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Comment by Semkas | Hacker News Reader

I think the quality of a commute is very different depending on whether it's by car or by train, since you can actually read / write / program / draw on a train. Obviously I'm still pretty glad when I get to work from home and sleep in a little and make some good coffee though.

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I commuted into the city a few days a week for about 18 months quite a while back. I'd normally take the train unless I were doing something in the evening at which point the commuter rail timetable didn't work very well.

Yes, it was better than driving but still wasn't that great. I had to catch the train at about 6:30 AM. And it was still a good 3 hours on the train any given day. Wasn't really very relaxing and I never found it an environment conducive to getting real work done.

The point of a train commute isn’t to get more work done (that would be working extra hours for your employer). Instead it’s time for yourself to relax, away from work, family responsibilities, and all that. Find a good book, listen to some new music while not multitasking, daydream a bit, or get your HN fix.

I lived in the Toronto area for ~20 years. I could commute by car in anywhere form 1-1.5 hours each way, OR, drive 30 minutes to a train station and spend 5-10 minutes looking for parking, wait 10 minutes to board, take an hour to get downtown, then walk for 10-15 minutes, then do that in reverse, plus $18 dollars a day for a train ticket. So 4 hours a day by train or 2-3 hours a day by car.

I mostly drove.

I've had four long-term commutes before working from a home office since COVID.

1) Five minute walk. 2)

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