I have commuted almost every way it's possible to commute in multiple places and have come by some hard-won wisdom. First, commuting time, within normal parameters, is less relevant than you might expect. What matters are commuting frustrations. A 40 minute drive with no traffic or red lights is better than 30 minutes of stop-and-go. A 40 minute subway ride down one line is better than a 30 minute ride where you have to change trains twice. In automobiles, most frustrations relate to traffic. On public transit, frustrations include i) filth, ii) crime, iii) stress over finding a seat, iv) standing around waiting, v) running to make a train and missing it by 2 seconds (see also "standing around waiting"), vi) changing trains (and more waiting), vii) having to expend mental real estate on optimal door positions and station standing locations, and viii) distance between stations and destinations (you might figure a stroll through a few city blocks is pleasant, but it loses its pleasantness fast when you do the same stroll twice a day for years) (that said, I used to find the subway ride from 72nd St to 49th St so aggravating I eventually started swallowing the extra 20 minutes and just walking the whole thing).
Anyway, I say all that with no larger point in mind, but I do confess that for me personally the mental lift of public transit is much worse than the mental lift of an extended car ride. Having a guaranteed comfortable seat in your own car where you can blast your own music counts for a lot.
“Proximity is serendipity.” Yes 🙌 This became crystal clear to me during the initial Covid lockdowns. Whereas normally, I would’ve walked a few blocks to browse a used bookstore for new material, suddenly enjoying an afternoon of “browsing” anything was not really an option. I was surprised at how many simple joys I’d found in my days when just getting out to walk in a city and browse a store might introduce me to new ideas, new books, new people or a sign for an event happening that I was interested in. Suddenly, everything required a deliberate plan and spontaneity, joy of discovery, the joy of something new, was much harder to find in real life interactions.
I recently moved from a very suburban non-walkable location to a very walkable city. I have had man similar experiences to what you described here with the thrift stores and the restaurants. Great writing and fun to read.
The mental arithmetic of driving distances to shopping, recreation, etc., reminded me of my situation during lockdowns, but in a different way from your other commenter. I lost my job (thanks, gross overreaction by state government!), and with it my monthly unlimited ride MetroCard here in NYC. For the past few decades I had kept an unlimited ride card all the time, as it made the most economic sense, and it was quite freeing to know that I could just hop on a bus or a subway whenever I wanted, even if I was just going a few stops. No economics or math involved. Without the card, I had to calculate the value of every journey and try to game how many free transfers I could get. It changed my view of how I got around and which destinations were worth the investment, not of time (I had plenty, as I was unemployed for a long, long time) but of money (of which I had little, see above). And then, for a while, the MTA made the buses free because somehow it was "safer" for the bus driver if we all entered through the back of the bus, so they couldn't collect a fare, and that changed the calculations once again. I don't miss any of this at all.
I have commuted almost every way it's possible to commute in multiple places and have come by some hard-won wisdom. First, commuting time, within normal parameters, is less relevant than you might expect. What matters are commuting frustrations. A 40 minute drive with no traffic or red lights is better than 30 minutes of stop-and-go. A 40 minute subway ride down one line is better than a 30 minute ride where you have to change trains twice. In automobiles, most frustrations relate to traffic. On public transit, frustrations include i) filth, ii) crime, iii) stress over finding a seat, iv) standing around waiting, v) running to make a train and missing it by 2 seconds (see also "standing around waiting"), vi) changing trains (and more waiting), vii) having to expend mental real estate on optimal door positions and station standing locations, and viii) distance between stations and destinations (you might figure a stroll through a few city blocks is pleasant, but it loses its pleasantness fast when you do the same stroll twice a day for years) (that said, I used to find the subway ride from 72nd St to 49th St so aggravating I eventually started swallowing the extra 20 minutes and just walking the whole thing).
Anyway, I say all that with no larger point in mind, but I do confess that for me personally the mental lift of public transit is much worse than the mental lift of an extended car ride. Having a guaranteed comfortable seat in your own car where you can blast your own music counts for a lot.
Have you read Nick Paumgarten's commuting article? https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/04/16/there-and-back-again This and his elevator piece are two of the finest pieces of long-form journalism I've ever read.
“Proximity is serendipity.” Yes 🙌 This became crystal clear to me during the initial Covid lockdowns. Whereas normally, I would’ve walked a few blocks to browse a used bookstore for new material, suddenly enjoying an afternoon of “browsing” anything was not really an option. I was surprised at how many simple joys I’d found in my days when just getting out to walk in a city and browse a store might introduce me to new ideas, new books, new people or a sign for an event happening that I was interested in. Suddenly, everything required a deliberate plan and spontaneity, joy of discovery, the joy of something new, was much harder to find in real life interactions.
Amen. It's precisely this sort of isolation that led me to live in walkable urbanist neighborhoods, even in the deep suburbs.
I recently moved from a very suburban non-walkable location to a very walkable city. I have had man similar experiences to what you described here with the thrift stores and the restaurants. Great writing and fun to read.
The mental arithmetic of driving distances to shopping, recreation, etc., reminded me of my situation during lockdowns, but in a different way from your other commenter. I lost my job (thanks, gross overreaction by state government!), and with it my monthly unlimited ride MetroCard here in NYC. For the past few decades I had kept an unlimited ride card all the time, as it made the most economic sense, and it was quite freeing to know that I could just hop on a bus or a subway whenever I wanted, even if I was just going a few stops. No economics or math involved. Without the card, I had to calculate the value of every journey and try to game how many free transfers I could get. It changed my view of how I got around and which destinations were worth the investment, not of time (I had plenty, as I was unemployed for a long, long time) but of money (of which I had little, see above). And then, for a while, the MTA made the buses free because somehow it was "safer" for the bus driver if we all entered through the back of the bus, so they couldn't collect a fare, and that changed the calculations once again. I don't miss any of this at all.