1-Hour commute time both ways: 21.8 Days a year you are spending commuting to/from work.
3-fucking-weeks of time, poof, gone.
I'll get my social interaction else where for 3 weeks of my life back. Thanks.
I'm glad you think that people who choose to listen to podcasts during transportation experiences are timidly complying with the world though, seems accurate.
But the way I see it is that you have two choices: you can change the situation or you can change your outlook on it. Sometimes you can do the first one, but it doesn't always work out. At this point you should look to do the second one. If you don't do either, well I guess you can wait for a covid situation to do the changing for you.
Also, cycling absolutely increases the risk of accidents...doing almost anything at night increases the risk of something going wrong. I don't see how that point plays into anything. If my ride home is 30 minutes and I need to stay focused not to crash, then I ride attentively and consider it a workout. Yay I just worked out 22 extra days a year.
1. Catching up on lost sleep because I had to wake up early to waste that time on commuting to the office.
2. Being wasted from a tiring day at work and not in any mood to do anything "productive" on transit, which itself further adds to fatigue and exhaustion.
As a bonus, you also get to roll the dice on whether you even get to sit. Whether it's 30 minutes or 90 minutes, holding onto a bar or strap stuffed into a metal container like sardines takes another huge mental and physical toll. Arrive at the office already tired and wasted, and arrive back home even more tired and wasted.
The only way I can avoid it is to leave home much earlier (see my earlier comment about losing sleep because of the commute as it is) and/or leave work much later.
Or move closer to work at the cost of much higher housing expenses for a place that is smaller and older.
Or - something which I'm trying to do - leave for an entirely different metropolitan area. I've had ex-coworkers and friends who've left the Manhattan commuting hellhole for the SFBA and tell me their commutes are a heavenly 15-30 minute relaxing drive now.