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"Extreme commuting"

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  1. chdot
    Admin

    "

    If your journey to work takes you longer than 90 minutes in one direction you are officially an ‘extreme commuter’, a group that is ever-increasing in numbers. “Extreme Commute” is the subject of a programme which is due to be broadcast on Radio Four on Friday, December 27th at 11am. It features various people who spend at least five hours a day commuting. So why do they do it and are they right to choose to do it? Jenni Murray speaks to extreme commuter Elaine Davison, and Tom Hodgkinson, editor of the Idler magazine and the author of “The Idle Parent.

    "

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03kv6l1

    Posted 11 years ago #

  2. DaveC
    Member

    Without hearing this program and not wanting to prejudge peoples reason's for these long commutes, (now being mentioned on Woman's Hour - incidentally) I chose to live in Bury St Edmunds (like the chap on R4) and worked in Cambridge. My commute was not as bad as these on the program, and quite light at ~40 mins door to door by car, but by public transport it was over 90 mins. But I personally chose my place to live as it gave us a much nicer place to live for 2/3 the cost. Friends did query why I didn't just buy in Cambridge but even loosing ~£6000 depreciation on my car's worth (£1000 a year), and ~£2500 a year in fuel and maintenance costs I was still much better off financially by living so far away.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  3. Dave
    Member

    For my first graduate job I used to leave the house at 6:30am and get back at 7pm - that made it 37.5h working and 25h travelling per week, plus the travel costs were pricy (over £3.5k pa).

    I think nominally I earned about £6.50 per hour after tax, but if you subtracted travel costs and included travel time it was only £2.75 per hour.

    I wasn't smart enough to price my time in those days. An hour each way would be an absolute max for me now.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  4. DaveC
    Member

    Suppose some would call my cycle commuting extreme ;O)

    Posted 11 years ago #

  5. Wilmington's Cow
    Member

    Dave, if you take the long route home on the bike do you cost that up, or is it leisure time?

    Posted 11 years ago #

  6. Baldcyclist
    Member

    It was an interesting discussion. Point I took from it was 'is the time productive or not?'.

    Some examples were 3hrs each way in a car is dead time.
    3hrs in a train can be productive, sleeping (getting rest of you night sleep) in morning, working on way home.

    My commute is more than 90mins each way, in my view 75 minutes of it each way is productive time, cycling, negating need for gym.

    Other considerations, being home to late to see kids. I will likely only see kids at weekends when we have them. This May force a change to train commuting.

    Posted 11 years ago #

  7. Baldcyclist
    Member

    Other considerations, some people are just used to commuting. I've been a commuter since I was 12, commuting into Edinburgh for school, just seems normal to me...

    Posted 11 years ago #

  8. Dave
    Member

    Dave, if you take the long route home on the bike do you cost that up, or is it leisure time?

    Working out my true hourly wage I'd include the time it takes to cycle to work, but not any extra time voluntarily spent cycling about, I think.

    I suppose there's a spectrum too. While I really dislike travelling by public transport I would much rather do that than drive. If I had an independent income I'd spend more time cycling so you could argue that cycle commuting is better, or at least it's offset partially?

    Posted 11 years ago #

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