Ah, I didn’t properly mention exactly why I hate my new commute. I started a new job on June 16th. It’s roughly 42 miles away from my house. Almost entirely highway driving. You’re thinking, “Gee, that’s not too bad.” Oh, but you’re wrong. I go from New Jersey into New York, crossing that horrid Tappan Zee Bridge.
On the second day of my new job, I decided to leave my house extra early — around 5:45 AM — so I could be in the office early and beat all the traffic. Oh, was I so sadly mistaken about missing the traffic. Some insane nutcase decides to make his personal issues public and threaten to jump off the bridge. This closed the bridge down — and I mean closed, as in, not even a single lane of traffic was open — from 6:30 AM until 9:30 AM. Guess what — I’d made it just before the Palisades Center Mall exit 12 on 87S/287E … still on the Rockland County side of the Tappan Zee Bridge. I was stuck in that traffic, until some guy managed to talk the nutcase down.
Personally, I think allowing people to threaten suicide and then allowing them to live sends the wrong message. Hey, if you’re going to threaten suicide, do it to some toll-free suicide hotline from the privacy of your own home and don’t screw with everyone else’s lives. If you’re going to climb a bridge and ruin thousands of people’s commutes, you might as well god damned jump so we at least get the pleasure of driving over your bloody corpse for making us sit in traffic for three hours.
I hate my commute …
Programmer, husband, father, singer, guitarist, tinkerer, reverse engineer, strange, and living in New Jersey. 
I hate my commute too. Why do we do it…is it really worth it? I think a lot of it has to do with the area we live (Tri-State Area). My commute to NYC consists of walking, bus, train, subway, walking.
2 hours in the morning, 2 hours at night. My life has suffered as a result. This sucks!
I live on the other side of the country from the previous two posters, and my commute is miserable and hellish. I work for Los Angeles County and my office is in the city of Los Angeles but I live in Irvine, which is 44 miles south of LA and deep in the heart of Orange County. Especially here, people just take it for granted that they can get in their car and drive straight to work and it’s no big deal. What do I have to deal with? Well, the first option is to take the Metrolink commuter train to Union Station, then transfer to the subway that takes me to Wilshire and Vermont and then walk the rest of the way, which takes a total of about 1 hour and 45 minutes one way. Sometimes the Metrolink is cramped, especially early in the morning or any time the price of gas goes over 2 bucks a gallon. Then, inevitably there will be no available parking spaces and certainly no spaces free up in time for me to park and catch my train because the south-bound train is chronically late. Also, the trains share the track with freight trains and sometimes it goes at a snail’s pace that makes you want to scream. Sometimes the train breaks down, and I have heard horror stories about people having to take 60-dollar taxi trips home. Or a crossing signal breaks. Or the train leaves early. Or the ticket validator or ticket-purchase machines are broken. And it’s expensive! It costs me $12.50 per day round-trip, which feels like a punishment for taking public transportation (and no, I receive no reimbursements from my employer, nor any tax write-offs because the Metrolink is already heavily subsidized with public money). My other option is to take the Santa Ana “5” freeway, which regularly backs up 25 miles from my destination, north or south. And there is no point in leaving early or going in late because rush hour in the LA area is an all-morning, all-evening affair. The neighborhood I work in SUCKS – most of the businesses cater to Koreans and basically it is Korean restaurants and body and skin-care establishments that seem to change ownership by the week. The corner where I exit the subway is a three-ring circus of panhandlers, psychopaths, Bible-beaters, and illegal immigrants whose baby stollers overflow with children. Nobody speaks English and it’s truly like being in a third-world country. All I want to do is just get the hell out of there. I hate my job because of my commute and have called-in on numerous occasions because I just couldn’t take the commute for one more day. By the end of the week I am exhausted, and on the weekends I have no desire to go anywhere more than a few miles from my house, particularly because I have to run errands and complete chores in preparation for the coming week’s work. Ostensibly I COULD telecommute because the nature of my work is such that there is no reason for me to go into the office every day (actually, it was promised to me, which was why I accepted the job, but that is a whole other smelly ball of wax), but the Director doesn’t believe in telecommuting, and so no one can have it unless they have a medical condition. I guess I shouldn’t worry, then, because if I do this for another four years I most assuredly will become sick or go completely insane. Then they can pay me to stay home and sit on my ass, which would serve them right. I would move closer to work except that I hate Los Angeles, a feeling that is perpetually reinforced by the omnipresent congestion, crowding, gang crime, rude people, filthy air, potholed streets, graffiti, and noise. I’ll be damned if I’m going to trade in green, safe, and harmonious Irvine for the urban nightmare that is Los Angeles.
I can relate. My commute absolutely stinks. Today it took me almost 2 hours to go 31 miles to work. I live in the Northern Virgnia area where the local governments decide to approve every huge development that comes their way while doing nothing to address the traffic and roads. The majority of my time is spent sitting in single lane traffic on back country roads crawling my way towards clogged main roads. The problem will only get worse. I so envy anyone that telecommutes and it suprises me that more companies have not adopted some kind of telecommuting policy. Until they do, I will just spend 3 hours or more in the car — UGH!
I have my commute
I ride a bus {the Ass Chariot of Fire} from NJ to NYC everyday.
I write really mean things about the numb-asses I share this twice daily ride with.
http://www.asschariotoffire.blogspot.com/