From the Courier Post Online:
The long haul
By SHAWN RHEA
There is a point during her 75-minute daily commute to work that Bethany Gibala feels stress closing in on her.
“It’s one predictable place where there’s heavy volume every day, and as you approach it, you just feel the dread about slowing down,” says the Kennedy Health System dietitian, who each workday spends a total of two-and-a-half hours driving more than 80 miles between Salem County and Voorhees.
Gibala is part of a growing population of workers who spend 60 or more minutes commuting to work daily, according to a 2004 report from the U.S. Census Bureau. Eight percent of workers (9.9 million people) currently are making such long hauls daily compared to just 6.1 percent (6.7 million people) in the early 1990s.
New Jersey residents make some of the nation’s longest commutes, with 5.2 percent of workers qualifying as extreme commuters — people who travel 90 minutes or more each way to work. Only New York State has a larger percentage of extreme commuters.
But as drivers like Gibala have discovered, there’s no prize for winning the longest commute contest. Between the traffic jams, long periods of sitting and face-offs with other angry drivers, many workers find they arrive at the office loaded for bear.
…
Gibala admits she has felt the pangs of that trade-off.“When you have a commute like that, when you get home you’re just exhausted,” she says. “You don’t feel like going to the grocery store; you don’t feel like running errands. My husband also commutes about 40 minutes each way, so we don’t really have dinner together a lot.”
Unfortunately, moving closer to work isn’t a practical option for most commuters. Many make their long-distance housing decisions because the cost of living is more affordable in areas away from primary business districts.
“If you’re struggling to pay the mortgage then you can’t simply say, “I’ll just pay more and move closer,’ ” says Pisarski. “Also, people tend to change jobs much more frequently now than 20 years ago, and you’d be crazy to up and move because you may change jobs again in two years.”
For Gibala, reducing the stress of her daily commute has meant making a change in attitude as opposed to a change of address.
2 1/2 hours? Between gas and wear and tear on the car she could have lived closer.
It’s sad people won’t take control of the lives they lead,changing states and jobs could make life much nicer for most people ,but they just have no confidance in their ability to what they can do.Take charge of your life people ,our stay here is just to short
Most people are interested in the “lowest cost”. It’s pretty stupid. Nobody puts a value on their time.
People spend 2-3 hours commuting each day, yet they have about 2 hours to spend with their family before they goto bed and do it all over again.
-Richie
Huge Writedowns Hit Toll
By TSC Staff
2/8/2007 6:47 AM EST
Toll Brothers (TOL – Cramer’s Take – Stockpickr – Rating) said first-quarter revenue dropped 19% from a year ago, missing the Wall Street estimate.
http://www.thestreet.com/_yahoo/newsanalysis/businessinsurance/10337599.html?cm_ven=YAHOO&cm_cat=FREE&cm_ite=NA
Hold on tight////
I bet that number is much higher.
How many lie about their commute because they want lower car insurance rates?
I moved based upon the commericals from Universal Studio’s. Take Back your vacation time.
The deciding factor was my wife’s grandparent was on her death bed and the great and glorious Pfizer tried to deny me taking the time off to take my wife and kids to see her before she passed away shortly after. I never asked for time off in the previous 5 years and the one time I do I have to fight for it. I was only asking for a few days too not even the entire week.
Got to love Tek Systems and Pfizer for being the dick companies they are.
Brookings has a study which shows how now more than ever with higher gas prices that it is not worth the extreme commute.
Sally (2)-
Watch what you wish for. If all the sleepwalking drones like the one in this article wake up, it’s curtains for all of us.
People like “Bethany” are the economic infantry that we have to constantly feed into the grinder to keep things moving.
RE: Tick
This sounds very unPfizer like. I’ve been at Pfizer for 5+ years. I never worked for Teksystems, but their a bodyshop, so all they cared about was their cut.
What group did you work for?