Have an hour long commute. Don't like it much. I looked into public transport, but it was ridiculous. I think the journey was technically possible, but I'd probably have spent the rest of my life on a bus.
Have an hour long commute. Don't like it much. I looked into public transport, but it was ridiculous. I think the journey was technically possible, but I'd probably have spent the rest of my life on a bus.
The light that once I thought compassion still casting shadows in your action
The words you shared were cold transactions that bring me to curse what you've done
When you're up there absorbed in greatness with such success you've grown complacent
I hope you scorch your many faces when you fly too close to the sun
I have a 12 mile commute. Takes 15-30 minutes, depending on traffic. I do take the bus sometimes, but not usually; I prefer having more freedom over when I arrive at and leave work, and the busses that service the only route I can take don't run past 7:00. I often think I should have bought a house closer to work.
Off-topic: It's kinda cool to hear how far you've moved up in your company since you first spoke to us about it, Rand.
Having a banking job in the City being the benchmark for those who should commute by PT and not drive?Originally Posted by RandBlade
Perhaps. It would not be possible to commute into the City by car in most cases, and not possible at all into Canary Wharf (which is replacing the City as the new financial sector of London), as cars are not generally allowed in.
~
For the ten years of my job till January this year, my place of work was out in a small village in the country, to which buses and trains did not run, so even though I live/d on the outskirts of London, a car was the only option. I averaged around 16k miles pa on a ~50-60 mile round trip daily.
Since I took the Canary Wharf job in January, I commuted daily by train & tube. (and, Inshallah, if I get another job, it will certainly be in the City or Canary Wharf, so same commute)
As I didn't need a car for my commute and would therefore be using my car much, much less (around 3k pa now), I traded down the bigger-engined beemers I liked to run, to a smaller car ( a Cooper S), given what fuel prices and taxes are like on larger engines.
Though I certainly therefore don't need a car, I much prefer having one. Just this week packing it up and heading out to the West Country for a couple of days, visiting my dad on the way back, is a typical example of what I'll use the car for, and indeed the car was quicker, cheaper and more convenient than the train alternative.
I drive about 7k miles a year, mostly commute (~15 miles round trip). My wife was driving significantly more for her commute - maybe 12-14k miles - but her company moved to Boston so we sold the car and she now takes the T. Once I get a new job, it's up in the air whether I'll have to commute out to the suburbs or can take the train to someplace closer, but we might drive as little as 2k/year.
This is highly dependent on where you live, though. Some cities I've spent time in have great public transit systems, and you can frequently avoid driving to work assuming you live/work in the right places. Some cities are quite the opposite, where public transit is clearly an afterthought and only used by the really desperate. I'd say cities with decent public transit include NYC area, Chicago, LA area, Boston, DC, Seattle, Portland, SF, Denver. I'm told a few other Cali cities aren't bad (I personally didn't like the San Diego system, but it might have had to do with where I needed to go), and there's a few other okay ones. Most of the rest of US cities have execrable public transit systems - it's literally impossible to live in a place like Baltimore or Dallas without a two-car household.
RB - there are stats on this, aren't there? Anecdotal information is hardly relevant. I believe the FHA or whoever claims that the average American driver drives about 13,500 a year. I haven't had a chance to get reliable stats for the UK, but it looks like it's under 10,000 miles... and I'd bet large chunks of Western Europe are even less (though I haven't checked). Your particular mileage is notable, yes, but on average Americans do drive more than most others.
But you do realize you're the exception, not the rule, right?
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
-- Thomas Jefferson: American Founding Father, clairvoyant and seditious traitor.
No, what would be "funny" is you being a district or regional manager for a franchise restaurant chain here in the US. You'd spend much more time in your car driving, or time in airports, and then driving to and from airports between your designated check points. Depends on population clusters, right?
Try this, Rand: super-impose a map of your UK territory over the US, using either number of stores and/or number of customers. That would be your "region" here. Take a look at our highways and interstates, and figure out how many miles you'd be driving, even if you were flying sometimes. It's not uncommon for a US "region" to include three states. Say, Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana. Or maybe Pennsylvania, Maryland and Delaware.
Not directly talking about driving, but a relevant post I just saw on Free Exchange: http://www.economist.com/blogs/freee...011/10/surveys
Basic idea is that the commute time for Americans is either quite low for the OECD or near the top, depending on which dataset you use.
I do 120km per week getting to and from work and average another 100km per week in day to day business related travel - all in a company car (complete with fuel card). This is not a lot of driving for the average person working in this part of the world (that's the arse end of the world if you're wondering) there are a lot of people (too many really) that live in the southern suburbs yet work in the northern industrial area - some travel up to 150km per day just getting to and from work.
Such is Life...
Absolutely, that's my point. The where you live/what you do, is a major difference. That's a lot more cities than Cain listed.
Sure there probably are. I bet that 13,500 miles varies dramatically from state to state if there's any stats on that too.RB - there are stats on this, aren't there? Anecdotal information is hardly relevant. I believe the FHA or whoever claims that the average American driver drives about 13,500 a year. I haven't had a chance to get reliable stats for the UK, but it looks like it's under 10,000 miles... and I'd bet large chunks of Western Europe are even less (though I haven't checked). Your particular mileage is notable, yes, but on average Americans do drive more than most others.
Yes. But I also think that the North in general is different to your London-centric view of the UK.
Yeah, Cain's list was rather short. I might even add Philly to the list of decent PT cities, and I'm sure there are some I'm just not personally acquainted with. That being said, even in those cities there is a pretty significant car-owning culture due to the proliferation of suburbs.
No doubt; I'm sure the same is true of regions in the UK. But the average across the two countries is definitely different. I'm sure that their geographical distributions are interesting, but not particularly relevant to the question of who drives more in aggregate. On a personal level, I like minimizing my driving for a variety of reasons (expense, environment, trade deficit, foreign policy) so I'm not surprised I drive quite a bit less than average... but everyone's situation is different, eh?Sure there probably are. I bet that 13,500 miles varies dramatically from state to state if there's any stats on that too.
One worthwhile question, though, is how exactly these stats are understood. IIRC the numbers I quoted above were average miles per driver in the US. Maybe there are more or less drivers per capita in the US/UK than in other places, which would mean that there's actually more/less relative driving happening than we think. (For example, in countries where car ownership is prohibitively expensive, families might do with one or no cars when other places would have one or two.) I honestly don't think it matters, though, as long as we define our metric.
I don't have a London-centric view of the UK. Aside from arrival and departure through Heathrow, I've barely spent any time in your capital... I hardly see the point now that your government caved to the IRA, and there's no excitement in London anymore.
I "lived" in a piddly little suburb of a piddly little town and still had access to vastly superior mass transit than in my home city of over 1 million residents, or for that matter, any city in the tri-state area. For that matter, I was able to travel around the island without a car and see some pretty nifty places, which isn't really possible over here, for a variety of reasons, none of which are changed by the fact that the odd driving requirements of your job and the podunk locale you choose to call home mean you have to drive too.
Outstanding and all, but I bet it's not a 3 day walk to the nearest grocery store or a 2 hour walk to the nearest pub over there, on account of your country not being built around the assumption that everyone will have one or more automobiles at their disposal at all times.
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
-- Thomas Jefferson: American Founding Father, clairvoyant and seditious traitor.
What suburb of which piddly town?
Abingdon of Oxford.
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
-- Thomas Jefferson: American Founding Father, clairvoyant and seditious traitor.
Oxford is not a piddly town and its also famously well-connected, joked about in Yes, Minister as being because the key Civil Service heads all went to Oxford so they route all the public transport money there.
165,000 inhabitants. Piddly.
Could be, but I wouldn't know about that. It's also hardly my only experience with public transport on your island, like I said, I was able to visit a fair bit of it without a car, so it's hardly "just" London, or "just" well-connected Oxford.
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
-- Thomas Jefferson: American Founding Father, clairvoyant and seditious traitor.
I don't have a licence, although I'm taking my test this afternoon.
I'm pretty lucky. My place of employment is out of town, but coaches are provided to get us to and from work. That gives me a 45 minute commute each way, but I spend the time reading, listening to music or talking to friends. It's quite relaxed. It also has practical benefits - you end up talking to people you wouldn't have encountered otherwise. I'm about to start a new job and contacts I've made with some fellow passengers were key in getting the post.
However, this isn't going to remain practical for long. We're expecting our first child next year, and once my wife has finished her maternity leave we will need to get the child to nursery. I think I'll end up doing about six hours of driving per week, for work. Not too bad compared to some people, but I'd prefer to keep it to a minimum.
There's a man goin' 'round, takin' names
And he decides who to free and who to blame
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