USA Commutes getting longer and more stressful?
 

An interesting Article from the BBC

BBC News - America's commutes start earlier and last longer

What say you fellows?

Is this accurate?

Not for me

Story of my life. My record from home to work is 35 minutes, but that was on a Saturday morning back in my bad old days of always standing on the turbo. During rush hour it takes about an hour, which is great because day care opens an hour before work starts. Since I can't just throw the kids out of the car as I drive past, I'm already late before I start.

Hypermiling helps my commute a lot because I'm not desperately trying to gain one car length at a time over a 45 mile run and it only costs me a few minutes.

Not for me, either. My "commute" consists of turning on the computer. A friend changed jobs, and reduced her 45+ minute commute to about 5 minutes - and a four-day week, too.

I think these BBC folks are confusing America with a few big metro areas.

320touring -

Getting a house close to work would have cost ~$200K more, so now I am commutting for about 3 hours a day 4 days a week.

It used to be "better" in the sense that I could drive to work off-peak. The problem now is that I have a meeting every morning so I *have* to be there by X time. This pushes me into some of the worst of the bad traffic, which has made it pretty much impossible to meet my old MPG standards of a few years ago.

I tried early morning commuting last year but I started to have health problems.

As I've said before, I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the commute. I would applaud the site regardless, but I wouldn't have anything to contribute if I wasn't living the life.

CarloSW2

Southern Maryland is just north of the nations capital.
What's next?
Northern Virginia having congested traffic too!

I'd agree, seems like every day we have more traffic in our area.
The part that burns me is that when school is out it's a breeze...empty roads and 25 minutes for 18 miles to work. School starts, throw in a multitude of intersecting school bus routes and spoiled kids getting the ride in Momma's escalade and the volume easily doubles=45 minutes to cover that same 18 miles:(

...as a manager, I was there BEFORE the work shift began and I was still there AFTER the work shift ended. That meant 0600-1800 workdays.

...however, there was ONE silver lining: my commutes to/from work were before the traffic rush in the AM and after the traffic rush in the PM.

Much depends on where one lives. The Texas Transportation Institute is the acknowledged "expert" on American rush hour woes, and the best place to look into that question (actually, a set of questions).

The day when the US can't anymore print it's way out of debt. After that probably higher gas tax in order to "save the planet for our children". Like in Europe.

I think Greece has the most expensive gas in the Europe, around 6.5 euros / Gallon. If you can live with these prices, go ahead and buy a house from the countryside.

I think my bicycle needs some oil on the chain or something. It is slowing down a bit.

You'll have to go to Norway for Europe's most expensive gas @ 1.8 euro/L.
Greece is second at 1.68 euro/L.
But the Norwegians can more easily afford it ;)

For Greece, it's 6.36 euro/gal US or 8.73 USD / gal US

European fuel prices :
Gas
Benzin Diesel Kraftstoff

Diesel
Benzin Diesel Kraftstoff

All we see here is the subsidized price. If one removes all subsidies, then US fuel is nearly $12/gl. This same subsidy also underwrites European fuel to some extent.

Now, if we could do a comparison of say,

a Standard Inline 4cyl petrol (35imp mpg) and a 4cyl diesel turbo (50imp mpg)

for each country- calculating the cost to drive 15000 miles PA, then express it as a % of average national income per capita..

that would be an interesting read!

I believe it is accurate. I personally have seen the transformation of much, much "undeveloped" area into semi-rural residential subdivisions. :(

People choose their commutes so in that respect they aren't "out of one's control". :rolleyes:

Interesting, this is opposite of what I thought I knew. That being, our gas prices are so low (relatively) because of the (relatively) low taxes on fuel. And that the prices in Europe were so high because they taxed fuel quite a lot.

Do you have data to support the $12/gallon price?

-soD

some_other_dave -

I don't know the source, but here is one claiming $11+ in 2008 :

Real Cost of a Gallon of Gas: $11.35 plus | Hybrid Cars
CarloSW2

As above. There are others who have gone over the numbers as well. The other costs are unfunded liabilities in health, environment, etc. that add up even more.

Here's a decent article with quite a few links on comparing US commutes to those of other nations.

LOLZ! Funny how people say they dislike commuting so much, but seem to go out of their way to live as far away from work as they can. :rolleyes: