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Comment by foxes | Hacker News Reader

Seems like their life would be dramatically better if they didn’t have some horrible car hellscape based commute. Pity cities are designed and spread out so because of cars.

Then making the office more comfortable and flexible without people micromanaging would be the next thing.

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This is U.S. thing, right? People in Europe are using public transportation to get to work from the edge of the city with no problems. Come visit Prague to see how it's done :D

> People in Europe are using public transportation to get to work from the edge of the city with no problems.

In theory. When there are no strikes or public transportation issues.

There are plenty of people with long commutes in Europe as well. I suspect we tend to trade off the commute against housing until the commute is just bearable.

> People in Europe are using public transportation

No we don't. It would add 90 minutes each way for my 15km commute. We really need to stop with the idea that public transportation in Europe is awesome, it not, it actually pretty terrible outside a few select areas. It's actually faster to ride a bike to work in my case, except bikes aren't allowed on the motorway.

Europe need to fix it's public transportation system. So far the solution is to make driving more expensive, while providing no alternatives. Maybe it's better in Czechia, but in general I don't think we can seriously claim that Europe has good public transportation.

So you're saying that because you live rather far from work, and precariously located proximate to transit terminals, people in European cities don't use transit?

15km is far af. It's only not far af if you use a car. If your frame of reference though is not commuting by car, then you select employment and residence differently.

I currently don't have a car or a job, and walk or take transit everywhere (not in Europe), and as such I'm sure as hell not looking for jobs located 15km from my house. Sure, let me just thru-hike to work np.

I think the problem is someone in Prague can say "Public transport in Europe is cheap, frequent and reliable" when talking about their experience and be totally correct ... while someone in some British cities can say "Public transport in Europe is actually expensive and quite unreliable" and also be correct from their experience. I think that at least in central Europe if you randomly select a city with >100k people you're likely to find that there's a good bus/trolley/tram network that can take you to your work - I don't know about Mediterranean countries, the Balkans or Scandanavia.

>It would add 90 minutes each way for my 15km commute.

I've been commuting 40km each way before pandemic with public transportation and it took me (65min of travel + waiting for train + 10min of walking) each way

No problems doesn't mean enjoyable. It's still 90 minutes of overcrowded public transport. I may prefer it over sitting in car, but no commute at all wins.

In my experience, public transport is great in europe if you're in a capital city. If you're not, then it is very patchy, and you end up having to drive everywhere.

As a counter-experience

I've been traveling 40km in 65mins each way using a train from the village "at the end of the world :)" that has a few thousands ppl, so definitely not capital city

Even then, I currently live in a European capital city, and my commute is either 1h in public transportation or 15 minutes by car.

Same here.

12 minutes on average (there is one 2 min semaphore) with car. Would take on average 45 min by public transportation Takes about 25 min by bike.

But i think i am in almost worst case. There are plenty of my friends in same city that have usable commute with public transportation

In Madrid (Spain) we have a good radial public transport system. Works very well if you want to go from/to city center to suburbs. Nowadays a lot of companies are leaving the city center. Office space is expensive and go to the suburbs or satelite cities. The radial system does not work anymore: people have to either take the car for a 30-40 minute trip, or spend 1-1:30h to travel to city center then take another transport to the suburbs.

Rush hour sucks though even if you use the metro/tram/bus/train. The idea that the majority of the adult population should be travelling either in or out of the city centre at the same time seems quite preposterous now.

They shouldn’t be travelling that far at all. They should be within a walkable distance of where they need to go. Walking to work is never stressful and often does reverse.

I agree but unfortunately that would require rebuilding a large number of the world's cities, which is not very likely in the near future.

Should they move if they switch jobs? What if their spouse works at the other side of the city?

Yes I'm going to live in an ugly industrial zone with no shops or nature around.

And only be able to afford a 700sqft studio if I'm lucky

That's around 65 square meters? Where do they make studios that large?

Unfortunately even in Chicago I found the commute to be exhausting when I lived right next to a train. It was still 40+ minutes if you got there right as the train was leaving, and most offices are still 10-20 minute walk from the stations. Living closer was possible but then you'll be paying significantly more on rent for less space (a problem for families)

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