First, imagine that you had to walk or bike to work - or downtown - everyday. Imagine that it wasn’t particularly because you felt like it, it was because there were no public roads to downtown - only paths through forested greenspace. This would be my impossible city planning ideal: if downtown, one’s common Central Business District (CBD) - would be the centre of a donut-shaped Green Barrier separating the residential space from the work and social space. A barrier that not only works for the environment, but keeps chaos out of a pedestrian haven by having you park outside its perimeter.
Sadly, I’m not building a city from the ground up, and neither are you (I assume), so the best I can do is provide you with tips to make your commute useful, healthy, or productive.
Before I go on, you should know about projects like this, which are always going to suffer for lack of funding. The gist of it is that several cities are interested in “capping” their highways. The idea is to purchase land in the airspace above freeways (yep, you’ve got to purchase that), and build green space so that it “caps” the highway and keeps it in a tunnel for a portion. It allows for new parks (<–visualization) where space to build them just isn’t available. In certain parts of LA, up to 66 percent of children do not have access to parks or open space at a walking distance. Compare that to NY where only nine percent don’t have that access. Central Park must be partly to blame for that number - and a damn fine park it is. **endnote
Moving right along, if you do have a commute here are some ways to add value to it:
1) Taking it to a train and working during that time could add hours to your at-home life. Instead of staring at the rear of the car in front of you, leave work early and bill those hours you work during your commute.
My sister - who lives in Dublin, Ireland - commutes by train or bus for up to an hour and a half in the mornings, and sometimes two hours in the evenings. In which case she’s purchasing a laptop to take the work to her commute where possible. This greatly adds value to an otherwise crap commute.
Seek out if your city offers a ‘park-and-ride‘ service. This allows people commuting in from the ‘burbs to park away from the CBD, and ride the train or other public transport for the final portion. No more parking or traffic hassles!
2) Straight-up bike. This is a more difficult option for many, but if it’s there as an option I highly suggest you take it. Just do it. Do it twice a week to start, and move on up from there. Also, try that park-and-ride service by stuffing your bike in your car and pedalling that last bit to town. When your city has a capped highway (finally), take a route through that space knowing that you’re benefiting while the drivers below wish they were biking.
Taking this active approach allows you bonus exercise when you otherwise wouldn’t be able to get it. You don’t have to search far to read about the benefits of exercise to your workday efficiency.
3) Meddling with a car habit and finding alternatives such as the above is a great way to save some time and money. Time is money. Once you are finding ways to save money on commuting you are adding value to a commute. Explore your options!
I don’t commute (in its most proper form) and have never needed to. I bike about 10 minutes, or bus when I have to. I can’t really imagine having to properly commute, but if I did I sure would look for ways to maximize that time spent, or cut it out completely. The only value I’ve been able to add to my ‘commute’ is (besides my cheap alternative of biking) 10 minutes of iPod time, or reviewing class material when I was busing to my night class at the university.
How do you add value to your commute? Any ideas to add for other readers?
**(Giant hat-tip to my Los Angeles urban connection Reid Keller for help in my last posts on L.A…Reid works in the field of urban planning and has added unequivocal value to these two posts.)
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While I agree with you in general on these points and where possible everyone should try to implement these ideas into their daily lives, it’s worth considering that beyond a certain basic level of income, outside of work the marginal value of one’s time might be very great. I could take the bus from my apartment to work in about an hour (2hrs roundtrip each day) or I can drive (30 minutes roundtrip each day). That extra 90 minutes is nice now, but it would be even better if I had kids I wanted to spend time with, pick them up from school, take them to soccer practice, the need to cook for my family, and so on.
The added cost of driving probably comes out to less than $10/day to the individual depending on the vehicle they choose and the length of the commute, which is not that great a price for a lot of extra time. For example, childcare on a per hour basis is pretty ridiculous.
Missing from the cost is anything not directly paid by the commuter, mainly damage to the environment (getting back to the theme of the blog) - mostly air quality/emissions (totally screwing over your kids in the future) and the fact that most of the world (at least around here) is covered in hard, unnatural surfaces. Sadly, at this point there is no feasible way to impose those costs on individual commuters.
I would be very interested to hear how people travel and why the choose the mode that they do.
Thanks for the comment Reid, you definitely make a good point with the amount of time saved to spend with family etc…and generally getting along with the rest of your day. Public transpo will almost always be slower than driving - unless you do have a fantastically direct train~!
I’ve talked before about adding costs to commuters via gas taxes (the true costs of driving include costs to the environment). I think that taking those taxes and investing in viable driving alternatives would be a good way to release pressure on environmental concerns…but it only proves popular with some folk, and mostly those who don’t currently drive.
The only way I can think of to add value to my commute would be some learn-to-speak a language CDs to play while I drive. The public transportation in my area is absolutely abysmal to the point where it isn’t an option.
And Reid, there IS a way to pass on the costs of commuting - higher gas taxes. I doubt we’ll see those happening anytime soon.
I live and work in Seattle which has the highest gas tax of all 50 states.
These taxes are supposed to go to increasing mass transit options and improving roads.
However, we still have roughly the same amount of buses on roads and worsening traffic every year.
Gas taxes are good in theory, but don’t hold up to wasteful government spending.
@NewB - I see how that can be very frustrating. The issue with public transport is something that can vary so widely, or some people would say it is just plan crap all around. I personally just hate waiting for the bus…
On another note. I’ve been spending more time in Seattle (friends and relatives there) - and they have such a great highways system, something that many Canadian cities lack - which makes driving all the more appealing. My cousin is quick to remind me though, that I haven’t seen Seattle traffic at its worst. I gladly acknowledge that.
I live and work in London, England, where gas costs an absolute fortune yet people still drive to work every day. So atleast over here increasing gas prices don’t do much to dissuade commuters from their cars.
I am fortunate enough to live within a 35 minute walk of the office and I walk to and from everyday. This not only saves me a shed load of money but also acts as a buffer zone between work and home. Obviously not everyone can live within walking distance, but I think that if you possibly can then you should try it.
Probably th best thing about walking is that I know that it takes me 35 minutes no matter what, so I am never late home due to congestion or other things that cause a 30 minutes car ride in to a 2 hour slog.