What's your threshold for DC commutes? Door-to-door. [POLL] (Columbia, Frederick: low income, apartment)

[Tiger Beer]

What do you find as acceptable and not acceptable for commuting to DC jobs. Thinking door-to-door.

Select for the poll, and make a few comments as well. (If only the poll, we'll miss out much of the discussion as well).

[goldenage1]

While I am now retired, I was in a specialized field (in mainframe programming), and I did commute up to 1 hour. One colleague was commuting 1 hour and 15 minutes each way in order to live in a nice part of Severna Park. (We were working in Falls Church.) The one time I actually worked in downtown DC when I was young, I rode the commuter bus from Columbia, and it took about an hour.

[pgtvatitans]

I'm going to say no more than an hour but it depends. My commute right now is a little odd because I have to go away from the direction towards my job first to drop my daughter off at daycare and then go back, which actually ends up putting me deeper in traffic. That is okay, but it turns a 15 minute drive into a 30-40 minute drive. Trust me when I say, it can be the longest 30-40 minutes ever. It just depends on where you drive. The areas that I have to drive in are HORRIBLE!!! Even if I was going straight to work, people drive crazy out here. My patience is tested on a daily basis. I could deal with a longer but smoother commute than this, but this commute that I currently have, even as short as it is, is for the birds!

[adelphi_sky]

Of course it all depends on how much you enjoy your job or how much you're getting paid. If I think my job is okay with okay pay, 30 minutes. But of course if I love my job and I get paid a pretty generous salary, I could drive up to an hour. It's all about motivation. What motivates people to drive the distances they do. On the other hand, you could be low income and the only job you could find is an hour away. But the pay is JUST good enough to where your family doesn't have to live on public assistance. There are many factors. I'll never understand why people commute from West Virginia or Pennsylvania to work in D.C. They have their reasons.

[Tiger Beer]

Originally Posted by adelphi_sky

Of course it all depends on how much you enjoy your job or how much you're getting paid. If I think my job is okay with okay pay, 30 minutes. But of course if I love my job and I get paid a pretty generous salary, I could drive up to an hour. It's all about motivation. What motivates people to drive the distances they do. On the other hand, you could be low income and the only job you could find is an hour away. But the pay is JUST good enough to where your family doesn't have to live on public assistance. There are many factors. I'll never understand why people commute from West Virginia or Pennsylvania to work in D.C. They have their reasons.

I recently drove out to West Virginia to have a look around. I didn't like it at all. Lots of sprawl out there, just removed two hours from DC.

Sherperdstown was unique though. But, I couldn't help but think that if a person wanted rural and DC jobs, you could definitely find it in VA/MD with less of that sprawl/chains everywhere that WV had.

I did like Brunswick an even Fredericksburg, despite them both being around 90 minutes away. Ninety minutes is definitely hitting my maximum threshold though....and that's just the train station to train station only without the door-to-door part.

[pgtvatitans]

Originally Posted by adelphi_sky

Of course it all depends on how much you enjoy your job or how much you're getting paid. If I think my job is okay with okay pay, 30 minutes. But of course if I love my job and I get paid a pretty generous salary, I could drive up to an hour. It's all about motivation. What motivates people to drive the distances they do. On the other hand, you could be low income and the only job you could find is an hour away. But the pay is JUST good enough to where your family doesn't have to live on public assistance. There are many factors. I'll never understand why people commute from West Virginia or Pennsylvania to work in D.C. They have their reasons.

I never understood that either. I don't think it's worth it, especially if you have a family.

[pgtvatitans]

Originally Posted by Tiger Beer

I recently drove out to West Virginia to have a look around. I didn't like it at all. Lots of sprawl out there, just removed two hours from DC.

Sherperdstown was unique though. But, I couldn't help but think that if a person wanted rural and DC jobs, you could definitely find it in VA/MD with less of that sprawl/chains everywhere that WV had.

I did like Brunswick an even Fredericksburg, despite them both being around 90 minutes away. Ninety minutes is definitely hitting my maximum threshold though....and that's just the train station to train station only without the door-to-door part.

A buddy of mine went to Sheperd University. When we made the trip up there, my friend and I were looking at each other, like what the heck was he thinking coming up here for school. And to think people come to work from there! You can definitely find a decent place closer in. To me, it is so far out that it leaves you no margin of error. If you get up late or if the train is running slow (depending on what method of transportation) you will not make it to work in a reasonable time. At least if you are closer you can mitigate the issue a bit by taking different roads and not go completely out of your way.

I think coming from Fredericksburg is insane too but I have co-workers who do it (I work in Suitland). The one thing that I give VA over MD is they have more options from HOV lanes. MD, especially southern MD doesn't have enough. That is the only reason why I think Fredericksburg is kind of attractive. I have a few co-workers who use a shuttle bus from Stafford County/Fredericksburg to get up to MD for work. That is the best way to go if you are doing it, but if you are coming from Waldorf and points in that area, what can you do? There are no express lanes or trains there.

[Tiger Beer]

Originally Posted by pgtitans

I think coming from Fredericksburg is insane too but I have co-workers who do it (I work in Suitland). The one thing that I give VA over MD is they have more options from HOV lanes. MD, especially southern MD doesn't have enough. That is the only reason why I think Fredericksburg is kind of attractive. I have a few co-workers who use a shuttle bus from Stafford County/Fredericksburg to get up to MD for work. That is the best way to go if you are doing it, but if you are coming from Waldorf and points in that area, what can you do? There are no express lanes or trains there.

I drove around the city of Fredericksburg, and I liked it!

But, than I drove up the highway towards DC...and this was 8:00pm or so...the drivers over on that VA side are crazy. I just didn't like it at all. For whatever reason, it just seems that MD drivers are sane/normal. I seldom hear posters complain about MD drivers either, but the NoVA forum often talks about that as a common theme.

Maybe it has something to do with the design of the roads, who knows. But, I kept thinking that living in Fredericksburg might feel a bit isolating, as I would want to limit the amount of times I'd have to drive on that expressway regardless of the time of day or night.

[goldenage1]

Originally Posted by pgtitans

I never understood that either. I don't think it's worth it, especially if you have a family.

Regarding commuting from Pennsylvania to DC, I think there was some exceptional family circumstance, like an aging parent. The person was a Federal employee, who was just putting in time until retirement. Most of us would not tolerate that commute, especially with a young family.

One post put it well, that tolerance for a long commute depends on how much one likes, or needs the job: "it's all about motivation."

[selhars]

I had a co-worker who drove down from the Philly suburbs to downtown DC everyday -- he worked overnight. Getting to work for midnight he had no traffic issues, other than time it took to drive that far. But getting off at 7:30-8a. he'd get caught in traffic going home in everyone else's morning rush hour. Right now the longest co-worker commute is 2 hours, from Winchester.

For me, my commute tolerance has nothing to do with how much I like my job. It has to do with how I want to spend/waste my time. My commute tolerance on the OUTSIDE would be an hour...IF I worked 9-5 but I don't. My general commute tolerance is half-hour.

I work 4p to midnight. So my commute going into DC takes me 35 mins, and I can get home in 25 mins. I've even gotten to work on holidays in 25 mins. It's wonderful.

I have friends who come into DC from Fairfax, VA on 50...66...Chain Bridge...Key Bridge....It's HELLISH. 40 min one day, over an hour the next. NO predictability. And the NEVER ENDING construction being done at the Beltway/66/Braddock Road area is CRAZY. And people are STILL moving to that area.

I picked both my apartment -- and then my house based on my commute.
The commute can be a person's number one daily aggravation. SURELY there is someplace closer to DC than WINCHESTER that can give a person a great quality of life.

The REAL kick in the pants is when you're all set up where you live -- and then YOUR JOB relocates...farther away. That happened to my friend. Lucky for me it moved CLOSER to my direction.