This move added 15-20 minutes each way to our commutes, but it cut our rent in half and got us a bigger apartment. My hours are definitely not flexible (ideally Id be working 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. I absolutely cannot leave after 4 p.m. without hitting a majorly clogged highway any highway that leads out of where I work) and my boss likes to come in/stay late. Too many people, too much traffic.even though I learned to drive out there, I cant do it any more. I was a finalist for a job in the LA area a few years ago, and the advice I got from both friends as well as the internal recruiter was not to consider living anymore than 5mi from the office, unless I wanted to have a ridiculous commute. I did have a job with a two-hour each way commute once, but I only put up with it because one, no one else would hire me back then, two, it was temporary, and three, I didnt have too many reasons to hurry back home. I used it myself when referring to my 90-minute-to-two-hour+ commute I had. Heres a tip get a plug-in hybrid like a Volt, a Prius, a Ford Fusion Energi, or something like that. I have been at my job longer, and have more flexibility, so I end up working 7.5 hour days when I go into the office 2 days a week (I have a 1-1.25 hour commute each way), and 9.5 hour days when I work from home. On some freeways its almost all trucks and it makes a difference. On not so good days (every day except Mondays), its more like 2-2.5 hours. Right now, I work from home, but the longest commute I can reasonably handle is 30 minutes. But I pay for that convenience. The best thing I could find to do was use alternate county backroads to get home once I got off the beltwayit doesnt get me home any faster but as I tell my husband, its the illusion of getting home faster because at least Im constantly moving and not killing my knees pumping the brakes! I definitely have one of the longer commutes in my office but there are a growing number of us who have it. The holiday rate is payable for all call-back hours which correspond to the employee's regular tour hours (non-overtime hours). That is 48,000 miles on your car each year (just for work, closer to 52,000 all in). Hopefully soon Ill get to spend more time at home. This was a guaranteed 2 hours each way (45 mins on the train +11 miles of biking) but at least I got to tune out for the train ride for a bit. Freeways everywhere, and theyre all jampacked. I also have trouble waking up in the mornings and have a pretty bad sense of how long certain things (showering, making coffee) will take me, so Im not cut out for getting up earlier to avoid traffic. But really try to make sure your mindset on traffic is in a healthy place. rt commute, it would definitely shave time off, but it would only be workable if you LOVE bikes. At my last job, I had also had a ten minute commute on foot. 2 hours! But 5 hours in the car AND an (at least) eight hour work day? Good luck! Where in OC? I work from home and share a car with my wife, whose job is on the other side of townall of 10 minutes away if we go exactly at the speed limit! I wont say thats just how things are in LA. Many others need to hop on a subway once they get into the city. DC area. No way does bushwick to soho happen in 45 minutes. It is pitch black outside. Depending on traffic, 10 miles can take over an hour. I had to do a 50 mile 1 way commute during a couple of limited stints a little over a decade ago (both from my moms once was for a 6 month internship; the second time was for about 2 months when I was between housing in grad school), and those commutes ended up being 1-1.5 hours, depending on traffic. I remember once when I went to see friends in New Cross it actually took me 3 hours because I just missed each connection and had to wait for the next ones. On google maps, its less than 10 miles, door to door. I was like we do not have the same idea of what the word traffic means anymore. It doesnt have to be. OP, two hours might be fine for some people and might not be unusual in your area, but if you are finding it frustrating then Id say go ahead and either move or look for work closer to home. We wasted a bunch of time and they finally listened to me and my niece got back on the highway. My husband and I ended up moving to a more central location in our city so that we could be close to our current jobs and also so that if we ever switched jobs, we wouldnt have to deal with an unpredictable commute like we did before. The nation's major metros all have similar commute times, ranging from 28 to 37 minutes. Sigh! The city of LA is a sprawling behemoth. There are many freeways and roads between the two and Ive tried every single one, and never gotten home in less than two hours. And dont think that just because youve shaved 15 miles off the distance that youll have an easier commute. I think the conclusion usually is that life is too short to suffer and waste that kind of time. Although I was in school for the first few years in LA, I also consider this a commute. I dont think a 2-hour commute is normal, per se, in LA, but the few friends of mine whove suffered hour-plus commutes moved closer or quit their jobs; its generally not a sustainable commute to go more than an hour, from what Ive seen. Why would anyone live 30 miles away from work? You dont have to believe it, I guess, but its true. Silicon Valley, for example, has tons of jobs, but not enough housing, so people commute from all over, packing the roadways. Its actually faster for me to bike (either all the way, or do bike + bus) than busses +walk, so when it is feasible, Ill often do that. Get up at 5AM and do it all again. :-) Besides, I commute with my husband and we keep each other company during the drive. Im pretty sure there are days when it would be faster to *walk* to downtown from my neighborhood than to drive (Google says ~2 hours, and Google thinks people walk slowly, so I could probably do it in 1.5ish). 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. How much you like the job, how easy your life is when you finally get home, and what you can do in the car to make the time not feel mind-numbing and wasteful. But also, screw normal. Now my commute is an easy 15 minutes. You have to move where the job is or its not feasible. That's train, tube, walk and drive to the station. The most frustrating thing about it is we could have had such a nice light rail system by now had people in the late 60s/early 70s not voted down the initiative (with 2/3rds of the project federally funded). Since there are only so many routes, that is the main pinch point. Ah, Id never go back to this huge commute. But you are right, I definitely ignored the oh man, youre gonna drive THERE? Get a budget card and park m deck. That is going 11 miles. And good luck living near one of the train stations and not paying at least $3000 a month in rent for a 1 bedroom. Does a move make sense for a shorter commute when it's only 2 days? Keep your fingers crossed for me please! I think youd be shocked. Ive been lucky in that Ive very often lived walking or bicycling distance from work (although my definition of bicycling distance is probably a lot longer than other peoples). The Bay Area is quickly approaching LA levels traffic wise- unless you are in an area with BART access. Yeah, I never minded the train rides from NJ to New York. Yeah, like so totally normal! My gf at the time, her dad would watch all the cop chases and I hit the floor a few times because I know what gunfire sounds like. Counterintuitively, mid-day is often worse than rush hour because there are more parked cars and often lane closures for construction of one kind or another. My sister used to do Pomona to Glendale, but she luckily had an early start. I meant to say cycling is more* tolerable than driving. If no seat, I switch to the express train and get to work roughly on time. Do yourself a favor. I have to work in the area sometimes and I find it helpful to leave early, pick one of the major streets that stretches through from east to west, and just ride that all the way down. Also, people who work in offices I think are much less likely to take public transportation, which means they can sometimes get around quicker (especially if its outside of rush hour, which a lot of service work is). I live in a tiny town so my commute is 5 minutes driving (allow 10 minutes door-to-door). All this to say, the options really are moving closer to your work, or finding a new job closer to where you live. If you like music or podcasts or can read while youre in a moving vehicle that might make your commute a lot more enjoyable! Currently, I commute from my village to Northumbria University, this being an hour commute via local bus services. I have lived in the LA area most of my life. My niece and sister drove me crazy that day: niece was driving and had her phone out to GPS the route, even though Id already GPSd it on mine. I think the longest commute I have ever had was 45 minutes to an hour (once driving and once by subway). Authored by: Certified Corporate Development Professional - Director 1 BillBelichick37 IB Rank: Almost Human 6,990 Jan 11, 2016 - 9:01am He missed the birth of our baby. How does it feel living this close to the FBI? (I get to keep whatever I dont spend.) You really need to decide whether that is how you want to spend your life. You should go be an interpreter at the Long Beach courthouse. I read an article on I think the Gothamist about people who travel from Philadephia to NYC roundtrip daily. Doesnt LA have any kind of train/rail system? I wouldnt take a 2+ hours commute either and have actually rejected or self selected out of jobs that would put me in that range (and I dont drive but exclusively use public transportation). Even a 15 minute shift makes the commute better or worse. Ugh, 4 hours a day commuting sounds awful. I do NE Glendale to Pasadena (which is counter to the majority of traffic) and its 10-20 minutes. This is one of the major reasons (along with housing prices) that I refuse to live in places like LA, Atlanta, Dallas, etc., places with horrendous traffic and poor public transportation. I live in Sacramento and commutes are better here than in L.A. or the Bay Area, but it is getting worse. I dont mind driving 35 to 40 minutes for work, but I absolutely hate SITTING in traffic for that amount of time. stereotype or not, i wont live in the midwest. Occasionally I catch a bit of traffic heading out of my city, but Im going the opposite direction of most commuters so its rarely too bad. I could drive, but parking at my workplace is expensive and wed have to buy a second car on top of everything. It will also wear on your car. Ive had 5 minute commutes in West TX, 15 minute commutes in northern CO, 20-30 minute commutes in Albuquerque, NM, around an hour commute from rural central NM (to a 2 hour commute if I was attending class in Albuquerque that day), and 30 minute commutes in NE FL. The traffic-related info and anecdotes in this thread make me wonder why any sane human would ever want to live there. I knew it was bad, but to witness it, wow. The audiobook I am listening to right now is pretty good A Plague of Giants, the first book in Kevin Hearnes new high fantasy series. About 11 mi. On public transportation! Commute between one and another at your peril. On Fridays in the sunmertime, it can be even longer. Either way, door to door it was a little over 2 hours each way. Huh. He drives, takes a bus to Dublin and takes BART from there. It really depends where you live & work in LA, since its a sprawling city/county. But if you live outside the downtown core, youre looking at a minimum of an hour. Thats already happening. I can deal with an hour commute even thought I hate it because its pretty common in Houston. As far as I was concerned, it was better than a million dollars and a mansion in Beverly Hills because those three things were exactly what I wanted. Thats my absolute limit. Intolerable. Yes, exactly! I did that length of a commute for about a year when I lived there. I live in Brooklyn and my commute to downtown Manhattan is usually 40 to 50 minutes. I did jump and scream at least once, though, getting wary looks from other commuters, heh. Ive lived in SoCal for 48 years, born & raised here. No regrets. yikes thats awful. 2 hour commute twice a week . Ultimately, I had to change jobs because the commute was too much.). do I really need to send a thank-you note after being rejected for a job? That turns an 8 hour workday into a 12 hour workday. Somewhat staggered hours. A ton of people commute at least 1 hour each day and they have to DRIVE. A typical day is an hour each way and terrible days (rain, accidents, ungodly traffic) is between 1.5 and 2 hours each way. The alternatives are to a) get a job closer to home, or b) get a home closer to work. Former Angeleno here: This is not normal! This kind of commute sounds incredibly draining! Yikes, two hours one-way is too much for me. I commute from NoVa to DC; the drive is 25 miles and takes 60 to 90 minutes. 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). I lived about 8 miles away from work, and it routinely took me 30-40 minutes to get to work, depending on the traffic. I drive 1.5 hours each way every day for work so 2 hours once a week would be great for me. On the plus side for people in LA, the NYC subways (and also Long Island Railroad) are deteriorating in such a rapid way that although a person might normally have, say, a 45-minute commute, about once a week itll be 90+ minutes. Mine used to be 15 minutes each way; now its more like 30 minutes each way, part of which is walking time because my assigned parking is nowhere near my office. Easily 1.5 hours home each day. wheres the promotion I was promised months ago? Theres no bus/transit that does a straight line between home and work, so I either have to take one bus into downtown then switch to another to get to Soma, or take a bus downtown then walk 20 minutes. I was in the same situation when I started my job, thankfully I can now work at home part of the time. My company is headquartered in Pasadena. Prosecutors say Fratta organized the murder-for . It gets old, fast :) Only you know what you are able to deal with, and its ok if you dont want to do it. You cant sustain a lifestyle with that level of time wasted and frustration building behind the wheel. I dont live in LA, but I visit frequently and have close friends who do live there. I hate driving to his and he hates driving to mine. The average American is traveling 26 minutes to their jobsthe longest commute time since the Census started tracking it in 1980, up 20 percent. I commute 2 hours door to door in NYC, via LIRR. Were building more but its going to take a long time. Now I work at an office 15 minutes away and could go full time from home if I wanted. I dont think L.A. is even 30 miles wide. That's fine. Oh, I miss that reverse traffic flow commute where it only took me 20 minutes to go 15 miles; verus the 45+ minutes now to go 12 miles. Your life isnt long enough for that. For a 60-mi. My max is 1 hour. Its very specific to you. if I was lucky and there wasnt an accident on the road. Plus I got hungry on that long commute. Total game changer to get that much time of your life back even though my rent cost was about $400/month more. My commute is about 20-30 minutes, including a daycare dropoff. door to door. I feel lame for being so picky, but thats a LOT of time out of your life! I started them a year and a half ago and theyve changed my whole commute life. I used to have a 45 minute commute, which was absolutely unheard of for Ogden at the time. Like most long commuters, my drive home was the worst and one little fender bender could tack another hour on my drive. This might sound crazy, but I would hate that! It may be normal there, but it greatly informed my decision to move elsewhere after I graduated. I was commuting the equivalent of Bellevue to Shoreline for awhile. I am fortunate enough to also work in LB, but I had the soul-sucking 1.5 hour each way commute when I lived in the Chicagoland area so I feel you. I used to take the Red Line in my 20s and thought it was fine but the Blue Line is different I work in LB now and live near DTLA. See what Im saying? No chance I would drive that every day. It turned what used to be a 2-hour commute for me to an hours drive. LA Story! Yes some people accept it and do it. I would rather sit in traffic because I want to see someone than be obligated to endure the stress on a daily basis. I drove through 6 school zones. We live 35 miles south of he district. Granted my go to while focusing on ledger recs is listening to true crime stories on huluso time flies. The average commute in the UK is around 59 minutes per day (both ways combined). I was excited if it only took 1.5 hrs. 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