/365) were spent on trains & planes. I like trains & planes. But not THAT much!
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That’s 16.8 years of 40 hour work weeks!!
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5mins by car. 4 if I California roll through the stop signs. 6mins if I bike.
cd :O)
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Definitely a bikeable commute when you are that close. The closest I ever was to work was about 10 miles. I never biked it once. I couldn’t imagine showing up to work after an hour on the bike.
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I live on the property where I work at the rental office–a 3 minute walk to work. My husband works a mile away–a 20 minute walk or a 5 minute drive. We really should become a 1 car family…
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Yes – you could definitely be a one car family with those commutes! Those might be the best I’ve ever heard of!
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