Then Id get rid of my car and take the bus everywhere. A survivor of a 2-2.5 hour one-way commute who has sworn off long commutes ever since. My current commute is 14 miles and takes 16 minutes because I work in Sunland, where no one goes ever, so no traffic. Hoping you get another job soon and closer to home! So one car stopping for a moment has just caused a 20 second delay with only ten cars. We are devastated in our office and yet, our site visitors from further south are like WTF, this isnt traffic. Thats actually why I stopped taking public transit and started biking in the first place. I dont love it, but I like where I live, I like that my method of commuting is relatively cheap (I could choose another method, but Id pay significantly more to do so), and I like that taking public transit allows me to do other things with my commute time. Public transportation is only a viable option if you work downtown. I had to live with my parents in Auburn (a town about 25 miles south of Seattle) for a few months, and if I did not get to the train station by 6:25am, there would be no parking spaces available, and I would have to drive. Obviously its possible. Sounds like where I live when you get off the interstate. Cross-London commuting SUCKS. How can I make my drive to work more productive? I live in New York, about 3.5 miles from my office. I have a friend, God bless her, who lived in Running Springs and worked in Woodland Hills. If Im going back for the weekend, I have to leave before 2 pm or after 8 pm, otherwise theres tons of traffic in Modesto all the way down to San Jose. Or if you rely solely on bus and are coming from an outer city in the direction of traffic. Would kill me. So, not unheard of & it happens in all parts of the country, but definitely terrible. Subway takes 30 best case and 50 worst case, car takes 18-60. do I really need to send a thank-you note after being rejected for a job? What had been no big deal became a stressor. Now lets imagine 1000 cars: the delay for the last car 2000 seconds if theres any stoppage whatsoever. My spouse and I are in a situation where I have an awesome practically door-to-door public bus commute that takes about 20 minutes, but he drives to work and it takes him 45-60 minutes. I used to drive for almost 2hrs to get to Uni some days and it honestly wasn't that bad. Just dont make the mistake I did and listen to The Road and Beloved back to back driving on desolate roads in a bleak New England January. *I dont actually want to move, I just want to sleep in a little longer every morning. Yeah, in California it is becoming moreso. I do a 6 hour round commute once or twice a week. My parents are the same waysmall city folk who come to visit in my mid-size city and are like, Do we HAVE to drive downtown? And when Im home they encourage me not to go places during rush hour, which equals just steady, moving traffic. Like others have already said you have to do whats best for you and what you can tolerate. Leaving a little earlier might be worth it if you find that it allows you to relax more on the road, even if it does increase the overall time. Eventually, I moved to the SGV. If OP reads this and thinks, You know, thats not at all the tone hes using, and I dont think hes trying to convince me Im foolish for feeling stressed about this, then hooray. My commute averages 30 minutes to 45 minutes each way on average, although when SoCal was on fire it took me nearly 3 hours. OC or LB for me! Its not the neighborhoods so much that are the problem (youre not usually spending much time in those neighborhoods) but the people riding the train. I actually have no idea how far it is to most of the places I go regularly, just how long it takes to get there at various times of the day. I drive from OC to Pasadena most Friday afternoons to help a family member. Do a cost analysis and see what it would cost you to move. I got an apartment with a roommate 3 miles away from my office after that. I couldnt take it mentally OR physically. But once I had to move out of the city (and out of King County entirely) to find affordable housing, my commute shot up to about 90 minutes on a good day, 2+ hours if there was weather or any accidents. I dont think Natalie is talking about theoretical calculation of commutes on Google Maps or something. People do work very hard to coordinate their living locations in a place that makes sense for their work locations here for sure. It sucks. It would take a lot for me to be willing to go back to that. I have a friend whose BF was attacked and nearly beaten to death on one of the metro rail lines, but it was awhile back and I dont remember which one. Obviously youll have outliers, including the OP at the moment. She doesnt visit the coast much I see, lol. Someone mentioned Santa Monica above you would be hard pressed to find a 1-bedroom apartment for under $2000 a month. On weekends its only $10.00 for a metrolink day pass that gets me all the way there and back on metrolink trains and also the metro in Los Angeles. Anything thats between OC and LA and also cheap is probably on one of the freeways that I would avoid like the plague during the day. When I had a job in the San Fernando Valley the commute was fine because the traffic went in the opposite direction. On Fridays in the sunmertime, it can be even longer. If you want a shorter commute, you have to move closer to transit or to where the traffic patterns are more favorable. A police officer happened to be going by them in the turn lane, and they got pulled over since the guys foot kept slipping off the brakes and almost hit the car ahead of him. I live on the east coast, and the stories I hear about LA traffic are enough to make me want to stay on this side of the country forever. In 1990. Totally agree. But, thats because I work 7-3 or 3:30 and get in about 6:30-6:45. By working out early, youll miss the morning commute. Agreed, Anonymoose. NYC. It was brutal. Though, he did have a motorcycle, which made the commute a lot less worse. People in my tiny, rural hometown thought she was crazy. Its an awesome daycare, but we hate this. It is pretty crappy considering right out side this densely populated area, driving is a breeze all either very rural or highway. When I was commuting 45 minutes on my bike, even in wintry conditions, I had other young and healthy friends who said I dont understand how you can bike that far, I would never but ultimately I enjoyed it. Its not unheard of, but its also not okay. How does things getting shittier in NYC make living in LA more tolerable? However, I am clear that this commute is bad for me, bad for my family, and Im going to do everything possible to move closer to work. Many years ago we moved away from Orange Country and traffic was one of the big reasons. And if your car breaks down, it's gonna be a difficult and lengthy public transport commute to work. I still miss Shaw, but I figure once I graduate (! Read a zillion comments & all I can think of is that here in California we are really suffering with tons of jobs but zero transit & housing solutions (sigh). Two to three hours. I walk 1.5 miles to BART instead of taking the muni 4 blocks from my house. Mine is a 15 minute walk, but I live in a city. This is your "gross margin" time or "pre-time-tax margin." Its true, if you leave after 3pm, its a parking lot. On days where I have to drive through morning commute traffic to get to appointments and such, it makes me CRAZY. People build up, not out, because we dont have NIMBYs. I even have a part time job that is 6 minutes from my house in the opposite direction so on the nights that I leave one job and go straight to the other my commute is still less than 15 minutes. I live in San Diego county and it isnt quite as bad a lot of folks (myself included) have hour long commutes, even with flexible hours (I do 7-4). As Jemima said above, that would make it much easier than a long drive. Incredibly slow-moving trains? Some cities (San Fran being one) are simply not affordable for people, or people would rather live outside the city, and they make the decision that the job is worth that choice. Because normal does NOT equal ok. (Yeah, I said it. Theres a reason, despite improved public transportation, we love our cars. Ugh I commiserate with you, OP. Not only are you losing time by commuting, but you may also be affecting your overall work performance. My prefferred way south was always PCH. Last year, I took a position where I had to commute from my parents house in Westchester to eastern LI (driving 63 miles each way). Plus, having a long train ride means I can actually relax on the train I get on early enough that I always have a seat. I think youd be shocked. When theres no traffic (AKA weekends, or days when OPM has delayed arrival and Im the last to know) I can get there in about 30 minutes. I could tell so many stories about the times where out-of-towners (friends, relatives, etc) think I can get them from Silverlake to the coast in 30 mins because it doesnt look that far on Google Maps!. Ez. At 545AM, Amin Aljunied's alarm clock rings. LA is an entirely different level of traffic. So commutes are very reasonable. OP, can you take the blue line into DTLA and then Uber/Rideshare into WeHo? If I take the bus, its 40-45 minutes, but far less stressful (and I always get a seat because of where I live). Ive decided that if I have to get a job any further away than about 30 mins, Im going to follow in his example and commute via motorcycle instead. Especially 2 hours in bad traffic. I did jump and scream at least once, though, getting wary looks from other commuters, heh. the job was great, i would have worked there forever, but, ugh, LA. I think normal is relative to where you live. Its not worth it for 2 minutes. Think of it this way, if you commuting for 2 hours, thats 4 hours total each day. There are a lot of jobs in OC. Loved going through them again, and Stephen Fry was so good at the narration.). It works for me, for now. Also, it looks like the Blue Line will be temporarily shut down. So while I think theres a few factors contributing here, I think its perfectly OK to not WANT a two-hour commute, and to figure out how to make your life easier on yourself. Totally do-able (especially when I worked east of Sepulveda and took Laurel Canyon). Take subway. Ive had several coworkers with 1.5 hour to 2 hour commutes. Mmm, Ive been exposed to a fair amount of crime (professionally, not as a perp or victim, thankfully). After living in a different part of Country California where my commute was 75-90 min each way, then New England where it was 25 min., I was not going to go back to a long commute. I am looking to relocate next year and Minneapolis is in my top 5 cities. I commute from NoVa to DC; the drive is 25 miles and takes 60 to 90 minutes. I could make it shorter if I got the tube (metro) rather than the bus for part of it, but I prefer that as I normally get a seat on the bus and I can read rather than being wedged into someones armpit. Would any of those get you there faster? When I accepted that job I was told I might be able to telecommute one or two days a week but the culture there really didnt seem open to my doing so. Were building more but its going to take a long time. Im fortunate to carpool which cuts it down to 25-45 minutes using the HOV lane, but thats not always reliable especially when people have life changes. Hosted by people who live in SoCal. However, only 10-15 minutes of that is by car. This is interesting to hear! Have you actually taken the train? I got lucky in that I live in Dublin city centre and also work there. LA traffic was nowhere as bad as the 401 in the Toronto area. I hear you. It is GLORIOUS. fully agree on the audiobooks it saves me from road rage on my commute! About half of the route is alongside parks so there are no street corners to negotiate. I work in Pasadena, where you need to earn about 2.5x the living wage in order to get by. Whats a non aggressive way to respond to someone who What UK press shaming of a person do you think was What quietly went away without anyone noticing? Sorry to say, if youre committed to staying in LA, very few commutes are going to be short. This makes me so sad. But restaurants and shops tend to be located in residential areas so theres always a house just across from them? On a snow day when schools were closed, i was looking at 2.5-3 hrs. no thank you) I walk to work now (20 min! We actually moved to San Diego instead where on really bad days my 15 mile commute home takes about 30-45 minutes- (except the two days that involved freeway shut downs). If you are having trouble getting into the story (I did at first), try upping the narration speed to something similar to your reading speed. Sometimes I forget why the rest of the nation hates us. And an above ground system in some places that limits train speed & number of cars. We were in Huntington Beach and decided to go to Hollywood. I assume shes referencing actual surveys of people asking them about the length of their commute, which is their actual experience. Car pool to share the annoyance of the road. Its not my favorite thing in the world but Im willing to do it for family reasons, and given how many people I see taking the train with me I know Im not the only one! When I worked downtown, thats what I did, and while it didnt actually save me any time on my commute (it was probably actually longer), it did cut waaaaaaaay down on the stress for me. What?! Front Runner (mass transit) is about 90 minutes. It was never consistent.) I love LB and do not want to leave. Yuuuuuup. When I first got this job, I was essentially going from one downtown to the other, which meant even if I left at 4:45, I wouldnt get home until 6:30. used to be 25 minutes until we moved. Ive just started my first office job - any dos and donts? I also live in LB, and I previously commuted to Culver City/Marina del Rey. Thats just how I-270 is in the morning and rush hour starts around 4am because people are coming from way out I-70. Is moving an option? Sitting in a car for 2 hours and driving 15 miles per hour for 2 hours are totally different things. I had a 90-minute-each-way commute once (public transportation had to take two trains and a bus. From what I hear, though, thats probably normal for your area. If I had to commute in and out of NY 5 days a week, theres no way I could handle it, so I feel you OP. on a good day 15 mins. Ha! NOPE NOPE NOPE. I worked all week and basically slept all weekend because I was so exhausted. I hope you can find something with a reasonable commute (2 hours is not, imo). Its gorgeous out there. I can do the drive in 20-30 minutes, depending what time I leave. I knew it was bad, but to witness it, wow. Even if it was normal for the area, that means the area is terrible and I wouldnt want to live or work there. One selfish driver may add minutes to the commute of others to shave seconds off of their commute. To be honest, its really all about you and what you can handle. Now I live in a really small town. But my boyfriend, who was born and raised in Orange County, keeps insisting a two-hour commute is normal. You have no control over traffic. A long commute is possible, of course, as your father says, but the difference between commuting to school and commuting to work is that when you get home, you still have to study, unlike you're father. 1 Hour is perfectly fine for me however it can differ with others, 2 hours does seem a tad much especially when you have to consider traffic. The worst days weve encountered in 8 months were 2 separate days where it took me two hours- and that was literally when a water main break (and a gas pipe leak) caused multiple freeway shut downs that made everyone get stuck. Eventually, I moved in with my now-husband and my commute went to 11 miles/35 minutes (unless something was going on at the Hollywood Bowl and I forgot to take an alternate exit then it was 50). Come to the Pacific Northwest, where 2 hour commutes are also not uncommon! The holidays also have the highway by my office all locked up during rush hour, and it took me an hour to drive 2.5 miles one year. And that was traveling cross-county (not south towards Atlanta). And that would have to be for a super terrific, well-paid job.