Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > Urban Planning
 [Register]
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
Reply Start New Thread
 
Old 05-26-2014, 11:12 PM
 
Location: Savannah
974 posts, read 1,143,071 times
Reputation: 467

Advertisements

We all know that long commutes can have a detrimental effect on happiness, but it turns out it can play an instrumental role in killing you, too.

Long commutes cause obesity, neck pain, loneliness, divorce, stress, and insomnia.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message

 
Old 05-27-2014, 06:15 AM
 
Location: Vallejo
21,694 posts, read 24,888,324 times
Reputation: 18943
Fortunately, most of us commute by car, which means shorter commutes. Those poor obese, depressed, divorced people in NYC on the other hand...

New Yorkers have longest commute times in the U.S.: report - NY Daily News
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 05-27-2014, 02:46 PM
 
1,709 posts, read 2,156,043 times
Reputation: 1886
Quote:
Originally Posted by Malloric View Post
Fortunately, most of us commute by car, which means shorter commutes. Those poor obese, depressed, divorced people in NYC on the other hand...

New Yorkers have longest commute times in the U.S.: report - NY Daily News
That might have something to do with traffic congestion. Correct me if I'm wrong but NYC has quite a few cars on the road, given its population.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 05-27-2014, 03:17 PM
 
Location: Vallejo
21,694 posts, read 24,888,324 times
Reputation: 18943
Not really given it's population.

Larger metro areas of course suffer from obesity, divorce, and depression more than smaller metros since they tend to have longer commutes, but that's not greatly correlated. Very rural areas, for example, have lots of obesity, divorce, and depression due to long commutes. Eg, California has shorter commutes than North Dakota on average.

Los Angeles, second largest metro, has 27 minute average commute times for the drivers versus 48 minutes for public transit users. Fortunately, not many people in LA use public transit to get to work so the average is still under 30 minutes.

I mean, it's not Houston good, but much better than more transit-oriented cities that are smaller like DC or Chicago.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 05-27-2014, 03:24 PM
nei nei won $500 in our forum's Most Engaging Poster Contest - Thirteenth Edition (Jan-Feb 2015). 

Over $104,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum and additional contests are planned
 
Location: Western Massachusetts
46,009 posts, read 53,269,621 times
Reputation: 15179
Quote:
Originally Posted by OuttaTheLouBurbs View Post
That might have something to do with traffic congestion. Correct me if I'm wrong but NYC has quite a few cars on the road, given its population.
It does, but public transit commutes can be long in NYC. It's something locals are familiar with, and apparently out of towners often not for whatever reason, especially judging by some posters that unreasonable commute expectations in the NYC forum (under 30 minutes door to door commute to Manhattan outside of Manhattan?* )

*actually I do know people who have that, but still it's not the norm.

Comparing public transit commutes with driving commutes isn't necessarily meaningful as the commutes are going to different places and are of a different length.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 05-27-2014, 03:25 PM
nei nei won $500 in our forum's Most Engaging Poster Contest - Thirteenth Edition (Jan-Feb 2015). 

Over $104,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum and additional contests are planned
 
Location: Western Massachusetts
46,009 posts, read 53,269,621 times
Reputation: 15179
Quote:
Originally Posted by Malloric View Post
Fortunately, most of us commute by car, which means shorter commutes. Those poor obese, depressed, divorced people in NYC on the other hand...

New Yorkers have longest commute times in the U.S.: report - NY Daily News
A lot of that is size more so than just type of commute.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 05-27-2014, 03:54 PM
 
Location: Vallejo
21,694 posts, read 24,888,324 times
Reputation: 18943
Sure, but LA has shorter commutes than DC or Chicago. Houston does even better.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 05-27-2014, 05:18 PM
 
Location: Maui County, HI
4,131 posts, read 7,418,804 times
Reputation: 3391
Quote:
Originally Posted by Malloric View Post
Fortunately, most of us commute by car, which means shorter commutes. Those poor obese, depressed, divorced people in NYC on the other hand...

New Yorkers have longest commute times in the U.S.: report - NY Daily News
Are you serious? Have you been to any big city? Commuting by car is SLOW. Put in commuter rail lines, and commutes in any major city will halve. Note that I said commuter rail, not buses and not in-city rail
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 05-27-2014, 05:20 PM
 
Location: Maui County, HI
4,131 posts, read 7,418,804 times
Reputation: 3391
Quote:
Originally Posted by Malloric View Post
Sure, but LA has shorter commutes than DC or Chicago. Houston does even better.
You know what they say about statistics...

A commute from the closer suburbs to downtown Houston will take an hour, or 50 minutes if you're lucky.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 05-27-2014, 05:31 PM
nei nei won $500 in our forum's Most Engaging Poster Contest - Thirteenth Edition (Jan-Feb 2015). 

Over $104,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum and additional contests are planned
 
Location: Western Massachusetts
46,009 posts, read 53,269,621 times
Reputation: 15179
Quote:
Originally Posted by winkosmosis View Post
Are you serious? Have you been to any big city? Commuting by car is SLOW. Put in commuter rail lines, and commutes in any major city will halve. Note that I said commuter rail, not buses and not in-city rail
A rail commute to Manhattan is usually faster than driving the same commute, so not many drive. However, this situation means driving is really slow. Other commutes that rail doesn't cover are generally faster and traffic isn't as bad.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.

Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.


Reply
Please update this thread with any new information or opinions. This open thread is still read by thousands of people, so we encourage all additional points of view.

Quick Reply
Message:

Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > Urban Planning

All times are GMT -6. The time now is 02:54 AM.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top