[fjp]

Agreed, the one thing I have promised myself is to never have a commute over 35 minutes. I even found a 35 minute commute to an internship in the suburbs disheartening when it was mostly spent sitting in traffic.

It's insane to waste that much of your daily life shuttling to your job (if you have an option, which I hope to remain lucky enough to have).

[tasuki]

The commute is not the problem, the car is. In Amsterdam I commuted 45 minutes by bike and it was great. I really miss it now that I work from home.

[Nullabillity]

Or.. maybe people just have different outlooks?

I used to ebike for an hour each way, and it was torture. Now it's a ~20min drive and 30mins of the commuter train. Still pretty miserable, but at least it's not raining directly into my eyes anymore.

[Broken_Hippo]

Truthfully, though, the weather in Amsterdam isn't so bad. And wow, there is some infrastructure for biking! These two things combined would make biking so much better, but then you add in the average style of bicycle you see there: Comfortable seats with some space for traveling with stuff.

I have some of the infrastructure where I live in Norway, but I'm not brave enough to bike on the snow and ice in the winter. Walking is perilous enough.

When I lived in the states, biking was often dangerous and the fastest routes weren't always available to me. I lived in the countryside for years, close enough to bike by main roads, but it not only wasn't allowed on the best path, but it would have been dangerous. No shoulder, curvy road, and cars going over 55mph (over 80kph). It was illegal to ride on sidewalks, where there were sidewalks, and few cities had bike lanes outside of downtown areas (if that).

One job literally had no entrance other than off of a 4-lane divided highway: No biking or walking to that job.

Even if I got over those hurdles, there was often no where to safely put my bike while I was at work. Heck, some of these places didn't have anywhere to store cold things for lunch.

[ihaveajob]

This. I used to have a longish commute (about 1h door to door) but I took Caltrain, and that time was never wasted. I could work, connect with friends, or just unwind. The few times when I did that by car I ended exhausted. Throw in a weekly 3h bike ride to work to stay fit and it was quite excellent.

[st1ck]

If I happened to have a job in Amsterdam, Copenhagen or similarly cyclable city, I'd totally find a place with 1 hour bike commute from the office, to both save money on rent and get free cardio exercise.

[Dylan16807]

That's better but some days are bad for biking and more than seven hours per week spent on a bike is still a bit much.