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Comment by Dumblydorr | Hacker News Reader

What percentage of commuters have 2 hours bumper to bumper each way? That sounds like an outlier to me.

In my org of maybe 10-20k, the last time they did a commute survey, a few years before covid, the average commute was 40 minutes each way. So not 2 hours but 1.3 hours. This was the mean, not median so 2 hours of commuting is not a rare outlier in my experience.

This article [0] claims the national average is 26 minutes total, so I guess my org just has a rough time.

[0] https://bestmattress-brand.org/comatose-commuters/

2 hrs each way is 4 hrs per day.

Thanks, I misread as total time.

With the price of real estate these days, a two hour commute is not out of the ordinary.

I've had to commute an hour 30 before. If you're in an expensive city, like LA you're very likely to have this.

It's stressful, expensive and dangerous. I'm really hoping work from home becomes a permanent thing.

If you live in a car-centric city without walkable and bikeable streets nor great public transit and force car-dependence that is what you get.

There are plenty of non-car-centric expensive cities that one can travel across in less than an hour.

Oh I'm in full agreement, this is one of the many reasons I left la.

Once I went to car free I got rid of about 25,000 in credit card debt in 6 months or so. Much of why so many Americans are so desperately poor has to do with car ownership. While it's possible to get Uncle Jimmy's Old Jeep running, most people just finance something. Once you make your car payment your insurance and gas, that's easily a third of your income. Compared to a $100 a month bus pass

Employers don't put many jobs there. Even in NYC, very transit oriented, is do crowded and expensive that commutes are long, and often too crowded ("straphanging") and with transfers that don't let you get that time back for book/podcast.

Not in the US there isn't. And the ones there are are:

1. Expensive

2. Not particularly family friendly

So if you are a high earner with roommates or a partner and no children, you have options. For the remaining 90% of the workforce, it isn't particularly feasible.

Sorry, not in the US but I agree there isn't a single city in the US with great subways.

Same. I used to be impressed by cities like NYC, and then I moved to Japan for a few years and I realized that I'm not sure there is a city in the US that makes the top 5, or possibly top 10, best cities in the world. At least not in terms of livability.

People have over an hour commutes riding transit in nyc too. You only luck out if you manage to secure a job and an apartment along the same transit line, and that's rarely easy or cheap. Especially if you suddenly get a new job.

I think it depends on the age range of who you survey. When I was younger, a small apartment sufficed and I couldn't imagine a long commute. As I had children and started to prioritize 1. space (individual rooms for children) and 2. good school districts, something had to give -- you either pay exorbitant prices in the city for space+private school or you go to the suburbs.

Probably an outlier but I've had a 90 minute commute through some combination of car and transit in the past and an hour or so (so 2 hours per day) is very common, especially if you're commuting into a city from suburbs/exurbs.

Well, 2 hours bumper to bumper may seem too much but almost everyone I know spends at least one hour commuting every work day.

(Don't worry, I know that my only experience is not enough to make statistics, but check that out with your friends)

I think it's not that uncommon in the US

It's pretty uncommon except in some select areas like the Bay Area and california cities. I would not do a 2 hour one way drive to work and most people I know wouldn't, at least not for a long period of time.

It's very uncommon in the US. It less uncommon in Silicon Valley...which is disproportionately represented on HN.

To be fair it's also a problem in some cities outside SV though (Austin, Atlanta, Seattle) but the overwhelming majority of Americans don't face this issue. Even Americans working in tech.

Again, the overwhelming majority of Americans don't face this issue to the degree being discussed here (1+ hour commutes)

https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/interactive/tr...

This is completely common throughout the western world, if not the wider world too.

In the US maybe. Certainly not in Europe.

San Jose to Mountain View commute

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