Curosity: How much time do you spend in traffic a week.

[esteban]

Yeah I live out in Riverside and drive all the way out to Pasadena. I hit about 4 freeways just to get here.

Ha! I lived in Riverside (near UC). Small world 

[vestcoat]

Most of the population could benefit from Zeta's message of "spend less, do more", but I'm reluctant to judge too harshly for a number of reasons:
1) everything Esteban listed
2) some people don't have a choice. If a girl gets knocked up when she's 19 or if a breadwinner suddenly gets laid off, there's no time to be choosey about job locations.
3) there's nothing inherently wrong with commuting in an developed country - Esteban's daily train ride sounds flipping sweet. The problem is our transportation system in the U.S. is totally f*cked. Yeah, we can choose where to live, but that fact that almost all city planning and development is built around cars and sprawl means that someone's going to get f*cked. We subsidize the auto industry with free roads while they brainwash us into "needing" cars and finance politicians to fight mass transit. Streetcars in Minneapolis were bankrupted by outside investors in the '40s for GM payola. We could spend commutes socializing, thinking, and working, instead we sit in boxes shouting at each other.

[syphic]

Esteban no way dude! Im actually in Corona but UCR isn't too far away.

[TheClash603]

Let's just make Buffalo, NY the TG16 mecca.  Traffic isn't bad, because the city's population has declined and the roadways were made for a higher populace.  You guys know you wanna come.

[jeffhlewis]

Most of the population could benefit from Zeta's message of "spend less, do more", but I'm reluctant to judge too harshly for a number of reasons:
1) everything Esteban listed
2) some people don't have a choice. If a girl gets knocked up when she's 19 or if a breadwinner suddenly gets laid off, there's no time to be choosey about job locations.
3) there's nothing inherently wrong with commuting in an developed country - Esteban's daily train ride sounds flipping sweet. The problem is our transportation system in the U.S. is totally f*cked. Yeah, we can choose where to live, but that fact that almost all city planning and development is built around cars and sprawl means that someone's going to get f*cked. We subsidize the auto industry with free roads while they brainwash us into "needing" cars and finance politicians to fight mass transit. Streetcars in Minneapolis were bankrupted by outside investors in the '40s for GM payola. We could spend commutes socializing, thinking, and working, instead we sit in boxes shouting at each other.

To your point - payola back in the day to screw mass transit definitely was real (thank you "history of the automobile 101" in college!). Though I think the bigger problem is simply the fact that the US is too damn big to have a concise and sustainable mass transit system, outside of the biggest metropolitan areas.

Trust me - if there was a way for me to get from Milwaukee to Racine for work by train (and affordably - there is Amtrak stop down there but at $30 per day, plus the fact that the stop is 10 miles from my office, that ain't happening), I would jump on it right away. Quiet time to nap, get work done, read a book - hell yeah!

When I have meetings in downtown Chicago though, this totally works (plus the company pays for it) - I can walk to the Amtrak station from my apartment in Milwaukee and be at union station in Chicago in 1.5 hours. Can't beat it.

[xelement5x]

My daily commute is maybe 25 minutes each way, so maybe an hour a day driving to and from work. 

I just got a family, so we'll see how I feel about the commute in another year or so if I haven't changed jobs or bought another house.

[esteban]

Esteban no way dude! Im actually in Corona but UCR isn't too far away.

Ha! Some friends lived in Corona (I used to take the 91, right?) and they were just south of the highway. Coyote ate a friend's cat, if I recall correctly...or maybe they were teasing me because I rescued/adopted 3 cats. Ha!

Actually, I know Riverside, Orange and Los Angeles counties pretty well. I never found any TG-16 stuff out in the wild, though, but I was looking in the wrong places (thrift stores), I suppose.

[wildfruit]

doing night work and driving home against the rush hour is very satisfying.
reveling as I pass by a 15 mile stationary queue of traffic from the centre of london to the outskirts.
Huzzah!