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@carkawalakhatulistiwa

10 ай бұрын

Soviet microdistrict vs USA suburb

Car commuting is basically a second job that you need to do to get to your first job. Driving is not relaxing, it's labor. At it's best it's sports.

@edwardmiessner6502

10 ай бұрын

1 fast car, 1 slightly dangerous road. Sport!

@blisphul8084

10 ай бұрын

The sport is weaving through traffic to reduce your commute time as much as possible.

@top10cars2

10 ай бұрын

That's your opinion

@Jackie-rs6yc

10 ай бұрын

@@top10cars2That driving is labor or at it’s best it’s a sport?

@top10cars2

10 ай бұрын

@@Jackie-rs6yc That driving is labor. When there's a lot of traffic, it is annoying, but I generally find driving very enjoyable.

My dad used to drive over an hour to work and he gained wait, became very easily angered, and his relationships suffered... he doesn't drive so long and he's like a new man!

@caseyjones5145

10 ай бұрын

Omg this is me

@OscarOSullivan

9 ай бұрын

Great to hear

@Anonymous.24.

4 ай бұрын

What you mean by gained wait ?

@hugo98765

4 ай бұрын

​@@Anonymous.24.Obviously he had to wait more in traffic as a result 😮😮😊

I used to live in an apartment building in typical suburbia. Basically had to drive everywhere to get to your destination safely. I recently moved to a historic town that existed before the idea of suburbia and I am able to perform almost all my chores/activities by foot or bike. The rest I can take the bus too. I have found myself in a position where I am planning a trip in my car just so I can make sure it can run for a little bit. Since moving I've noticed some pretty rapid effects on my health. First I am no longer jumpy or paranoid. My blood pressure lowered from a prehypertension state to a normal range, my resting heart rate returned to what it was prior living in suburbia, I've lost just over 5 of the 15 pounds I gained and my GF has told me I seem happier than I used to be. I feel happier. All because I'm more active and less chronically stressed

@mardiffv.8775

10 ай бұрын

Good for you. 😊

@skyisreallyhigh3333

10 ай бұрын

When you do take your car out, go out on an early sunday morning. The world is quiet and all yours!

@gentronseven

10 ай бұрын

I walk more miles than I drive in a US city not made for walking at all, it's horrifically dangerous to walk. People have literally tried to run me over and you have to be able to run to get across the busiest streets fast enough. It's insane.

@cherriberri8373

10 ай бұрын

@@gentronseven Excluding road trips Im certainly the same, although my town is a little smaller and people are a bit better at ya know not attempting murder I still have found myself carrying a rock around now. People respect the rock but not my life

@OscarOSullivan

9 ай бұрын

Tram and train suburbs are very popular in Dublin Dún Laoghaire has it all and is an actual town with shops, public transport including a railway station and houses and apartments

Part of the reason I work third shift is that I don't have to deal with commute traffic. Very seldom there are random construction closures, but I also enjoy being able to have the middle of the day to go do things without being caught up in the rush - which also makes for better biking conditions as well. If your society is going to require everyone leave and return to their houses at the same time, it needs to diversify the choices on how to do so.

@logans3365

10 ай бұрын

Trains would solve our commuting problems quit Nicely, along with making the streets safe enough to walk and bike . 3rd shift is sooo hard on the body though, humans didn’t evolve to work at night, I like it, but not the way it makes me feel.

@kookamunga2458

10 ай бұрын

Driving is mentally draining . I take bus and bicycle and don't care if folks look down on me because I know car drivers are less healthy.

@kookamunga2458

10 ай бұрын

@@logans3365 I'm on 3rd shift now and it's a killer. I'm walking around like a zombie forgetting things nodding off and grumpy. Can't wait to get get back to day shift but there isn't any traffic to deal with on third shift .

What I hated about driving to work was the constant need to be vigilant. There were a bunch of stress-points where I had to pull into traffic that was moving fast, or change lanes in a certain window of the trip. It was a lot of mental energy to spend right before work, when I most needed that mental energy. Now I prefer two buses even though it takes 50% longer. I don't have to pay attention to anything. I literally watched this whole video on my morning commute.

I love that you mentioned that some people who work here in NYC commute hours by car. I know a guy who used to work with people who lived in Philly but worked in NYC, and the commute is TWO HOURS one way. Absolutely insane to me.

@dontgetlost4078

10 ай бұрын

If your commute is more than 90 minutes in one direction, you are labeled as a supercommuter. The fact this word exist with this rule should tell you enough.

@rockfire1669

10 ай бұрын

@@dontgetlost4078 if i had to commute more than 30 mins i would throttle someone.(i am okay with a 30 bike ride to work, i am not okay with a 30 min car ride)

@scottfrazer4669

10 ай бұрын

That is jaw-dropping. I don't understand why people like that don't revolt and demand high speed rail, ESPECIALLY along the northeast corridor. Philly to NYC would easily be 45 minutes by high speed rail and you could actually do work on the train or even just close your eyes and relax instead of the mind-numbing experience of having to drive a car.

@Demopans5990

10 ай бұрын

Nor do I even understand the need to. Sure all the good jobs are in NYC, and the rents are sky high, but you would actually have a better quality of life finding a job near where you live...

@yautl1

10 ай бұрын

@@zUJ7EjVD a long commute on public transit is infinitely more bearable though because you can do things like read or play games or watch videos while you're commuting, instead of having to deal with driving

I feel your story about telling people that driving is more dangerous and getting *blank stares* in return. IMO it has everything to do with the homeless/crime situation, since there's just no denying that sitting on a train is safer than driving.... This reaction is really more about people thinking that no one can stab/sucker punch you in your car alone, unlike on public transportation. But the stats show you are 100x more likely to be injured/killed while driving than being the vicitim of a random homicide on a train. Where I live in LA, almost no one seems to talk or think about the very real chance they will be a victim of traffic violence.. but everyone has heard that the metro is "unsafe" and many are quick to make it a conversation point even if they never have tried taking it. That's because theres a much more viseral reaction to being stabbed than getting into a car crash, due to the 100+ years of car culture 'normalizing' us to forget that driving is dangerous.

@enjoyslearningandtravel7957

10 ай бұрын

Also, there’s been some car jacking so just because you have drive a car does not mean you’re 100% safe besides the traffic accidents. Robbers can take a gun and just say to get out of your car and take it.

@Demopans5990

10 ай бұрын

Yep. People are desensitized to road rage in general. I do suggest all people try driving in NYC for a few days though

@ulrichspencer

10 ай бұрын

I suspect a significant source of this failure to accurately assess risk is because of the (perceived) nature of the risk. Random homicide in a train? Sensational and random, not much you can do to stop it, really captures the imagination. Dying in a car collision? Mundane and not completely random, and most people think as long as they're a good driver it won't happen to them. And of course most people overestimate their own driving skills... Overall, we wildly overestimate the risk of sensational, random violence, but wildly underestimate mundane and common risks that we perceive as non-random.

@Demopans5990

10 ай бұрын

@@ulrichspencer And of course, people think their insurance will cover them anyways (until it doesn't), a textbook moral hazard.

@garryferrington811

10 ай бұрын

Media does it's bit to frighten people about public transport. It sells ratings better than reporting "Another 800 people died in their cars today." Work out 42,000 traffic fatalities annually to a per-day basis. It's a lot.

As someone who is a driving enthusiast, there's a huge difference between "driving" (which can be stimulating and enjoyable) and commuting (which is something we tolerate/bear). My drive to work would be far better if people who didn't enjoy driving (or couldn't be bothered to take it seriously) could take public transit instead - but it'd also be great if I had the option to take public transit myself (and not need over an hour to get to work).

@Maderasdesign

10 ай бұрын

An hour!? Woof that’s a rough commute

@micosstar

10 ай бұрын

sheesh

@langhamp8912

10 ай бұрын

NIMBY'ism has put a quick and final stop to light rail transit, and buses are stuck in the same traffic hell that drivers of cars are. You need light rail because you need a dedicated lane than drivers don't take over. Same thing with protected bike lanes; the primary advantage being that the concrete barriers stop drivers from parking in the bike lane.

I feel very blessed to be able to walk half a mile to work each day in a walkable neighborhood. I used to commute by train at least 50 mins to work each way in Brooklyn and before that over an hour by express bus so defintiely know "long commuting" is a killer!

Hello, from Adelaide, Australia! This is an excellent video and I am glad the algorithm recommended to me. I work at our local international airport for over a decade, and for 7 years I drove daily 40-55mins to work. Over time and post-Covid, I became increasingly fed up with the psychotic and dangerous behaviour of our local drivers here and the never ending roadworks. Four years ago I began catching public transport to work, in the form of the bus, on a dedicated bus rapid transit line (The Adelaide O-Bahn, look it up, I promise you’ll like it!) that takes me from my suburb to work, I do it daily and one of few people in my workplace who exclusively commute by Public Transport. It has done absolutely wonders for me, it takes me the same or slightly quicker time to get to work but I regain the time I have by watching KZread videos or catching up on tasks I need to do. It has been a god send. So fair to say your video here completely rings true to me!

@garryferrington811

10 ай бұрын

The whole "car culture" deal is a bill of goods. Think of how much money we piss away on something we're going to throw away in a few years.

I went to university in Prescott, AZ and I have to say, driving in PHX is honestly terrifying. I've had some really close calls and seen some bad accidents...

I've been saying for years that car light is a much more attainable goal for more people in the USA than car free. We simply don't have the economic and especially the political will to make enough of America car free to make a difference. I've been car-light for 20+ years now and reduced my annual miles driven from over 15,000 a year to about 3,000 a year. My life is so much better!

@1981menso

10 ай бұрын

I am down to about 12k a year, because I have no safe way to bike to work. Good for you!

@SilverSlayer23

10 ай бұрын

Car-free is possible. But we can't expect it to happen in one wave. Car lite is going car free. You just need to avoid those who would do everything to stop it only at car-lite. We don't need cars. And car-lite to car free can start from neighborhood to neighborhood or districts.

@blores95

10 ай бұрын

Living in LA, I dunno if I can ever go car-free in my lifetime at the current pace of things, or at the very least I'd have to stop being able to visit family as easily because people live so spread out, but even just having 1 car for the whole family instead of one for every adult would do wonders for the environment, people's wallets, their health, etc. Not everyone is lucky enough to live close or direct enough to not need a car to get to work, but if people would stop thinking it's a worthy trade to live 30 miles from work just to have a bigger/cheaper house, we could make a lot of progress pretty easily/quickly since NIMBY's/politics are the biggest hurdles.

@1981menso

10 ай бұрын

@@blores95 Move to Santa Monica, dump your family in the Inland Empire. Problem solved. 😀

@Demopans5990

10 ай бұрын

Keep my car around sitting and doing nothing enough that I actively need to go out and turn on the engine for a few min so the battery doesn't die

Urban freeways are a mistake, I’d know I currently drive through rush hour traffic for my current job, a 40 minute drive there and back everyday, through bumper to bumper traffic. however, i live in a walkable neighborhood near a city center with low traffic streets, and just applied to a job that’s a 9 minute bike ride away, Traffic is one of the biggest reasons why I’m looking to leave this job, like you said, it’s too stressful on my mental health, and incredibly dangerous, I’ve been rear ended twice already, and I haven’t even worked there for a year yet 🤦‍♂️ Update: witnessed a multi-car collision pile up on the freeway yesterday, and people say it’s the safer mode of transportation 🤦‍♂️

@JakoWako

10 ай бұрын

Clearly you haven’t had to sit next to a commuter that just ate a spicy bean burrito!

Last year I sold my car and got a cargo e-bike. I only realized how terrible driving is once I was free from it. So many people just accept it because they can’t even imagine an alternative

@logans3365

10 ай бұрын

Or an alternative isn’t even available like in my cases, it’s cars or nothing

@whazzat8015

10 ай бұрын

Great tool, for the 0.5% of applications they fit. Rest of the time they are the worst of both worlds, with a destiny in a garage sale at 5% of their cost.

@scottfrazer4669

10 ай бұрын

@@whazzat8015 I don’t think anything you said is actually true. I’ve used my bike for literally everything since I bought it 1 year ago. I don’t drive at all! And 5% resale value? That’s preposterous. That would be $300. The battery alone could resale for that amount. Where I live these bikes are everywhere and there’s a good resale market

@whazzat8015

10 ай бұрын

@@scottfrazer4669 Glad you're part of the 0.5%. Some folks commute on skateboards. I just got a BBHSD from a guy that found a $600 battery eclipsed his utility and found it hefty for a paperweight. Batteries can of course be found for less , if you are not bothered by a small risk of fire.

@dandre3K

9 ай бұрын

@@scottfrazer4669Where I live there’s alot of hills and thieves, not riding a bike to work 😂

This title of this video really *spoke to me* I begrudgingly had to start driving recently so I could have enough time in the day to go to college and work. Although I am glad to be able to get where I need to go faster, I definitely miss being able to not be 100% alert and stressed for four 20-30 minute commutes a day. I wanna just like, read a book on the bus! But the buses only come every half hour or hour here, sooooooo uhhh

@perfectallycromulent

10 ай бұрын

i live on one of the busiest bus routes in the middle of boston. it can be half an hour between buses on bad days here too. welcome to the USA. no matter where you go, you might wait half an hour for a bus, at least at night and weekends.

As a native of the Los Angeles area, I went from enjoying the reduction of my commute to community college in the suburbs to absolutely hating driving once I moved to Long Beach for university. All family and friends were 30 mins to an hour away on a good day, and infinitely worse on days when we had to travel in inopportune times. The 405 and 605 both are horrendous at the best of times, and I feel always so exhausted once I'm done with the drive. As another commenter put it, it is a second job. This all contrasted with the buses I took to my community college, and again when I found the bus was equal to my drive to my Uni. No parking, cheaper pass, and time to do hw on the way? So much more preferable. I hate cars so goddamn much now, and hate that I must use one to get around in a timely fashion. I had always been a transit supporter, but even more so now than ever. I'm just hoping enough town planning changes and we invest in better public transit and land use. Thank you though for the video summing up all the negatives of the commute, the struck a lot of similarities in my driving locally!

@theonlyalecazam2947

10 ай бұрын

Really looking forward to the sepulveda pass subway (if it’s a monorail I give up). It’s a major step in improving LA transit

@alexyukon0823

10 ай бұрын

@theonlyalecazam2947 if I wasn't being priced out of the area, I'd be ecstatic to take it. Likely still will when visiting, but I'm with you hoping it isn't a monorail!

@theonlyalecazam2947

10 ай бұрын

@@alexyukon0823 Sorry that you're being priced out, I'm planning on getting in touch with the city to build more public housing.

@garryferrington811

10 ай бұрын

Did you know that in Tokyo, a city of 37,000,000 people, you can get anywhere in one hour (or less) by public transport? Of course, you do want to avoid "rush hour." It's also interesting that Tokyo can actually fit in 37,000,000 people. LA is apparently LOSING over a million this year. Yet, somehow, there's no affordable housing...

As one guy said to me once, "People tell me they move there (to the far exurbs of a major city) for the quality of life. I don't think three hours a day sharing the road with the socially maladjusted aiming SUVs at each other is the quality of life I'm looking for."

All-weather bike commuter here. I have mild anxiety, and the few times I've come to work in a car (specifically when I've been injured and unable to bike, specifically recently when I crashed and fractured my radius), my anxiety has been noticeably worse. This despite that said car commute is only like 15 minutes and happens outside of rush hour because of my wack-ass work hours. I have a long term goal of moving to Europe for the relative non-car-dependency. Also, partly because a Dutch woman my dad knows once told him "[your son] needs to get a European girlfriend, American women don't get guys like him." For the record, I've never met this woman.

@megc.9253

9 ай бұрын

Some of us do. I encouraged my husband to bike commute and he loves it. All seasons too. But yes these types of Americans may be rare, sadly.

Started cycling at the end of last year, makes everything so much better. My wallet, body, and mind are all better off. I still have a car for some trips that aren't practical by bike, but I'm on my third tank of gas for the year.

When I lived in Boston (yeah, the traffic really is as bad as they say) I saw more instances of road rage than I ever did on public transport. I actually saw one guy get out of his car, start freaking out on a driver, the driver starts to drive away and the angry dude hopes on the drivers hood and then went speeding down the highway. Wonder why that is... I also want to add that once I stopped driving a car, my stress levels went WAYYYYY down.

@chriswaters2327

10 ай бұрын

They are so impatient there. I like to get out at the stop sign and ask them why they are honking, Hilarious.

I used to have to commute 25 miles from Los Angeles to Orange County (thankfully only 4 days a week) and the commute was always the worst part of my day. The horrific traffic was soul crushing but it was so slow for the most part that I wasn't stressed, just annoyed and tired. Once I got an PHEV that was able to take the carpool alone, ironically my danger-stress went up because I'd try to drive moderately fast and SUVs and trucks would always fly by me in my much smaller car and it was awful. I've been lucky enough now to live 6-7 miles from work and take the bike/bus every day now. I might be slightly more tired from the exercise but my stress has gone down so far and my resting bpm has literally dropped several bpm in a few months. Of course riding the bike and taking the bus has its own safety issues at times (which people have commented on like you mentioned in the videos), but it's amazing how easy people are to brush off nearly getting into horrific accidents all the time in a car.

There was an advertisement that said it perfectly “9-5 is really 7-7”. Couldn’t have said it better. In most cases, housing close to jobs and big cities is unaffordable so most people, me included, look elsewhere-usually 10-20 miles away where the housing becomes affordable. But that involves a commute. I usually psychologically prepare myself (take my coffee, music and allow PLENTY of time). The number one stress is when you didn’t allow enough time and now you’re trying to rush. I know one person that lives right across the street from the job. He can wake up at 8:45 and still be early for 9:00! So jealous!

I take transit in LA. My girlfriend drives, after she was sexually assaulted on a bus here. I don't blame her.

@asaadlewis328

10 ай бұрын

Oh my god that’s terrible 😢

@hectora7479

10 ай бұрын

That’s terrible, i honestly don’t blame her either :(

@micosstar

10 ай бұрын

i hope she’s okay

I've been driving for 15 years, since I could start, and recently I moved to Philly and sold my car and I can not understate how life changing this has been. I'm less stressed, I don't have to worry about funding this money pit, worrying about other drivers. It's seriously amazing. It's been an adjustment, but 6 months without a car has reduced so much of my stress. If I need a car, I can rent one using ZipCar. But being able to bike, take the trolley, or the subway, less reliance on cars is a huge improvement on your quality of life and we really need to be highlighting people's happiness and less stress when we talk about tackling climate change and getting cars off the road/using cars less.

I have an hour long commute to college because it is a lot cheaper than living on campus, but it has definitely taken a toll on me. I'm even a car person who used to love driving, but now I don't find it fun most of the time. Stick shift helps but not enough. I feel like I get angriest when I am driving, I rarely ever have much anger otherwise. It is hard not to experience multiple bad drivers every trip even though almost half of my college commute is back roads. And since I spend hours a week driving, it takes up time I could be doing homework or actually relaxing. But going from a suburban area to a rural area means that there is no alternative to driving, no trains, no buses, and way too far (Not to mention unsafe) to bike. I have no choice but to drive in order to go to college while avoiding debt as much as I can. All I know is that once I graduate I am hoping to move to an area where I can walk/bike to all my necessary trips, and ideally also be near a train station, but I am not sure how easy it will be to do that.

@jeremywright9511

9 ай бұрын

And colleges do not at all cater to or prioritize commuting students. Icy weather? As long as the school grounds and immediate area are clear, classes are running even though where you live is still frozen over. Car troubles even though you've taken good care of the car and you are otherwise an A+ student? Tough luck. Ridiculous traffic jams and endless road accidents that can not be foreseen? Tough luck. Events on campus? Always at highly inconvenient times for commuters. Attendance/late policies/school events need a rework at least at the undergrad level so that students who clearly WANT to be there and drive all week to do so should not be subject to such a sense of un-belonging and stress.

@SgtKaito

8 ай бұрын

@@jeremywright9511 I have had literally all of those experiences lol. It's rough out here.

Seems like Americans simply don't get any driving lessons, or there's just a complete lack of rules. For instance, you can pass on the left AND right?! You got stop signs instead of priority lanes?! That's nuts! I bought a 250$ bike 5 years ago, (had to change a tire once and recently I WD40'd the crap out of it) i still use it daily and never drive a car. Now that's what freedom feels like! (Yes I live in NL) Bill Burr's Guide to Driving Etiquette says it all about driving in the US! Video's like these will bring the change, keep it up!

My grandfather commuted to work every day using the freeway to downtown Los Angeles. Then once the gold line (now A line) was built, he took that. “Built it and they will come” as they say

On a Sydney Train rn reason why PT is sooo rated poorly is that: Lack of maintenance, frequent delays, not enough drivers, soo many track works, issues, shutdowns, emergencies and whole network shutdowns every second month it seems. It was enough chaos for me to start riding a bike in the mornings... which I pleasantly enjoy if it weren't for riding on very fast streets. If available, just walk for communting, it is my most recommended mode. still PT beats driving imo, as you can just relax whilst on the very delayed train if you grab a seat. And it takes you from the city to some random suburb you call home pretty easily.

This is actually a really good comeback when people ask me “isn’t the light rail dangerous?!” Um, hundreds of people died in car crashes in this country today alone…

I 100% agree I has a 50m commute into NYC everyday, It destroyed my soul. I saw road rage daily and horrific accidents regularly. Im semi retired in the last year and have a home office, If I had to point to the one thing about being retired that changed my life for the better, its not the free time or the sleep or the the ability to travel, it would be not commuting.

I had a not great public transit commute for years. I live in the suburbs of D.C., where public transit is...not great. As frustrating as it could be, though, I'd never have traded it for having to drive. Driving in this region is a danged nightmare. It was a nightmare before Covid, and something about Covid opened the floodgates for totally bats#!t driving. There is now, quite literally, not a single time I leave the house that I don't see some completely unhinged driver activity. In just the last two weeks, I've almost been hit three times, once while going through a crosswalk in a large group, when someone in an SUV decided to turn through it without looking. Twice while on a sidewalk when someone decided the road wasn't enough for them. And red lights? What are those? Every red light I see is accompanied by two or three cars speeding through it. After reaching out to the police, I've found that they simply don't care. They've made that abundantly clear. You've got media outlets in D.C. wringing their hands and gnashing their teeth because a few people jump the fare gates at Metro stations, but totally silent on children being run over on their way to school, or college students trying to cross the street, or friends sitting in a sidewalk café, or just people trying to exist outside of the home.

@Arginne

3 ай бұрын

Dc people don’t care ab the children!

Speaking from my experience talking to friends and family, I think a lot of people just kind of ignore any statistics related to preventable accidents. I’m not sure if it’s because they don’t see it as preventable - the classic “but I need my car to get where I need to go” mentality - or what. On the other hand, people have a tendency to focus to an unreasonable degree on the perceived risk of intentional violence. Like yeah, going anywhere where there are a lot of people presents a nonzero risk of being intentionally hurt by one of those people. But driving always presents a risk that is, realistically, orders of magnitude higher. But it just doesn’t work in people’s brains for some reason.

I find most stressful commute situations is driving in large downtown city streets. Yes, while potential for fatal accidents is greater on busy highways or high speed arterial roads, the potential for any type of accident is greater in a busy downtown street. I am never more stressed then when driving through downtown Toronto, there's more potential for accidents everywhere. Tons of pedestrians, cyclists, aggressive drivers, speed cameras, red light cameras, construction everywhere, all these things put me on edge. Try to avoid driving there if at all possible and thankfully I do not work there, but used to have to go there everyday for school.

@Frostbiker

10 ай бұрын

Drivers being stressed due to the presence of pedestrians and bicycles is ironic given that neither of them is a danger to cars. Meanwhile, those same pedestrians and cyclists are in very real danger due to cars. Nobody likes traffic, but only some people realize their own car *is* traffic and choose to stop imposing it on other people.

In Phoenix i get to bike to work daily on the canal path. Safe, predictable. Serene. Quiet. I am lucky that my job and my home both are right off the canal path. There should be bike infrastructure like this all throughout the city. Many coworkers in my office worry about my safety biking. So many people have distorted risk tolerance when it comes to driving.

I guess I have been lucky. I've never had to own a car. Early in my career I had a few hour long commutes by bus, streetcar, ferry or BART, but then I got assignments overseas. On my first I was put up for a year in a five star hotel and an assigned driver took me daily to the site about an hour away. My second lasted almost two decades. I was provided with an apartment across the street from work and it wasn't considered taxable income for technical reasons. Now I am back in the states in a house with both walk scores and bike scores of 98. As I said, Lucky! (and retired)

Couldn’t agree more. I used to drive but now ride my bike or take the subway to work (in NYC). No question my life is better.

My old commute involved crossing the entire north-south breadth of a city. Most days I was able to 1) ebike or 2) park on one end and take the bus to the other end. Most days, my commute was either some light exercise or leisure-ish time to read/listen to podcasts. On the days when that didn’t work for whatever reason and I had to drive, I HATED it. The other drivers, the red lights, the bottlenecks. My stress was through the roof and I would be frazzled and short-tempered for the rest of the day.

I used to live in a suburb that’s a 20 minute drive out from my work. Despite my enjoyment of podcasts and using driving as space to think, when I moved to a new home that was a 30-minute *walk* to work through a nice neighborhood, I felt better mentally and physically. It wasn’t life changing but it’s enough that if my office/home locations change, I’d try to find a way to not drive.

@mistress.villaina7591

10 ай бұрын

haha I also tell myself about podcasts and thinking to make myself feel better but honestly I could do both of those while walking, or just being at home cleaning or doing many other activities 😂

Finally, someone stated what I've been thinking. Its really shocking how casual people are about driving, when it's by far the most dangerous thing most of us do on a regular basis. Combine that with the amount of extremely reckless and aggressive drivers, who very rarely get punished for it, and I end up enraged almost every time I drive anywhere. This definitely isn't a system where well-being or long term sustainability was factored in.

How do people prefer driving to work if commuting by car is THIS stressful. A small segment of the population who drives could take public transit to work, so why don’t they?

@rishabhanand4973

10 ай бұрын

they just straight up don't realize how much more dangerous driving is than taking transit. They are the exact people who fall for the fearmongering of "crime" in public transit.

@ThomasFromPHX

10 ай бұрын

If their alternative is unreliable buses that come once every 30 minutes (that get stuck in the same traffic cars do), then most people are still going to put up with driving. Transit can only be competitive with cars when it's fast, frequent, and goes where people want to go.

@collectivelyimprovingtrans2460

10 ай бұрын

@@ThomasFromPHX but there’s still the whole “if they’ll all get in the same traffic, I’ll sit on the bus so I can be on my phone.” Works in some places, but America seems too car centric. It does make sense though

@rishabhanand4973

10 ай бұрын

@@ThomasFromPHX and it can only be those things if people support funding it. which is basically the entire conundrum.

@1981menso

10 ай бұрын

My wife is afraid of being physically assaulted on public transit. When she was younger she was assaulted by a man with a knife.

As a transit bus driver myself, traffic is what stresses me out more than the passengers on the bus, and we're in a car-dependent city.

My forty-one mile commute could take as long as TWO HOURS some days here in Massachusetts. I know practically no one who has a commute that takes less than an hour. Thank you for bringing to the forefront what many should already know. And corporate America still rails against tele-commuting!

Great video! I've heard long car commutes described as stressors that are both unavoidable and unpredictable. You can't really adapt to a car commute, because you never know what it will be like when you go out to face it every day. The only thing that helped a little, back when I drove across LA for work, was taking surface streets instead of the freeway. At least I was driving through real places and could see things. But even being able to do that street-level commute was a huge privilege, because the distance was much less than most commutes. We all deserve a way out of this.

Love your videos and glad to see another Arizonan interested in better city and traffic design! FWIW I realize everyone thinks their local drivers are the worse, but as someone who's travelled most of the country, I can say with certainty that Phoenix and Tucson are by far the most dangerous and stressful places I've had to drive. I also commuted in Phoenix for a year and was nearly involved in a traffic accident every week at speed. I also had that "heinous maneuver" pulled on me as well up in Glendale, except it was on a left turn with oncoming traffic. I am stunned about it to this day! Anyway, I love recognizing all all of the video locations while watching good urbanist content!

I used to commute by subway at high school and it was a big upgrade to being driven to school before that. You can read, talk to your friends, play on your phone, or even do homework on the train. When I went to uni, I lived very close, so I walked, however I would sometimes walk to the city centre just so I can catch a train home and experience the nostalgia for my high school commute lol. I am surprised metro/subway often ranks so poorly in these studies.

I'm proud to say I've never owned a car in my life. Grew up in the 80s in the suburbs, and even then, I recognized how awful commuting was. For the past 20 years, I've been living in a city where I primarily ride my bike, walk, take public transportation, and occasionally do ride share or rent a car when I need to. People regularly mistake me for being 10 years younger, and with the money I saved from not owning a car, I was able to buy my house back in 2015.

My commute is over an hour, it’s torture, and it makes wanting to do things really hard when you have to drive so far.

As a trucker, I have seen people so some pretty heinous things on the road. Another aspect of it is the fact that they are enclosed in a bubble of anonymity. I have only ever seen bicyclists road rage a handful of times when I lived in New Orleans but I would be a millionaire if I had a dollar for every time my life was put at risk by someone on an expressway. People are less likely to make the connection that there is a person in the car as opposed to other modes of transportation.

After taking a train and bike commuting, I will never work a job that I can't walk, bike or easily take public transit to. It's soul sucking, inefficient, and dangerous. Biking is by far my favorite and relatively easy where I live

As someone who lived close to New Braunfels for many years, Canyon Lake to be specific, the transformation that the town has gone through has been an eye-sore to say the least. The area you showed was the intersection of FM 306 and I-35. 20 years ago, there was literally nothing out there except an Exxon and a Shipley's; and while one couldn't call New Braunfels walkable or sleepy back in the late 90s or early 00s, it had a concrete downtown and a fairly reasonable core. Now, its either a pitstop on the way to Austin or San Antonio (it's about halfway to either) or maybe getting stuck trying to find parking for Schlitterbahn. Sprawl is getting so bad that it doesn't just make cities worse, it ruins the small towns in it's wake as well, though in the case of "Crystal Lake", there wasn't much to ruin to begin with.😂

I'm from Europe and car traffic sucks here too, we just don't have roads and highways as big as north America. Luckily my town has everything I really need including my job and I can get from one end of town to the other in 15 minutes on a bicycle. And the highways in my country only have two lanes, the driving lane and the passing lane. Unfortunately there is a lot of trucks so traffic moves slowly on the driving lane, which makes most people drive on the passing lane all the time and it leads to this weird scenario where the driving lane only has trucks for the most part with huge amount of space between them and a whole lot of cars on the passing lane barely going faster than the trucks, slowing down and speeding up all the time because they don't keep a distance between each other. I started to just drive behind trucks, keeping a nice, long, safe distance behind them, keeping a steady speed. Meanwhile on the passing lane people are bumper to bumper, barely any faster than I am. When I first did that it was because I was fed up with someone being on my ass and the cars in front of me suddenly slowing down by 20 or 30km/h and then speeding right back up. And after about 10 kilometres the car that was behind me before only gained about half a kilometer of distance from me, all the while keeping a very unsafe distance and slowing down and speeding up all the time. It's much less stressful going slower behind a truck than it is trying to get 5 minutes faster to my destination.

Currently I work from home, and I love it! I can get so many chores done during work and with the time I save not commuting. The only commute I preferred was when I was in college and had a 30 minute walk to class. That time to just listen to music and unwind was so good for me, and the walking was great for my health

Chicago Transit Authority rider here. My commute is CHILL. It’s 45 minutes one way and it’s purely my coffee/podcast/stare into space time. is there occasional weirdo? Sure. But I’ve commuted on the CTA trains for 20 years (since age 14). Very few issues. Even with service taking a hit post-COVID.

Fantastic video. I live in Midtown PHX and have a tiny commute (usually by bike) to work. Most of my colleagues are way out in the burbs with terrible commutes. So glad to see someone in Phoenix making excellent urbanist content like this 😊

quick correction but achskully 🤓 the episode of always sunny at 0:21 was not season 1 episode 1 but season 11 episode 5 "Mac & Dennis Move to the Suburbs"

@ThomasFromPHX

10 ай бұрын

Shoot, you're right, I don't know how I got that mixed up

Los Angeles resident here, I have to suffer through traffic at 11am, I have to suffer through traffic when I go home at 9pm, and I have to suffer through traffic the whole day because I drive for a living

My morning commute is just the beginning of the misery. I’m a courier and drive for a living in a busy suburban shit hole of a town in rockland county NY. I see accidents everyday. Car on fire yesterday, car flipped over today, it’s crazy and stressful. Driving is so dangerous here. My dream is to get a remote job and travel around by boat.

I personally don't mind my commute because its almost never busy with traffic so i can sit and listen to music while cruising. However that being said when there is traffic the first thing that comes to my mind is "how can people do this every morning"? American public transit seriously needs a massive rework because this current model is completely unsustainable.

These videos are spot on. Keep it going bro

as a driver (and staunch urbanist) 1: buy a dashcam, its practically nessecary equipment in the modern day 2: you got it exactly right, driving commutes are horrific, even in the slightly better place of canada.

@eksbocks9438

10 ай бұрын

Because Canada doesn't have that strong of a "Rude Factor." Compared to the United States. It's there. But over here, it's on a completely different level.

@yukaira

10 ай бұрын

@@eksbocks9438 take a drive on the 401, see if that holds true, lol

I used to have a job in downtown Seattle. I drove the first day from a suburb 15 miles north of downtown, and hated the commute so much that I decided to take the bus into work thereafter, and I continued doing so until Covid hit. I don't have that job anymore, but I miss that commute. I've changed jobs and now commute to another job in the suburbs. I've looked into taking the bus but it takes so much longer than driving (due to multiple transfers) that I've never done it. However, whenever I go into downtown Seattle, I never drive anymore, especially with the new light rail being extended further north. I have sworn off driving into downtown from now on, the light rail is that much better!

Because of family illness, I have to commute roughly 146 miles, & a 3 hour commute everyday. Not only is it the stress of other drivers, but the ever increasing gas prices eating away like a cancer upon my savings. Even in a fuel efficient vehicle. I still have to refill the gas tank every other day to make the commute.

When I lived in a walkable town in Germany, and bikeable, I could eat croissants and some other high calorie food such as the wonderful cheeses and not gain weight. And I had to move back to my original town in the United States and I have to drive everywhere and I’ve gained 15 pounds and also the portions in the United States in restaurants. If I do eat, there are much much larger and usually not as good quality food.

@uzin0s256

10 ай бұрын

whats your hometown?

@micosstar

10 ай бұрын

generally European cities fare better in public transportation; still, good question to ask as select European cities have succumbed to some suburban development

despite living in chicago at the time, the first job out of college i had was a reverse-commute to the exurbs. ~1h drive morning and afternoon. i only did that for 3 months before i got a better, walkable/transit-accessible job with a much shorter commute, but those 3 months were full of psychic damage, even as a reverse-commute (probably *exacerbated* as a reverse commute, for the same reason you said about traffic but with high speeds). if i had kept doing that, i think it was almost inevitable that i would be involved in a bad accident. these days, even though my commute is nearing the same ballpark in length (40-45m or so), the fact that most of it is on a train is 100000000000% better. i can just read, goof off, or even close my eyes and rest. traffic is mind-numbing, man.

Love your stuff Thomas keep it up!

Ironically the advertisement before the video was for an auto accident law firm….

I walk home from work, but I take the bus to work because walking is stinky and dangerous. I'm actively breathing exhaust the whole way, and drivers are running late and less willing to let me cross the street.

@logans3365

10 ай бұрын

Yah walking next to streets is terrible, car fumes feel awful to breath, I run on country roads, and every time a car passes it’s like a heatwave flying by, and the air gets real heavy.

I grew up driving the Chicago area roads and highways from the far west suburbs into the city on and off for about 35 years and have been driving the highways in Phoenix for the last five years. The only road in the valley I avoid is I-10. I love driving and it is very relaxing to me. I tried taking the train from the Chicago suburbs into the city and found the schedule many times didn’t work and would stress me out more than driving. As far as attention, yes when driving, the drivers attention should be on the road. To each their own, if someone doesn’t like to drive or is afraid to drive they should live in the city….. I will take suburban or rural living all day long.

Not only does driving make raise your blood pressure, weight gain, etc, living in such far-flung suburbs is so depressing for most. I grew up in a rural town in New England that had old homes and walkable - you usually saw people out walking or stop and talk to someone sitting on their porch. when I moved to Phoenix I always said besides being on the roads “where are all the people?” - The fact I was living in a city of a million people but it seemed so empty messed with my mind. I lasted a year and moved back to a major east coast city with walkability/bicycling and been here ever since! But now so many of the older rural towns are empty and decaying because those people moved to places like Phoenix - feeding the vicious suburban sprawl while letting these great old towns die out

I had around a 20-50min commute depending on when my shift was and I HATED it. I hated how it made me act as well. I was always my most irritated in my car. Like sometimes I would literally scream, it made me feel so disgusted the way my emotions got the best of me during my commute. I did the commute for less than a year but God knows I couldn't have done it for much longer. I'm car free for now, and hopefully that will last because it's so much better for my well being.

This makes me feel pretty good about my situation. Its 12 miles one way, 85% highway, two traffic lights. I go in early (6:30 am) to avoid peak rush so I am on the road less than 15 minutes. I do 65-70 mph. Once in a while if I stay late to get stuff done I put myself into peak evening traffic and have on bottleneck to deal with that adds 5-10 minutes to my commute. About once a year their may be an accident or bad weather that might double my commute. All this is inside the St Louis 'beltway'. Maybe self driving cars will help take some of the stress , road rage, and negligent driving out of this in a few years?

This was a part of why I quit my job last year. I’m so grateful to work from home now.

I'm in Dallas , where fully 10% of the drivers feel they can only survive driving, by assuming that the remainder need to be shoved off the road. WHAT SAVED ME WAS HYPER MILE-ING, driving for sport of low mileage, as an exercise in mindfulness and cooperation. and this after 350K of motorcycling, split between commuting and long distance touring. With motos, your risk is 30+ X driving. you get mindful , as death is 0.30 seconds away. 4 sec in a car.

I could have told you that, I don’t understand why we don’t get paid for long commutes for work. Like that’s quite literally part of work and so is getting ready for the job, I know it’s un practical but that’s how I feel

So glad I stopped driving in LA (after two of my cars were destroyed in over night hit and runs - one whole I was homeless and sleeping in the car). Biking and taking transit can be a challenge, but I'm pushing for LA to be less car oriented.

I live in Surprise, but commuted to ASU. What you said about the I 10 is true. Constant tailgating, swerving, and stop-and-go traffic. Even outside rushour it can get messy at the stack and mini stack interchanges. I drive to ASU west and take the shuttle and the commute is somewhat tolerable, but its still a commute.

@Demopans5990

10 ай бұрын

Eh, as a NYC driver, the I 10 drive looked quite tame (End sarcasm)

Great video! Absolutely spot on with your presentation! I do not have to drive to work thankfully but on occasion I do and I leave early in the morning and I take the scenic route home to avoid paying high toll and then stuck in traffic. I prefer biking and remote work.

I used to have a commute that was about 17 miles, either on a congested freeway by car, or on busy surface streets with little bicycle infrastructure by bicycle. The bike commute would take 90 minutes and was very stressful, so I rarely did it, and instead suffered through the solo drive to work. About a year ago I moved to a new location that was near a separated multi-use path that was part of a network that went all the way to my office. I got an e-bike (for higher speeds). Now I ride my e-bike on a pleasant, car-free route every day, and it is literally the second best commute of my life. The only better commute is when I lived a 10 minute walk from my office in Tokyo! Active commute modes really are the great, with the caveat that having low stress routes makes a HUGE difference!

This is a big reason why I choose to live in the city where I work. I have an enjoyable 10 minute drive or 20 minute bike ride through calm residential streets and light arterial roads. Some people I work with live over an hour away. That's two hours of their lives each day, five days a week, spent driving just getting to and from work. Two hours where they need to be focused, alert, and stressed over congestion, construction, and other drivers. To each their own, but to me that's no way to live.

im from toronto i live downtown, only drive on weekends, walk and bike evrywhere and i love it, especially during party nights

I’m in Atlanta myself. It’s really frustrating that so many jobs here are in the outer suburbs (Duluth, Marietta, Alpharetta etc). If I have to work in an outer suburb it doesn’t make sense to live in the city, so I’ll end up in a car dependent suburb. Luckily many of these suburbs are improving walkability in their downtown region but it’s still mostly single family homes and 6 lane stroads.

@nishiljaiswal2216

10 ай бұрын

decatur is decent

@micosstar

10 ай бұрын

thanks for sharing - by: mico st⭐️ar holo, a man.

I used to drive 2 x 30 km/ 19 miles = 60 km/ 38 miles per day. Then I moved to the city of Utrecht, the Netherlands where I work. Now I am cycling 15 minutes one way and I never get stuck in traffic. No stress, only some kids on their bikes going to school. That is my only slight delay. A friend of mine bought a velomobile (the fastest bike around, no Electric motor) to travel 15 km/ 9.4 miles to his job one way. Same story of no stress and only fun.

I'm of the Joneser generation and for about a year and a half after I graduated from college I had a job in northwest Miami-Dade County and lived in southwest Miami-Dade. This was in the mid 80s when average commuting time was 20 minutes. Do you know how long it took to drive from my house to my car in morning rush hour traffic? 1 hour. And it drove me crazy! Even when I had to take the bus it wasn't as stressful, in a time when locals said, "Metrobus is mean to us!"

@logans3365

10 ай бұрын

Just imagine how nice a metro train would have been

Great video as usual, (except your last one), hopefully all the comments on that last video helped you realize that most of Arizona (including Phoenix) is not in a natural environment that is conclusive to large scale human habitation. I appreciate your hometown pride, however these is a lot more potential for good urban design via revitalizing the Rust Belt region, where there is actually a good amount of precipitation.

@grahamturner2640

10 ай бұрын

Though I wonder if the rust belt will still be decent when it comes to climate change.

@UserName-ts3sp

10 ай бұрын

@@grahamturner2640plenty of water and the growing season could be extended.

4:30 That's why we have the "Rechtsfahrgebot" in Germany. You drive as far right as you possibly can, unless you are overtaking someone. Sadly some people don't follow this rule, but if everyone would, we wouldn't have these problems.

@enjoyslearningandtravel7957

10 ай бұрын

I actually thought we had this rule in United States. Also, I thought we also had to drive on the right unless passing someone but if we have this not many are following it.

Grew up north of Chicago in the 50's and 60's, dad always took the L then later switched to the then CNW passenger train walking to the stations from home and work. Years later I ended up working in a small "city" with lots of steep hills, driving commute from 3 to 8 minutes as the office moved a few times - bicycle would be about the same to three times as long depending on direction. Recently drove through New England to New York... how in the F*** do people put up with that???, took 5 camping days and about a 100+ miles of remote cycling for me to destress.

idk I live in europe and I don't even own a car, I walk, cycle and take transit basically everywhere.

@logans3365

10 ай бұрын

Please send us help 😭

Amazing video. I totally understand what you're saying. Driving stresses my out. I take lower pay for WFH.

I used to live near downtown Salt Lake City and commute to jobs in the suburbs, the opposite direction of the heaviest traffic. I started a career in property management last year and now live at my job. I only need to walk a few steps across the lawn as a commute. Best decision ever. A lot of stores and restaurants are also in biking distance in my new home as well.

_Having lived and worked throughout our Valley for more than 35 years, I can totally relate to the KZread vlog you recently posted here. I think if a person has an extremely short commute(say less than five minutes) while living in a very expanding demographic area like Phoenix and surrounding cities can literally be stress-free. For me over the years, I've framed it like this: the time traveled to and from your job is surely not part of your salary, henceforth 99% of the time I've been fortunate enough to live close to my job. (Besides the traffic has gotten much worse, and the quality of good drivers on the road has gone exponentially down)._

love your videos man

I lived in Phoenix for five years and recently moved to another Arizona city, I came to visit Phx a week ago and the number of aggressive drivers seemed higher than I remember--being there for five hours, we were aggressively cut off by 5 different drivers on the highway in the same day. Phoenix is miserably car centric, which is a bummer because I miss the access a big city has to things to do but driving sucks.

Drive from Gilbert to South Tempe for my commute. Speeds can go from 80 to 20 to stop then back to 80. It’s only going to get crazier as Queen Creek sprawls. San Tan is next in the sprawl path.

Today I made the dumb mistake of brake checking a gigantic truck behind me (I drive a tiny little 2013 Ford Fiesta) who just HAD to drive 10 miles over the speed limit in the middle of town. I gunned it right away and safely pulled ahead before turning off to my workplace a few blocks later. “Ha!” I thought. “I sure showed that jerk how dangerous not obeying the law can be! Maybe he won’t try to crowd the next tiny little car he thinks he can bully.” A few blacks later, I turned into my workplace but noticed the guy was turning in tandem with me. At first I thought the guy was going to show me what for when I got out to head into work, but what turned out to arguably be even worse ended up happening: He was going to be the store’s next customer! I figured the couple of minutes it would take for me to get punched in and prepped would be long enough for him to get his meal and leave without me having to face him, but he had a pretty sizable order that took the cook several minutes to get done. Nope, I couldn’t start on my usual early-morning task that is usually mandatory for me or else we will get too busy for it to get done all afternoon. I had to bring that food back and respectfully thank him and tell him to have a good day. And I hope you did have a good day, sir; you and your forcibly manly, oversized truck you likely just own for show. Just because someone else is being stupid on the road doesn’t mean you should be stupid in turn to show them their stupidity in kind. The chances are that you’ll be embarrassed that you stooped down to their level and feel like less of a human being. Or the worst can happen . . . Like getting rammed by a three-ton truck inside your half-ton commuter car you were so confident you knew could take a risk.

I'm so glad i live in a place with decent transit and bike infrastructure. (not amazing, but okay). I visit friends, buy groceries, do doxtors appointments and errands etc by foot and by bike. My car basically just gets used on weekends for trips to the beach or the mountains, and sometimes if my doctors office schedules me at one of the further away clinics. But 90% of my errands can be done without driving. I estimate that I've saved an extra 8000 a year for the past 4 years which is going towards the down payment on my investment property. And I've lost and kept off about 30 pounds too. And my mental health is much better. You couldnt pay me to commute again!!

I had to commute 15+ miles each way for 7 f*cking years, on a HORRIBLE interstate, and the only way I could tolerate it was to go into work very late, and go back home very very late. That alone saved me a full 90 minutes per day. It's insane how the US has chosen the worst way of doing almost everything.

Car commuting is variable. I had a commute or less than 15 minutes, and it was the same drive as going to the mall, because the office was across the street from the mall. No limited access highways, and there were multiple routes, if any one route had construction. While commuting by rail gave me a chance to read the paper or talk with friends/co-workers, driving meant listening to music or talking radio.

@logans3365

10 ай бұрын

On the train you can always use headphones for your music needs, but there’s no way to read while driving

Two things from a german perspective that always drives me crazy about driving in the US: 1. Why is it so easy to get a driver’s licence? It feels like it is easier and cheaper to get a driver’s licence than buying alcohol in some states. Why don’t you spend more time in educating people how to drive properly? It doesn’t have to be as high-Standard as in Germany but maybe a midway? 2. Why don’t you have basic traffic rules on highways? In Germany (and also in all other European countries I guess) we have a thing called Rechtsfahrgebot. Which means you always have to use the right lane. You may only leave it for overtaking another car on the left side. Overtaking on the right side is strictly forbidden. This rule alone takes off so much stress. Mainly, you only have to focus on your left to anticipate if someone is trying to overtake you or not.

Although both of my parents drive to work, the are 20mins or less only on local roads, I never wanted to have a commute longer than that (at least driving-wise). Why should I waste more than an hour a day multiple days a week just trying to get to the same location?

@Marcel_Audubon

7 ай бұрын

To keep you away from the general public for as long as possible every day (at the request of the general public)