Big City Living

I live in NYC, I choose to take public transit over driving most of the time, because driving is more hassle. Not only would I have to contend with bumper to bumper, and accidents, and erratic drivers, and weather conditions, and construction, lane closures, and occassional presidential motorcades, but then there is the search for parking (45+ minutes) on either end because of meter rules, street cleaning rules, alternate side of the street parking, no standing, no loading, no stopping, bus lanes, bike lanes, etc etc.

Best,
F. B.

I live about 25 miles west of downtown Chicago. In rush hour traffic I give myself about 1 hour to 1 hr 15 minutes to get to/from downtown. On a weekend I can get there in just about 30 minutes.

Edited to Add:
I agree with Suz that you just get used to it and budget more time. I found a new talk radio station one day, 9 years ago, while sitting in traffic. Now that I've been a SAHM for 5 years, I NEVER get to listen to talk radio.

It's all relative, IMO. But I will say that in my area, "rush hour" is hours long and only compares to my hometown traffic when the hometown has a big festival or race weekend. In no traffic, I can get from here to my old job site in 30 mins. In traffic, it was often 45 or more than an hour, mostly bumper to bumper around the 495 parking lot. Sometimes it would be a stand still and heaven forbid there was even a small accident. We have what you call "rubbernecking delays" aka not in your lane, but you need to slow down and look. I choose not to drive IN DC, and try to also avoid Rockville and Bethesda. I hear LA is far worse, though.

my husband, who deals with DC every day, assures me that once you're used to it it's not so bad. you just know that going anywhere is going to take longer, and adjust your plans. especially around rush hours.
i'm such a hick, though. driving the city gives me the heebie-jeebies. when i need to go to DC, i drive to the 'burbs and take the metro.
can't do that in baltimore, so i just go to great lengths to avoid the need to go into the city to the degree i can. i find baltimore less terrifying, although every bit as exasperating.
i think if i lived in a city i'd be one of those people who just took public transportation everywhere, and just kept the car for out of town trips. i don't have the temperament to be a city driver.
khairete
S.

I live North of Houston but I work in Houston. So, its about 15/20 miles. It can take anywhere from 45 minutes to 2 hours. Just depends.

Most of the time, I do not use the highways. I go secondary roads. It moves faster than the highway. I can tell a difference in the summer and Fridays because traffic is lighter.

I don't judge distance by mileage its by how long it takes me to get there. "I live about 45 minutes away" as opposed to "I live 5 miles away". =)

I HATE traffic! I would love to move closer in BUT I really enjoy not living in the city. Its a double edge sword! I try to make the most of my time in the car. I call family and friends so that when I get home, I am all focused on hubby!!

I live in Chicago on the north side - about 2 miles from Wrigley Field and the Lake.

I occasionally have to drive to the suburbs for work. Luckily, I can work off hours, so on an average day, if I'm on the Edens at 6am, it takes me 45 minutes to go 35 miles to work. However, if I leave my house at 6:30, that commutes jumps to 1:15. The route back, if I left after 3:30pm, is 1.5 hours to 2 hours.

Within the city, things like running to the grocery store for example, take at least an hour round trip, usually 20-30 minutes to go to a store a bit over a mile away. Again..in peak traffic times. (this is why I have my groceries delivered to my kitchen using Peapod!).

Yes, gridlock exists frequently (where there are cars in the intersection blocking a green light and holding up traffic), although red light cameras have helped with this tremendously.

Overall, if you live in a big city and need to go anywhere with any distance, you either learn to travel in off-peak hours, take the train, or hire a car.

When I lived and worked right in south OKC I drove down normal streets to and from work. I avoided the highways and my drive was very similar every day. There was hardly ever an accident or anything like that where traffic was effected.

So if anyone is able to drive regular 4 lane roads with stop lights they might make better time. I will say that a lot of cities have main streets both E/W and N/S that are through roads, meaning they consistently have green lights until someone trips them to turn red for the other direction. During rush hour times those don't work like that but if you go a bit early then sometimes you can catch all green lights to work.

We are in the Dallas area and you learn to manage time and your commute. If you are on the road before 7am you have a good shot of making good time. If you are on the road before 3:30pm, you can be in the front of the afternoon peak traffic.

We both work out of our home running our company so I am not on a daily commute. Hubby does travel a lot for our company and depending on where he is going, he makes allowances for traffic.

For instance, in normal good traffic flow, we can be at either airport within 45 minutes door to door. It has taken up to 1.5 hours to reach either airport in non-peak time. We fly a lot so I plan our flights around the traffic when possible.

We are about 25 minutes from downtown Dallas and that can take an hour or more in peak traffic or if there is a sporting event or concert going on or an accident. A bad accident on any of the freeways can set you back 3-5 hours. It sucks when that happens and I have been in that traffic but I don't get angry because I know someone's loved one didn't make it home that day.

All in all, I love where I live and I'd much rather have major traffic than live where my mom lives in rural AL (I just got back last night) with nothing to do and 2 lane roads.

Well, in Chicago, it all depends on the time of day and where you are going. I-290 is horrible most of the day and is the worst in the state. There are too many bottle necks and people tend to think they can drive however they want. However, ot sure how they feel about it, in 96, we drove to visit my in-laws in Mexico. We drove down through Texas, not sure what city it was. But I was driving and there were so many lanes and I could not get over the to right and kept getting cut off. It was awful and so crowded.

I live just outside of Seattle. On a non traffic time it takes me about 25 minutes to get to the city.
Rush hour traffic is another thing altogether.
Depending on when I leave, and if I have my kids with me (carpool lane!) it can usuaully take anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and 15 minutes.
I think traffic is pretty bad here, but I don't have much to compare it to.
L.

I live in the OKC area. Traffic here is probably comparable to KC. It's 17 miles one way from my house to work and in rush hour traffic, it takes me about 30 minutes unless there is an accident (my route is almost all interstate). When I used to live in Jacksonville, it would take 45-60 minutes to go roughly the same distance in an accident-free rush hour, but accidents were much more common, and rush hour was from about 6 to 8:30 am and 3 to 7 pm. Rush hour here is nowhere near as long. When I start getting irritated with traffic, I try to remind myself that it's much better here than it was there!