In her December 20 blog post, Penelope Trunk recounts many disadvantages of a long commute.
My commute is quite long, clocking in at over one hour and fifteen minutes in the morning. I’m not a stranger to long commutes, but this is my longest one yet. Coworkers who live near me say that their drives take anywhere from 35 to 45 minutes – but they leave home between 6 and 6:30 am. I struggle to arise early enough to be ready and out the door before 7am; 6am is a Mt. Everest-sized challenge for me.
Yet this is what people in distant Chicago suburbs often do to get to work without spending hours in traffic: Rise at 5am, go to bed by 9PM, repeat the next day, adjust as needed for weather conditions and road construction.
Metra is an option that I utilize whenever I can. The train allows me to have a reliable work arrival time, sleep as late as possible in the morning and arrive at work rested. It would be nice if some of the stations had more parking spaces (but that’s a topic for another post!)
