Crosstown traffic
My commute in the evenings has been spectacularly bad lately. I can only assume it’s because some jerk on the freeway decided to brake for no good reason and back up traffic all the way to me, 22 miles away, sitting on a completely different freeway. Funny how that works. Not funny ha-ha, but funny that’s there’s no jerk-seeking missile built into my steering wheel.
Last night I passed a van pulling a hot-air balloon basket and I just don’t know why the guys didn’t take the hot-air balloon home because it would’ve been so much faster, plus they could’ve dropped objects onto the stupid braking-for-no-good-reason jerks.
I can tell right away whether my commute will be painless or shave 3 years off my life by the overpass board that says “FREEWAY TIME TO 42ND AVE.” On a good day it says 7 minutes. Last night it said 17. (Note: this isn’t the time for my whole commute; just a particularly thorny section.) Actual time it took: 21 minutes. I hate when the Overpass Board lies to me. It is my sworn enemy.
What’s more, I have to practially hump the car in front of me because if I don’t, someone always cuts me off. ALWAYS. And it goes without saying that whatever lane I’m in will be the one to stop for no reason, while the other lane hurtles 17 cars past me. Guaranteed.
I know there must be some way I can avoid getting caught in this nasty traffic, but I don’t have GPS and I have no direction-ascertaining abilities whatsoever, so I’m afraid I’ll pull off the freeway and find myself in Iowa 14 hours later. Tonight’s traffic will be fine because usually it’s just Tuesdays and Thursdays that are the worst, but I’m thinking next week I might try to find a detour.
You’ll probably never hear from me again.
How long is your commute? (Mine was almost an hour last night.)
I HATE COMMUTING. Seriously, my DREAM is to take public transportation to work and NEVER, EVER drive.
My commute is about 35 minutes each way. And that’s only because I leave the house at 6:45 and take the HOV lane both ways. On days I don’t have Ava it can take 45 minutes or more to get home.
BAH.
Comment by Tessie — June 5, 2009 @ 9:38 am
Gee, have road rage much? I kid but only b/c I don’t have to deal with traffic much these days, though when I do I go ballistic. Why are stupid people allowed to drive??
Comment by Shelly — June 5, 2009 @ 9:46 am
You are going to hate me, but my commute is 5 minutes. And that includes locking my apartment door, getting in my car and getting out of it at the ramp. I think the elevator in my building takes longer to come and get me in the basement and bring me to my floor than it takes for me to drive to work. If I had a bike I would totally take that (I live and work at the bottom of the hill, otherwise that would be a joke). Then my commute would probably be 15 minutes.
Ahh, the beauty of living in Duluth.
Comment by Becky — June 5, 2009 @ 9:48 am
Oh Minneapolis traffic, it sucks more than it should. The countless hours I have wasted away on 494 I will never regain. However, living in Chicago has changed my perception of bad traffic. There is nothing (aside from probably L.A.) that can top Chicagoland traffic. Just be glad you don’t commute here. I live in a corn field (it’s true, I really do) and therefore on a traffic-less day my commute is an hour each way. However, if I try to leave at a high commute time, it will take me two hours and then I will die. Thus, I leave for work at 5:30am and return to home at 6:00pm on the days I have to go to the office. All I can say, it god bless telecommuting.
Comment by Flibberty — June 5, 2009 @ 9:49 am
Girl, I do not even want to tell you about my commute because YOU might come by in a hot air balloon and drop shit on my car (7 minutes one way and I bitch if it take 2 minutes longer…)
This is why I do not – DO NOT – live/work in a big city. I was an evil driver, giving the finger left and right and raging against the stupid f***ers who could not drive. I swear big city driving is were I sprouted my first gray hairs!
Comment by Christina — June 5, 2009 @ 9:50 am
Oh ick! That is one of the major things I HATED when I lived in NJ. I lived 9 miles from work and it would take a minimum of 90 minutes to get home. I could have biked home faster (if I could have found a safe route to take haha). Sorry traffic sucks so much.
Comment by Sarah — June 5, 2009 @ 9:55 am
My commute is 10-15 minutes. But that’s because I’ve planned my work schedule to miss the majority of rush hour traffic. There are times when something happens on the interstate to cause a back up but I’m lucky in that there are several different routes that I can take. During the winter months it’s a completely different story. One day this past winter my normal 10-15 minutes turned into 3 hours. Was NOT happy.
Hope you are successful in finding an alternate route!
Comment by Sara — June 5, 2009 @ 10:13 am
I don’t have a commute, but I won’t rub that in your face.
I will say this. Our GPS has traffic and it has the ability to calculate the fastest route including traffic considerations. However, it never seems to change the route even if there’s a 25-minute delay. You can manually ask it to change the route but it doesn’t work very well. Usually when you do that it just tells you to take one exit before or after the exit you normally would have taken. And then it’s impossible to undo the “avoid traffic” thing you told it so you have to turn the whole thing off and reset it to go back to the original route. Very annoying. So, don’t feel too bad about not having that.
Comment by Jess — June 5, 2009 @ 10:37 am
my commute is about 40 minutes without traffic, and about 1.5 hours if something goes wrong on any road anywhere in the dc metro area. and i hear you on the bumper-humping. my parents get SO nervous driving with me because they hate how much i tailgate, but it’s the only way not to get cut off. at least when i’m tailgating i am in control of how close i get to the car in front of me; it’s when assholes start jumping into my lane with 3 inches between us that i get far more nervous.
Comment by Alice — June 5, 2009 @ 10:57 am
I think we have talked about this before–It takes me about 20 minutes to get to work in the morning. If I leave work at 4:45, it take me an hour to get home, if I leave at 5 it takes me about 45 minutes, and if I leave at 5:30, I am home by 6 at the latest. CA-RAZY!
There is this one spot on the thruway where there is a daily accident. You always know, that near the big blue water tower (which is how they refer to it on the radio) where 2 of the interstates merge via 2 skinny lanes, there will be 2 dolts blocking one of them because one has rear-ended the other. It’s a huge point of pain.
I’ve decided that If I am ever in an accident there, I am abandoning my car and skipping town, because what idiot doesn’t know better by now.
Comment by Saly — June 5, 2009 @ 11:18 am
If I were to travel from my door to my office, and the weather is fine and there’s no construction, my commute would be about 15 minutes. In reality I have to drop off 3 kids at two different places along the way, traverse a two lane “mountain access route” (frequently closed because it’s too slippery/someone has stalled or had an accident and is blocking the way) and dodge chronic construction somewhere along the route. In reality, I’m lucky if it’s an hour door to door. Fridays are usually better – the construction crews leave early.
Comment by LoriD — June 5, 2009 @ 11:41 am
My commute includes a stop at daycare where I have to convince my preschooler to stop doing arts and crafts and come with me. But I guess that (highly variable) part of my commute doesn’t actually count towards the drive time, so I will say 15 to 30 minutes. My drive is a frequent alternate route, so if the main freeway gets backed up I am out of luck.
Comment by My Buddy Mimi — June 5, 2009 @ 12:06 pm
I live about seven miles north of a small town. My commute is 15 minutes due to a spectacularly bad dirt road. A 15-minute commute is a really big deal/inconvenience around here.
I am spoiled, I know.
I hate it though. Not because of the time or anything. I just hate that I HAVE to drive. I hate cars. HATE. I wish I could walk to work. Oh, how I miss living in DC and having a 15 minute walk to work, walking past familiar faces, feeling a part of the energy of the city. Or, from my other neighborhood, I was a 25 minute Metro ride away and could read and read and read. MISS.
I want to bike to work but there is a particularly heinous section of highway where it is not wise to be on a bike and I would arrive at work very, very sweaty.
So.
Comment by Artemisia — June 5, 2009 @ 12:39 pm
I only live 2 minutes away from work. I will be moving at the end of June, and my new commute will be 15 minutes.
Comment by Tina B — June 5, 2009 @ 1:02 pm
O.K. the more and more I read your blog, the more and more I think that perhaps you live so close by to me that we could have doggie playdates.
When you invent that steering wheel device, let me know. I will buy TWO!
Also, speaking of GPS devices, perhaps you should buy this one:
http://www.hulu.com/watch/75863/late-night-with-jimmy-fallon-dave-matthews-gps
I hope that link works because this is hilarious!
Hope it can brighten your day,
Anne
Comment by Anne — June 5, 2009 @ 1:45 pm
I’m sorry…I know your commute is frustrating but I am laughing my boohiney off at this post. How awesome would a jerk-seeking missle in the steering wheel be?! I would LOVE one of those!
Comment by julie — June 5, 2009 @ 3:07 pm
Dude, Minneapolis traffic makes me HOMICIDAL. The perk of being laid off and unable to find another job is that from the hours of 6-9 a.m. and 4 to 6 p.m., I don’t have to be on the road. The other day, though, I planned badly and ended up stuck on 35W headed out of Minneapolis. The board that says “time until…” changed TWICE while I was sitting there. It went from 8 minutes to 12 to 17 and then I cried and debated ditching the car and walking home.
I would buy one of the jerk-seeking missiles if you would start selling them.
Comment by Buster — June 5, 2009 @ 4:01 pm
I live 4.7 miles from my job. It takes 6 minutes on surface streets and is wonderful. Unfortunately, two of the roads I take to get to work are under severe construction, so 6 minutes has become 30 lately.
Comment by Parkingathome — June 5, 2009 @ 4:45 pm
You should have some of these in the car to help…
http://www.thinkgeek.com/caffeine/wacky-candy/b96c/
My commute is usually 45 minutes to an hour. When I worked downtown, it was 90 minutes one-frickin’-way.
Comment by deni — June 5, 2009 @ 7:14 pm
I, too, live in the Chicago area. That is a broad term as I live actually 63 miles from Chicago. So on a bad day (one sprinkle of rain and everyone feels the need to slow to 35 mph,) my commute has been as much as 2 1/2 hours…one way. Leaving at 5:30 a.m. helps greatly; there is about a 15-minute window before traffic gets terrible. And hitting it right in the evening is truly a skill. There is often a window between 4:40 and 5:00 when for some reason there is less traffic, although it seems there should be more at that time. I’ve never figured that out. Yes, thank goodness for telecommuting as I could never make the trek to Chicago every day.
Comment by Joan — June 6, 2009 @ 11:38 am
Um, like 5 minutes. Don’t hate me.
Comment by slynnro — June 6, 2009 @ 5:30 pm
Jerk-seeking missile! OMG NEED ONE.
Also: I tried spelling “missile” FIVE TIMES without success, and finally had to ask the spell-checker. …Or I suppose I could have just scrolled up.
Comment by Swistle — June 7, 2009 @ 7:21 pm
The traffic was HORRIFIC on 94 E Friday. Well, all weekend in fact, I live near Grand Ave. and Grand Old Days coupled with 94E being shut down all weekend nearly made my head explode.
Comment by Grace — June 8, 2009 @ 9:43 am
Hey! I commute an hour each way every day, 5 days a week. It sucks, yes, but it’s also almost all driving time. There is very little traffic. I work in a large city and live WAY out in the country where it’s peaceful and quiet.
Comment by Shelly — June 8, 2009 @ 10:16 am
the time of my commute is really not bad, i do not have to get on any major roads but i do have to contend with certain things: like this…http://jnyfritz.wordpress.com/2009/05/26/driving-pet-peeves/
at least its not dirty jersey!!
Comment by fritz — June 9, 2009 @ 11:50 am
OMG. JERK-SEEKING MISSILES. Please invent this post-haste. I’m pre-ordering seven.
Comment by velocibadgergirl — June 12, 2009 @ 10:38 pm