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Time...How much time is lost living in a major urban city? If time is money, how much does it cost in lost time to live in a city?
I think of all the lost time that is spent waiting for buses, waiting in traffic, waiting in lines at checkout stands, waiting to get into a park or sports arena, driving around looking for a place to park. I'm sure many can think of other time robbers.
If money is lost or stolen, it can always be replaced. Lost time however, can never be replaced, it's gone forever.
If a person where to take their weekly hours of lost time and multiply it by their hourly wage, how much is it costing a person in lost time waiting in lines?
It's something to think about if a person is living in a city or planning to move to one.
People lose time no matter the location.
Unless you don't have to work or sustain a life on a farm you will lose time. I fail to see the point here.
Suburbanites lose time commuting, dealing with traffic, etc.
Rural living and working means time isn't much of a factor.
People lose time no matter the location.
Unless you don't have to work or sustain a life on a farm you will lose time. I fail to see the point here.
Suburbanites lose time commuting, dealing with traffic, etc.
Rural living and working means time isn't much of a factor.
Having lived in a large urban area and now living in a small rural community, I've noticed a major distinction in the amount of time that was lost in just waiting in lines and commuting. I think this is something people seldom think about, or figure the cost associated with the time that's lost.
For example, I live 3 miles from work and it takes 5 to 7 minutes to get there and have no trouble finding a place to park. When I lived in the city, I lived 5 miles from work and it took me 1 1/2 hours by bus. I had to take a bus because there wasn't anywhere to park. That was 1 1/2 hours each way, or 3 hours a day.
This is only a small example of what I'm referring to.
I challenge you to keep track of your time spent waiting in lines or traffic for a day.
Having lived in a large urban area and now living in a small rural community, I've noticed a major distinction in the amount of time that was lost in just waiting in lines and commuting. I think this is something people seldom think about, or figure the cost associated with the time that's lost.
For example, I live 3 miles from work and it takes 5 to 7 minutes to get there and have no trouble finding a place to park. When I lived in the city, I lived 5 miles from work and it took me 1 1/2 hours by bus. I had to take a bus because there wasn't anywhere to park. That was 1 1/2 hours each way, or 3 hours a day.
This is only a small example of what I'm referring to.
I challenge you to keep track of your time spent waiting in lines or traffic for a day.
An hour and a half to travel 5 miles? That sounds like an awful place to live if the traffic is that bad. Also, I am guessing that it wasn't cost effective to live closer to your work in a large urban area? If time is money, then paying more to live closer to work is a valuable choice.
Also, not every situation is the same. I have a friend that lives in rural Virginia and we use to joke that it was an hour to anything because often times to do anything, it did take at least an hour to get there. So it really depends on your situation.
It sounds like you moved from a place you didn't like to a place you like and your commute has shortened greatly. My wife and I lived a couple years in the NYC metro, it took three trains, a long walk to get to transit, and about an hour to an hour and a half to commute about 7 miles. Now we moved back to Portland, our hometown, and I live about 7 miles from work again, it takes about 15-20 minutes by car, 35-45 minutes by bike or transit to get downtown, so we have greatly improved our living conditions by moving to a smaller city that matches our needs.
Having lived in a large urban area and now living in a small rural community, I've noticed a major distinction in the amount of time that was lost in just waiting in lines and commuting. I think this is something people seldom think about, or figure the cost associated with the time that's lost.
For example, I live 3 miles from work and it takes 5 to 7 minutes to get there and have no trouble finding a place to park. When I lived in the city, I lived 5 miles from work and it took me 1 1/2 hours by bus. I had to take a bus because there wasn't anywhere to park. That was 1 1/2 hours each way, or 3 hours a day.
This is only a small example of what I'm referring to.
I challenge you to keep track of your time spent waiting in lines or traffic for a day.
And this city was?
That's a pretty dysfunctional transit system.
I enjoy the amenities in big cities over outdoorsy things that rural living offers. You couldn't buy me a rural lifestyle.
I enjoy the amenities in big cities over outdoorsy things that rural living offers. You couldn't buy me a rural lifestyle.
The city was Pittsburgh. I now live in one of the gateway communities to Yosemite National Park.
I have spent travel time in Chicago, Dallas, St. Louis, Washington, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, and a few others. There are major wait times in all of them.
Having lived in a large urban area and now living in a small rural community, I've noticed a major distinction in the amount of time that was lost in just waiting in lines and commuting. I think this is something people seldom think about, or figure the cost associated with the time that's lost.
For example, I live 3 miles from work and it takes 5 to 7 minutes to get there and have no trouble finding a place to park. When I lived in the city, I lived 5 miles from work and it took me 1 1/2 hours by bus. I had to take a bus because there wasn't anywhere to park. That was 1 1/2 hours each way, or 3 hours a day.
This is only a small example of what I'm referring to.
I challenge you to keep track of your time spent waiting in lines or traffic for a day.
Well, that's mostly your fault. Even at the extremely high end, taxis aren't that much. I mostly use Uberx in San Francisco when I need to get somewhere that I can't walk to and transit isn't convenient. It's $2.20/drop and $16/hr or $1.30/mile. A five mile trip would cost <$15, maybe $17-18 with tip. Of course, it depends on how much traffic we're talking but if surface speeds are 15 mph, you'd be there in 20 minutes. I'd spend $15 every day to save an hour. Also, where the heck were you that there wasn't any parking? There's one or two neighborhoods in San Francisco where parking is actually hard.
Now I live in a suburban area, sometimes work in San Francisco and frequently in the East Bay. It's a trade-off. I cover more geography here than I would in the Bay Area. In the Bay Area, traffic is much worse. It ends up being not really that different. I'd regularly drive up to an hour and a half either way, I just sit in more traffic going to the Bay Area. If there wasn't the extreme COL difference, I'd prefer to live in the Bay Area, although not in San Francisco itself.
I wouldn't be too surprised if it took 1.5 hours for 5 miles if you're commuting from a home in a lower density neighbourhood to a workplace also in a lower density setting... but that's still extremely slow, basically walking speed. Actually I could probably walk that in about 80 minutes... I would have considered biking, at least most of the time. Even if you bike at a casual pace to avoid sweating, you could easily cut the commute time in half.
The fact that there was no-where to park suggests it was more of a downtown type environment though, which are usually much better served by transit than that, about 50 minutes for that kind of distance in Kitchener, ON which is still a pretty suburban, small and not overly dense city.
Don't you have to wait at check-out stands everywhere? And in any case, it's usually not too bad here, usually less than a minute. In my college town, I would often order take-out, walk to the grocery store, buy groceries for the next 2 days, head over to the restaurant to pick up dinner and walk back home in about 20 minutes.
The main downside of course with living in a rural area, especially if you limit yourself to jobs within just a few miles, is that there's going to be a limited number of jobs to pick from. If you live in a truly rural area, there might be next to none aside from farming or other primary sector employment. There would be a bit more options if there's a small town or hamlet nearby, like Milverton, ON (population 1500).
It isn't hard to park in downtown San Francisco, at least not in the morning. I've had trouble if I'm trying to find parking between about 11 and 3 though.
Having lived in a large urban area and now living in a small rural community, I've noticed a major distinction in the amount of time that was lost in just waiting in lines and commuting. I think this is something people seldom think about, or figure the cost associated with the time that's lost.
For example, I live 3 miles from work and it takes 5 to 7 minutes to get there and have no trouble finding a place to park. When I lived in the city, I lived 5 miles from work and it took me 1 1/2 hours by bus. I had to take a bus because there wasn't anywhere to park. That was 1 1/2 hours each way, or 3 hours a day.
This is only a small example of what I'm referring to.
I challenge you to keep track of your time spent waiting in lines or traffic for a day.
I have kept track of how much time I spent waiting in lines or traffic, it's very little time at all. 17 minutes door to door for my public transit commute, drives to big box stores like Target, Menard's, Home Depot, Binny's and Costco are 5-10 minutes, and I can hit 3 of them in one hour long round trip (including waiting).
It's great you found a job in a place with no traffic, but if there's no traffic that's also a good sign that there aren't many jobs. There are about 600,000 jobs within a 30 minute transit commute for me - how many jobs are there in the rural town you've moved to.
Anyways, I find it very hard to believe you spend 1.5 hours on a bus to go 5 miles, I've never seen public transit anywhere move that slowly. Why in the world wouldn't you just walk or ride a bike?
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