Of course I can't speak for anyone else, but I find that taking a train to work is a lot less stressful than driving every day. At least on the train, I can read, or pull out my laptop, or just play a video game.
I don't ever recall feeling comfortable pulling out a laptop on the train though. Not even for fear of someone stealing it. I'd be worried about a subway monkey doing some spinning dance move and destroying the screen, or some hipster spilling coffee on it when the train slows down. Fond memories...
I recently got a GPD Win 2 as well though, so I've been able to do more computerey stuff lately, even when it is crowded.
DisplayPort output via USB-C is another plus (monitor/mouse/keyboard/charging with one cable!) though the Win 2 may have had that as well, I’m not sure. The original Win did not.
Now I take the bus, and I never have space at least not for my work laptop. I should have gotten the 13" instead of the 15".
What I’m experimenting with now is taking Uber Pool most mornings. It’s usually about $20 but you can pay for it with tax free commuter benefits, and I’m saving $2.75 in subway fare, so it’s like ~$10 for almost an hour of time to catch up on administrative junk for my side biz. Seems worth it so far, although still a little frustrating.
Until today, I've typically gotten on the subway between 9:45am and 10am for my 30 minute commute to work (that's bed to desk travel time). The train usually wasn't packed, but I was certainly squeezed up against people. Perfectly tolerable, but certainly not comfortable.
Today I did an hour's worth of work from 9:30am to 10:30am and then I commuted to my office arriving just before my 11am standup. The 10:30am train was wonderfully empty in comparison to the 9:45am train. I got a seat for the first time in months! Furthermore, that hour of work was wonderfully productive since my apt is dead silent and no one was around to disturb me. I got most of my "heads-down, high-concentration" work done for the day in that hour.
My work place is about an hour and a half commute and the trains are incredibly packed starting from around 7am all the way till 9.15am.
What I've done was wake up and started working from home sometime between 7-8am till around 9.15am, then leave for the 9.30am train and I'll be in the office by 11.
Work gets done and I don't get stressed from silly crowds. I also do the reverse and leave work around 4pm to avoid the return rush.
It's a small change but it's an incredible quality of live improvement. This is literal pareto, 20% effort with 80% effect. Do it.
Spent a lot of money on REALLY good rain gear and averaged almost 8K mi a year for the four of the five years we were up there. As long as I wasn’t stopped in traffic I felt even more relaxed getting a good motorcycle ride in every morning and being actively zoned out (focused on now instead of life) vs taking the train and being passively zones out with media.
Now that I’m 4mi from my office, come home a few times a week and say hi to the wife at lunch, etc. I will also never go back to anything resembling a commute.
Living in a city with approximately 100,000 people has its advantages!
I mostly agree with you...but...I found the past several years of subway outages worse and started driving/ridesharing more and more. I’ve had times where subways constantly get rerouted, suddenly go express, skip stops, run on different lines, etc. it became so maddening.
But I agree. For all that New Yorkers complain about the subway, it's my favorite thing about New York.
I used to take the Path trail from Jersey City and then transfer to the F trail to Queens. I let my boss think I love my job so much that I arrive at work pretty early on most days when in fact, I was just trying to account for the inevitable delays on some days.
I understand worker safety is important. Even if we didn't care about the workers, accidents can get very expensive and budget is tight. However, there has to be a better way than slowing ALL tracks to a crawl every time there is track work on ANY of the tracks.